I paid 2.79 for the book including postage and got next day delivery, but presumably someone is making a profit as it was marked 15p on the flyleaf ! I received the second edition (1959) with 33 new recipes and lists of weights and measures.
The foreword is by a nameless BBC 'Good Health' talks doctor. Under Iris Holland Rogers' name it states The British Diabetic Association with an address in Harley Street. It states that the foreword was checked by the Physician in Charge at a diabetic clinic and the recipes by a Dietician of a London hospital - but again, no names are given.
The attitude to fat is ambivalent. It's " the best source of energy " but if you are overweight, " too much fat is bad for you ".
This is the first old book that I've seen which talks about diabetics on insulin. T1 and T2 must have been given diet sheets because it says " by midday your insulin is asking for a certain amount of carbohydrate, the amount on your diet sheet ". 10 grammes of carbohydrate is given as 4 oz apple, half an ounce of toast, 2 oz potato or 8 oz carrots. Basically the book carb counts.
All the recipes have the numbers for carbs, protein, fat and calories per serving.
Spinach soup with egg, for example is shown as having 2g protein, 3g fat, 35 calories and - carbs.So if you have 2 egg yolks, 1lb spinach, 1/4 oz margarine (eww), 1 heaped tbsp Parmesan, grated nutmeg, seasoning and 1.5pints of stock...
Recipes include haricot mutton, stuffed marrow, beefsteak pie, macaroni au gratin, bubble and squeak, lemon and cherry souffle, chocolate cake, plum jam etc. The recipes cover high and low budget and although they often include flour and pasta, they use Sorbitol or Sorbitol syrup instead of sugar. There's a section on invalid cookery which advocates Heinz baby foods and Horlicks or Ovaltine.
The weights and measures section gives outlines for teaspoon, dessertspoon and tablespoon so that you can line your own spoons up against that - never seen that in any previous cookbook and it's quite helpful.
There's a long list of foods which contain 10g carbs e.g. 1 Bath Oliver, half a Penguin, 1 medium Apple, 3 chocolate fingers, 1 digestive, 4 stoned greengages, 10 grapes etc.
There's another section for foods containing 5g carbs, including 1 oz macaroni, 19.5 oz greens, 10 oz lettuce, 30oz of seakale, 1/4 oz of marmalade.
Recipes are given to enable hospital dieticians to supersize puddings to serve more people.
The flour, potato and pasta recipes aren't any good to me, but can be useful to those carb counting. You only need a dual system scale to be able to bake say the chocolate cake though.
I think that there are enough recipes for most people to find something they can eat so I would recommend it if you find a copy.
