Mrs Sensible is a wonderful cook, she makes a mean Indian Curry and of course thousands of Italian dishes. Unfortunately the odd dish includes bunnies or octopus. But last night she cooked PANCAKES. And pretty impressive they were.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the pancakes were divine, after all Mrs Sensible has mastered the perfect Yorkshire pudding. The above half eaten pancake was savoury, inside it was filled with mushrooms, Gorgonzola cheese and the bacon that I smuggled on-board my last Ryanair flight from the UK.
At last a picture of Mrs Sensible
I have been asked to post a picture of Mrs Sensible. Here you go.
And where did Mrs Sensible get her recipe for the wonderful, marvellous, fantastic pancakes?
1956 BE-RO Home recipes
From our 1956 BE-RO Home Recipe book
The following is taken from page 3 of the book.
The woman who can cook well and bake well has every reason and every right to be proud of her cooking. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has a happy home, because good cooking means good food, and good food means good health.
I love politically correct statements.
So you lot out there, are you a BE-RO cook or do you throw a Findus horse beef lasagne pie in the oven. 🙂
Englishman in Italy 
That pancake must be divine,no doubt !
I have a similar book in Italian which teaches the same ” sani principi”…….LoL
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lol.
It was a nice surprise to come home to pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.
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Snap! I too have the 1956 Be-Ro recipe book. Invited sons and grandchildren round for annual pancake bonanza – but go sweet. Honey, jam, Nutella, sadly no golden syrup. Oh, by the way, inherited the recipe book from my dad in 1993 when he died.
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I know another ‘o nonno, would you be the same one??
There is only us here. Mrs Sensible’s family is in Sicily and mine are in the UK. So we didn’t have to share any of them.
Despite the Be-Ro book being 57 years old, it is really useful, once you convert oz to grams
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wow! where did Mrs Sensible get that little book!? looks amazing… a car boot sale? the pancake looks divine, no wonder there was only half on the plate, PN…. 😉
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When I left home, many moons ago, my mother gave it to me so that I wouldn’t starve. At the time I thought 50 quid would have been more useful.
I have just sent a nice e mail to the nice people at BE-RO to see if they will send me a new one. 🙂
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what a fantastic story, you should have written it in the post!
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That my mum gave me the book so I wouldn’t starve?
Ahh those that read the comments will find out. Normally the comments are more fun than the original post.
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I love the cookbook too! I wonder of the 99/100 has any sort of scientific grounding? 🙂 Thanks for sharing this bit of cookbook history, I love it.
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Ooooh I bet the data was collected, analysed and reported properly. This was after all the 1950’s, the time of the British stiff upper lip, they didn’t make things up or tell lies then. Did they??
I might up load some of the recipes and useful tips for the housewife.
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Only one percent of good cooks have unhappy homes?! This is an AMAZING statistic (and no doubt based on rigorous scientific research). We must spread the word – any women in loveless, violent or otherwise miserable relationships – JUST LEARN TO COOK!!
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I was laughing out loud when I read the paragraph at the front of the book….
There is a great picture in the back of the book showing 3 cakes, 1 swiss roll and 8 plates of assorted buns. They were all made using 3lb of flour. The total cost of the ingredients including eggs was a massive 10/- (10 shillings), about 45 pence or 0.52 euros. less a cost of an espresso.
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Hmmm – maybe they’re onto something then. My home would probably be happier if I were that thrifty!
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p.s. Those pancakes look great. We’re having ours tonight… I will be cracking out the Nutella.
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We didn’t do the Nutella bit, just savoury and a few sugar and lemon ones for me. There is still some mixture in the fridge so Mrs Sensible can have her Nutella ones and I can have some Grand Marnier ones.
And I want to see some piccies of your pancakes please.
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Alas – they didn’t hang around long enough to have their photos taken. They were YUM. I really should make them more than once a year.
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Those pancakes look scrummy, and Mrs Sensible has lovely fingernails. We make our own pancakes every Sunday night, so Pancake day’s a bit of a non-event for us. As for your question: I’m not a Findus person. Just as well- my French family would have had me duffed up and thrown in a lake with stones tied to my feet if I’d even looked at one, let alone served it up for their gastronomically superior offspring.
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EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT!!!! Tell me again where you live.
I am a little underwhelmed by the Findus fiasco, my thoughts are 1) In Italy, horse is more expensive than beef, and it is a healthier meat (providing it is not some shaggy old horse) 2) When you buy a Findus meal for thrupence ha’penny, what do you expect!! I was surprised there was any meat in there at all.
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They’ve just found an abbatoir in the UK that sells horsemeat in instead of beef, ‘n all…. The French media are seriously discussing how the Brits see horses and rabbits as friends not food…. Of course, I had a thought for you and your aversion to bunny sausages 🙂
In France it’s cheaper than beef and considered better for you. Like you, I’m amazed how gullible people are to actually believe that cheap c**p can actually have edible, let alone healthy, ingredients….
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I had a great discussion with Mrs Sensible last night. Although she normally cooks everything with fresh ingredients, she does keep some frozen cheese and veg pies in the freezer, for when neither of us can be bothered to cook.
I suggested we stop buying them, Mrs Sensible said there is no meat in them so there isn’t a problem, I suggested there was probably no cheese or veg in them either.
We ran this argument/discussion around in circles for a while, in the end we agreed to both disagree… Actually that is not true we both agreed that Mrs Sensible was correct and we bought a Pizza to celebrate.
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Just to say – I mentioned you and this excellent comment thread on my blog today 🙂
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I am coming over to have a look 🙂
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You should take an artsy picture of that quote and sell it. It’s genius.
I try to be a happy cook but when my daughter, poor thing – her tastebuds are in her fingertips, starts poking her fingers around her plate – I turn into the 1% hinted not mentioned in that quote.
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I have every sympathy with your daughter. My taste buds are in my eyeballs. that is why I sulk when Mrs Sensible tries to serve me Black Ink Octopus (The only black thing, that I eat is burnt toast or liquorice) bunnies, because I have seen them running around, and tripe uuurrggghhhh.
Give her fish fingers and keep her happy..:)
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I’m not a Be Ro cook, but I do have something similar which was my cookery book at secondary school. I wasn’t quite at school in the 1950s, but I’m pretty sure the book was printed then! 😉
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🙂
get the Be Ro book, it is full of great recipes like rock buns…
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I’m pretty sure my book has that recipe! I’ll have to look it out as soon as I get home from my Scottish sojourn.
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What a great hand model you have! We’re cooking pancakes tomorrow, but they’ll be of the American variety…have you ever had those? We’ll probably add blueberries or bananas..yummmmm
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Did you save me any?
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Ha! Those babies were gone immediately. Our Croatian friends had no clue what was coming..
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Your a bit of a stinker really aren’t you. You could and should have saved me at least 2.
I have just got back from 3 days in the UK. As promised to Mrs Sensible, I made sure I eat properly…. Indian, Fish and Chips and a KFC take away. Shhh don’t tell her.
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Priceless!
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I e mailed Be-Ro and asked them for a new book, I even offered to pay the delivery charge. Sadly they declined. Party Poopers ..
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This post has everything! Pancakes, chickens, and shirtless guys at the beach. I nominate you for a Liebster Award. It’s sort of complicated to explain, but you can get the dirt at http://www.motheroad.wordpress.com. (Yes, it’s a real thing! Fear not!)
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Thank you for the award, I will organise a post for it. Thanks for reading, it is cool to think that someone reads this little blog.
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I *love* cooking: I think when you’re an expat family as well it’s important to have some food related traditions, more so because you can’t just pop round for some of your mum’s home cooking. I flipping hate Findus anything, but I’m sure living on the continent I’ve eaten horse unawares at some point!
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Ahh, I missed pancake day this year, can’t believe it! I clearly am not doing enough to make my house a happy home – I need to get hold of some old fashioned cook books and take their advice!!
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