Supplemented by recipes by the Daily Telegraph Home Cook, this collection was put together at a time when, as the blurb states, 'NEW RECIPES ARE NEEDED TODAY'. This delightful facsimile edition includes recipes for the perfect omelette made with dried egg, mock cream, mock fish pie (made with Jerusalem artichokes!) and seven ways to stuff potatoes, but in amongst the more horrific attempts to feed a family on meagre rations are some dishes that would grace any good cook's table today: jugged steak, red cabbage, hot and cold, fresh fruit charlotte and spiced fruit gingerbread. Even recipes that seem heavily reliant on tinned milk, marge and dried egg, when made today with fresh milk, butter and whole eggs will work a treat.

Daily Telegraph readers whose prize-winning recipes were selected for inclusion, for example G.E. de Pomeroy of Ashford, Kent, Mrs W.K. Rose of London SW15, Mrs Lindsey of Stoke Newington and Miss D. Gearey of the Boys' School House, Berhamsted.