Churchill Clementine - Churchills Cookbook

CHURCHILLS COOKBOOK

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS

Georgina Landemare

Introduction by Phil Reed,
Director of Churchill War
Rooms

G2 Entertainment Limited 2016

www.G2ent.co.uk

Published by IWM,

Lambeth Road,

London SE1 6HZ

iwm.org.uk

Edwina Brocklesby, 2015

Introduction IWM

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder and publisher.

eISBN 978-1-782816-73-7

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All images IWM unless otherwise stated

Cover design www.ninataradesign.com

Cover illustration by Darren Baxter, www.dbgallery.co.uk

Inside illustrations cook and eggs Shutterstock.com

All others taken from original Second World War Ministry of Food information leaf lets.

Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders.

The publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any error or omissions brought to their attention.

With thanks to Eddie Brocklesby, granddaughter of Georgina Landemare, for her support.

Thanks also to Phil Reed, Elizabeth Bowers, Madeleine James, Caitlin Flynn, Abigail Lelliott, and the staff of IWM.

On the night of 14 October 1940, a Luftwaffe bomb destroyed the old Treasury building in Whitehall. What Hitler had come close to achieving with that lucky strike was the elimination of Britains wartime leader, Winston Churchill, who was in Number 10 Downing Street when the air raid took place. Churchill instructed his cook, Mrs Landemare, who had been reluctant to leave a pudding she was making, to join him in the rudimentary basement shelter. Blast from the explosion took out the back wall of the building, destroying the kitchen where they had both been just minutes before. The experience finally forced Churchill to use the marginally better protected Cabinet War Rooms as shelter in future. Churchill had, that night, one of the many brushes with death that he experienced throughout his long life. Just three minutes later, as he recounts in his memoirs, the very spot where they had both been standing became a scene of complete devastation.

The loss of his cook would most certainly have been a tragedy for Churchill, who was a legendary bon vivant. His frequently quoted quip, I am easily satisfied, I like the best, was borne out by his expensive tastes in champagne (Pol Roger), cognac (Hine), cigars (Romeo y Julieta), tailors (Turnbull and Asser), bootmakers (Lobb) and hatters (Lock & Co). Churchill dined at the best restaurants and was very particular about his food. At the outbreak of war in 1939, the already widely-feted cook, Georgina Landemare, renowned for her culinary skills at such high society occasions as the races at Newmarket, weekends at Cowes and debutante balls, offered her services to the Churchills for the duration of the war. It was, as Mrs Landemare later divulged in a BBC interview with Joan Bakewell, her war work.

Georgina Landemare had known the Churchill family since the 1930s, when Churchills wife Clementine occasionally employed her to cook for house parties at Chartwell. At these she had impressed Churchill, the demanding trencherman, and his eminent guests, with her often deceptively simple but exacting recipes. Clementine later recalled that when Mrs Landemare made her offer to cook for the Churchills, she was enchanted, because I knew she would be able to make the best out of rations and that everyone in the household would be happy and contented. An arrangement that should have lasted for just six years of war continued until 1954 when, at the age of 72, Georgina Landemare finally retired a year before Winston Churchill himself resigned as prime minister.

The details of Georgina Landemares life are sketchy, but we do know she was the daughter (one of five children) of a coachman and entered service at the age of 14, working as a scullery maid to a wealthy gentleman in Kensington Palace Gardens. In 1909, by now a kitchen maid working for a wealthy family at their home in Gloucester Square, Paddington, she married the distinguished French chef of the Ritz, Paul Landemare, 25 years her senior and a recently widowed father of five. We do not know how they came to meet, but Georgina and Paul remained together until his death in 1932. They lived in Holland Park and Pimlico, areas both decidedly less grand then than they are today. Georgina appears to have had no formal training as a chef, but to have acquired her culinary skills from Paul. His expertise in French cuisine undoubtedly influenced her own style of cooking, but it still retained a distinctive English flavour. This suited Winston Churchills traditional yet sophisticated palate.

That Winston Churchill was fond of his food has never been in doubt. It is well to remember, he said, that the stomach governs the world. Mrs Landemare claimed, in that 1973 BBC interview with Joan Bakewell, that Winston Churchill was not a big eater, but it would be fair to say that the evidence indicates quite the opposite. At one small luncheon hosted by Churchill for King George VI at 10 Downing Street on 6 March 1941 (which Georgina Landemare almost certainly prepared) the menu comprised of fish patty, tournedos with mushrooms on top and braised celery and chipped potatoes, peaches and cheese to follow. While perhaps not an especially large or rich repast, when taken in the context of wartime austerity and severe rationing, it suddenly takes on the scale of a feast.

The Churchills were in the happy position of owning their Chartwell estate, which included a farm that furnished them with eggs, milk, cream, chicken, pork and most vegetables, ingredients that ordinary mortals could rarely find in war-torn Britain (and even then usually in only small amounts). Mrs Landemares recipes, despite her being attentive to the exigencies of the times, reflect the availability of these ingredients and Churchills table must have been one to which an invitation would be keenly welcomed. Although his sympathy for the sufferings of the common man were legendary and real, his understanding sometimes fell short, as on the famous occasion when he finally let his secretary go home at 3am, with his kind permission to forego writing up her notes that night, but to have them ready by next morning. Indeed, when shown a plate of the everyday rations permitted to the average adult, he mumbled that it was not a bad meal and was shocked to learn that he was being shown the basic rations for a whole week!

During the Blitz, both Chartwell and Chequers, the prime ministers country residence, were thought vulnerable to German attack. Arrangements were put in place for Churchill to spend weekends at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, near his birthplace Blenheim Palace. Ditchley was the country residence of the wealthy Anglo-American Member of Parliament, Ronald Tree. Tree obtained from the Ministry of Food extra rations to entertain Churchill and his guests, who included Harry Hopkins President Roosevelts right-hand man as well as the Chiefs of Staff, Cabinet members and close friends such as Lady Diana Cooper. Un-rationed game such as pheasant and grouse, to which Churchill was extremely partial, often appeared on the menu, and their leftovers, washed down with white wine, provided him with breakfast in bed the next morning.