I also have four box files stuffed with recipes ripped from newspapers and magazines, and several butter-smeared notebooks of hand-written notes and menus. Out of print so can only be bought 2nd hand and these books have been well loved and used so it's difficult to get one in good condition.

Published in 1970 and written by Mary Berry and two women I’ve never heard of since, (a similar fate befell the two women who worked with Julia Child on Mastering the Art of French Cookery) it boasts “over 300 quick and easy recipes all illustrated in full colour”.I picked one of these books up from a local book stall as a gift for a friend and had to have one for myself. Most of the ones I own favour style over substance, and rarely have more than two or three recipes you would bother to cook again. We pulled flitters of chicken from a cold thigh or drumstick, our noses wrinkling at the piquant smack of Coleman’s French mustard and Worcestershire sauce. In the photograph, chicken simla is packed into an orange casserole dish, coated in a thick, pale sauce and garnished with toasted flaked almonds, skinned tomatoes and watercress. For the very many women like her who worked in the home, busting themselves to make things lovely for the rest of us, the Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book was all they needed.

My mother’s version of it had a thin, beige sauce that pooled on the plate, glistening with chicken fat, the double cream slightly split. The book seems hideously kitsch now, but there was something heart-breakingly earnest and aspirational on those pages.The rice pudding sprinkled with demerara sugar that came out of the oven smelling as sweet as baby milk, with a skin like tortoise shell you had to crack with a spoon. The recipes and instructions were very easy to follow and and there was a picture of every dish with each recipe. There were tips on how to cut corners and save time and money, on how to substitute ingredients that were scarce or unavailable. When my mother brought the food to the table she always said “chicken simla, or something similar” and everyone laughed. Most of them are on a teak bookcase in my kitchen, but there are some in the shed, the bedroom, the living room, the utility room and the roof space.

Most disturbing of all is the turkey in aspic, a hunk of cold poultry and mandarin orange segments suspended in a piss-coloured jelly set as firm as perspex. She cooked it on the rare occasions she had people round for dinner, when she got out the Tyrone crystal hock glasses and red candles.My mother cooked her way through everything life threw at her, from Christmases and birthday parties to the Ulster Worker’s Council strike, from a single book. My daughter expressed a yearning for some of the meals she enjoyed in her growing up years so I thought she could try them out for herself. It was better than nothing, but I always thought we had been excluded from the best part; sitting around the table. Everything is round or swirly; pineapple rings, fish mousse shaped like a life buoy, concentric circles of tiny cream rosettes.

A swallow of Canada Dry from the bottom of a can, or pink, maggoty prawns from a teacup in the fridge. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. In the absence of aubergines, for example, my mother made a decent if robust moussaka with sliced potatoes.My mother served hers over patna rice, a variety you rarely see now that came in a dusty plastic pouch. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged.