Margaret Costa
27.01.10
Along with Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson, Margaret Costa completes the triumvirate of post-war cookery writers whose immeasurable influence continues to this day.
With only one published book to her name, the classic Four Seasons Cookery Book, Costa may not be as well known as her contemporaries, but since her death in 1999, she has, rightly, become regarded as one of the most important food writers of her generation, with Nigel Slater, Simon Hopkinson and Delia Smith among her many admirers.
Born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1917, Costa read French at Oxford and worked at the ministry of fuel and power during the war.
A career in journalism started when she wrote for the Sunday Pictorial, the Farmer And Stockbreeder and then several women’s magazines.
A co-founder of Raymond Postgate’s Good Food Guide in the 1950s, Costa was already a keen cook who was often paid to cook for dinner parties at people’s houses.
She also married a chef, Bill Lacy, with whom she was to open a successful London restaurant, Lacys, in the early 1970s.
Her food writing took off in 1965, when she replaced Robert Carrier as the Sunday Times cookery columnist, as well as contributing regular pieces to American magazine, Gourmet.
In much the same way as Elizabeth David had introduced British people to garlic and aubergines in the 1950s, Costa’s column further opened readers’ eyes to the joys of sourcing the very best ingredients.
In an obituary of Costa, written for The Guardian at the time of her death, Nigel Slater recalled how her passion for food left a lasting impression on him: “With Soho’s delicatessens and markets barely a minute from her flat, she would still cross London for foods that intrigued her. To me, growing up in the Midlands on Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie, tinned fruit cocktail and Instant Whip, her writing seemed wildly exotic.”
The 1970 publication of the Four Seasons Cookery Book (Thomas Nelson and Sons) was a major turning point for Costa.
Unlike other books at the time which kept to the usual starters, main courses and desserts formula, the book was divided into the four seasons and then sub-divided into sections on specific ingredients or methods, including: ‘Chicken, Duck and a Small Turkey’, ‘Salt, Pepper and Mustard’ and ‘Awful Offal’.
Like her newspaper and magazine columns, Costa’s recipes were inspired, bursting with enthusiasm for her subject and packed with sound advice and handy tips. They were also approachable and written in simple English, rather than the Franglais style favoured by many cookery writers of the time.
Chef and writer Simon Hopkinson was just 16 years old when he got his hands on a copy of the Four Seasons Cookery Book and he is still cooking recipes from it three decades later, including the classic Costa dish of liver with Dubonnet and orange.
Writing in The Independent in 1999, Hopkinson described the book as “one of the most important cookery books in the English language”, adding that “I don’t think there is one recipe in Four Seasons that I would not want to eat”.
Hopkinson included Costa’s famous lemon surprise pudding recipe in his award-winning book, Roast Chicken And Other Stories.Indeed, Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book recipes have been resurrected by a number of notable writers over the years: Joyce Molyneux’s equally revered Carved Angel Cookery Book features Costa’s dish of scallops with white wine and artichokes; Delia Smith has written about her treacle sponge pudding and Nigel Slater once listed her chocolate-dipped Florentines as a Christmas essential.
Eight years after her death, Costa’s recipes now live on for a new generation of home cooks thanks to Grub Street, the publishers who recently reprinted the Four Seasons Cookery Book.
With ingredient integrity and a return to simple cooking on the increase, Margaret Costa’s work remains as inspired and relevant as it did 37 years ago.
Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book is published by Grub Street Publishing Ltd, priced at £12.99.
