Great Granny and her cookbook!

[Jack]

Some of you may remember I mentioned some time ago about my wife's granny leaving a hand written cookbook, it was around the time of the 1st World War.

We've got her relatives up and my wife decided to make an apricot flan from the book but the oven temperature is in letters " ... in the oven for 30 minutes at E" Other recipes have other letters but no indication of what they mean in real temperatures.

I've tried Google, it's not my friend!

Does anyone have any idea where I can get a conversion chart going back so far?

[Hibrandenburg]

What other letters are used Jack? D, VS/VL perhaps?

[Pete]

Were the gas marks (1/4 to 9?) simply given letter equivalents on some old ovens?

Therefore, E would be gas mark 3 which is 160 or something. Maybe the recipe was written with her specific oven in mind.

:dunno:

[Jack]

What other letters are used Jack? D, VS/VL perhaps?

Other letters used are C, D, F and a badly written one that might be a P!

It's quite funny. At the start of the book it's Hot, Moderate, Quick, Slow description for the oven and after not too many letters it goes to numbers! Looks like upstairs had plenty money to buy those downstairs lots of ovens!

You could be right Pete.

[HappyAsHellas]

If it's an old Mainstat type of cooker the letterring system goes from A (no entries) to L (searing meat). Other letters are used for delicacies such as milk puddings or celery rolls. Tried to post a picture of it but don't have permission or something.

[HappyAsHellas]

It let me post the photo in the main forum in a thread marked posting photo's - hope it helps.

[Jack]

It let me post the photo in the main forum in a thread marked posting photo's - hope it helps.

I found the photo.

That's the very thing I was looking for.

Thanks very much :thumbsup: