Last night I dreamt of Malory Towers. Not quite in the eerie way the second Mrs de Winter dreams of Manderley, but more in the cheery manner of welcoming a ghost of childhood past — Enid Blyton. There was afternoon tea under a cherry tree, hard-boiled eggs, potted meat sandwiches and midnight feasts that sealed friendships for life. A life and happiness far removed from the dystopian sadness of childhood now. Blyton’s books, with their mention of golliwogs and gypsies as thieves, were not always politically correct. But she could be forgiven all this for the way she introduced the contents of an English larder to children around the world. Her descriptions of tinned sardines, quivering blancmange and succulent pork pies can create Instagram beauty. And as much as children enjoyed how the characters in her book dispatched their villains, they also loved how they downed frothy milk straight from the cow and gingerbread men from the oven.
One such child was Allegra McEvedy, who calls Blyton her “first literary love”. She co-founded the multi-award-winning LEON, a healthy fast food chain, and was a judge on CBBC’s Junior Bake Off with Nadiya Hussain. Spurred to make tomato and butter sandwiches after reading The Famous Five , McEvedy grew up to believe that a cookbook for children should have all things Blyton as ingredients. While melon boats and orange muffins sing out of the pages of Jolly Good Food , they are held together by the timeless things that never go out of fashion: adventure, imagination, fresh air and the comforting assurance of home-cooking.
The book (Hachette India), with food photography, and illustrations by Mark Beech, has six sections inspired by Blyton’s various series, such as TheNaughtiest Girl and The Faraway Tree and runs the entire gamut of dishes — breakfast, elevenses, picnic lunches, teatime treats, supper and midnight feasts. McEvedy tells us how much fun she had putting the book together with her daughter.
What about Blyton appeals to you after all these years?
Her books are like entering a world of familiar faces and unknown possibilities — The Famous Five felt like second family when I was growing up. Adventuring, make-believe and strong bonds with friends and family were her trademark, and 40 years after I was utterly infatuated with her books, these are still high on my list of favourite things. Sadly, there’s a bit less time for make-believe in grown-ups’ lives, so revisiting her stories through Jolly Good Food as well as reading them with my daughter has reignited my love and respect for the lady. She was a quiet genius, as the millions of books she’s sold internationally over the last half century illustrate. She had the touch of how to lock into children’s imaginations and aspirations, and if there’s any child left in you as an adult, her books are just as entertaining the second time around… if a tad eyebrow-raising in places!
The Naughtiest Girl series is one of your favourites. Isn’t food in a boarding school actually prosaic?
Dippy eggs for breakfast, beef and rice pudding for lunch and dinner is standard school stuff — Enid was keeping it real! But the children’s world of happiness lies in their tuck boxes. I never went to boarding school, so the concept and contents of tuck boxes read like my dream larder of goodies: chocolate cake, pots of jam, toffee, shortbread, gingercake and golden syrup. It happens to come on top of my seven-year-old daughter’s list too.
Do you feel Blyton’s food belongs to today, considering people tend to swing between junk food and Paleo diets?
Blyton’s food is — mostly — timeless, which is why Jolly Good Food still works in the current times. There are some things she mentions that I just thought wouldn’t fly with today’s children: can’t imagine any of the kids I know reaching greedily for a tongue sandwich, for example, but most of it is still appealing. Buns and biscuits never go out of date and most of the savoury side is just classic kid food, like sausage and bean casserole or salmon quiche. She clearly had a penchant for eggs though, as do I — this is my eighth cookbook and I went through about three times as many eggs as in any of the others!
Rustic cookies with dried figs and raisins. On a dark background, top view
Tell us about the process of choosing these dishes, considering they were just names in the books.
My editor Alex and I scoured all the books for any mention of food, and then picked out the ones that sounded appealing. We added a layer of recipes I thought fitted with the existing list, but with a leaning to the kids of now — ones that weren’t actually mentioned in Blyton’s books but could have been. I did run the long list past Delilah, my daughter, who signed it off… with the exception of Aunt Fanny’s Chicken Salad!
Tell us about LEON.
I co-founded LEON in 2004 with the aim of making fast food healthier: ‘McDonald’s in heaven’ was the concept. People liked it, and within a year, we had won Best New Restaurant in Great Britain. There are now 50 LEONs, mostly in London, though we are spreading out of town and overseas. It’s a story of a simple idea that’s right for the time.
Any interesting experiences at the Junior Bake Off ?
The whole thing was an experience! The children were so creative, funny and characterful — it was a total hoot and a joy of a job: eating cake with kids in a tent in the beautiful English countryside. There was an incident one day where the four kids, having been baking for a couple of hours, finally put their creations on ‘the altar’. Myself and Nadiya were just about to start judging, when a wasp that had been buzzing and bothering everyone all afternoon finally landed. I swatted it — not noticing that I’d accidentally smashed one of the girl’s biscuits! She was very brave — no tears, thankfully, though she definitely welled up.
Your favourite Enid Blyton dish and how it makes you feel when you eat it.
Silky’s pop cakes — this was an example of words and a brief description being all I had to work with, but eventually after about 15 recipe tests, I bit down into a cake with a molten honey middle that I’d imagined since I was six years old. It tasted like a dream, the food of the imagination brought to life, as well as nostalgia for those magical, innocent times in our youth. Just what Blyton does so well.
