Be-Ro Recipe book 19th Edition 1956
- Be-Ro Recipe Book 21st edition
I have just taken possession of the cookery books that I learned to bake from. These are free little books given away with a brand of flour called Be-Ro. Their front cover had an iconic image of a schoolgirl (Miss Be-Ro) in traditional school uniform, with a mixing bowl, spoon, flour, jug and egg/s. The oldest version I have is the 19th edition dated 1956. I also have the 21st edition. Putting the two front cover images side by side shows how the photo was slightly ‘doctored’ to update it, between the two editions but also one egg in 1956 become two in the later edition. At the end of each book is a page showing a display of 12 plates of cakes and biscuits and in the 1956 edition there is the statement: ‘All the cakes were made from one 3lb bag of flour. The total cost of the other ingredients did not exceed 10 shillings (including eggs at 5/6 doz’. In the later edition the same text quotes the cost of eggs as 3/6 a dozen.
I was stuck by how expensive a dozen eggs were in 1956, and wondered how this compared to 2013 prices. An online historic price converter gives two conversions for 5 shillings and six pence. Using the retail price index it is equivalent to £5.35 (2010 prices). But a better measure of relative cost is to use average earnings as the indicator because this suggests the proportion of an average income (present day) that the original price (1957 prices) equates to. Using 2010 average earnings a dozen eggs gives an equivalent cost of £13.50.
What value would we place on an egg if we paid £1.10 for it, rather than present supermarket prices which range from 12p (‘Value’ range) to 35p (free range organic)? This brought home to me, very pragmatically, what we all know- that food is probably too cheap, and that is why too many of us are too fat.
