Jocasta Innes’ The Pauper’s Cookbook (1971 Penguin) – Remembered, Revisited, Remains…

Dee, Gill and I arrived at Liverpool Street Station with time to spare before heading to the Wyndham's Theatre for a matinee performance. We strolled along Brick Lane and into Heneage Street to the restored Gilbert and George Centre building, which provides a contemporary and permanent exhibition space for the artists, two men who are together, Gilbert and George. We were keen to contemplate our responses to the artist whose intention is to ‘de-shock’ rather than shock. Additionally, we were fascinated by the sustainably built project, which was designed by architects SIRS in collaboration with Gilbert and George. We spent an hour perusing.

SBL Chair Sue Blything-Smith and Committee Member Dee Crowe

On leaving the building we were delighted by an unexpected discovery on our left. Almost hidden by overgrowing honeysuckle and a decade’s old Magnolia Grandifolia was an old blue plaque indicating that ‘Jocasta Innes lived’ in the house in 1985. Jocasta died in 2013 in the house which, with its remaining rich red paint, appeared to be unchanged.

We headed to The Town House in Fournier Street where, over coffee and cake, we shared what we could remember about Jocasta Innes. We recalled how sometime in the 1960s she left her husband and two young children to live with author, Joe Potts. Her children remained with their father, Richard Goodwin, a film producer. Jocasta, who had been reasonably well off, now had little or no income and moved to a flat with few amenities. She lived from hand to mouth and, from these experiences, she wrote The Pauper’s Cookbook.

Sue Blything-Smith and Committee Member Gill Lowe

In 1975 I had been given a copy of the book and I was keen to return home to review it, along with later articles written by her son, Jason Goodwin (2014) and her daughter, Daisy Goodwin (2025).  Another article, published in 2013, described the house we’d come across. 

Daughter, Daisy (2025) thought that ‘financial necessity is often the impetus to invention and success’. She described how ‘Jocasta turned her poverty into gold, spinning the offal and limpets of necessity into a cook book full of heartfelt recipes which proved that poverty was no barrier to delicious food.’ Her son Jason said that, ‘Mum faced her sudden poverty with characteristic brio. She examined from various angles the shoestring on which they lived, and in 1970 set about writing a guide for others in the same situation’. 

The inside cover of my copy, no longer crisp but with browned and creased pages, says of Jocasta, ‘She has always taken a greedy interest in food, and learned to cook in a hit-or- miss fashion’. 

Jocasta Innes explained how she ‘had been waiting for someone to write a book like this ever since I started to cook (p.11)’ . She stated that the cheapest meals in her book would cost less than 2 shillings (10p) a head, the most expensive would cost twice that amount. A typical 3 course meal should cost ‘less than eating at a transport café’. Today’s readers may not recognise some of the references. 

Most of her recipes used butter (rarely ‘marg, although it was cheaper’) and olive oil, which she advised ‘should be bought in bulk’. She referred to bouillon cubes and turnips and focussed on basic cooking ‘situations’, which she labelled ‘1 Standards, 2 Padding, 3 Fast Work, 4 Programmed Eating, 5 Private Enterprise, 6 Fancy Work and 7 Dieting on the cheap’. 

On revisiting Chapter 1, I realised that I’d followed her recipe for Bread Sauce (p.41) so often that it had become one of my own ‘standards’, to ‘stick the cloves into the onion and put this and the bay leaf with the milk into a sauce pan’.

She described how Kedgeree turned up regularly as a main course ‘in most of the pauper households that I know’ (p.46). It was a Friday night staple during my own early wedded days. I closely followed her instructions for ‘drying’ the rice and, if feeling extravagant, we occasionally treated ourselves to cream and used fresh cod, as she suggested.

The pages of my book naturally fell open to page 76 where her recipe for Rice Pudding was a favourite for Sunday lunch. I cooked it on the ‘lower shelf’ whilst the joint sizzled in the middle of the oven. Flicking through the fragile pages, I noticed her references to ‘gold topped milk’ (p.143) and how a ‘good boiling chicken is cheaper than a roasting bird’ (p.139). She advised, ‘Go to a good butcher, ask him to throw in the chicken feet with the giblets; these improve the stock’ (p.140). Another forgotten ingredient featured in her ‘Programmed Eating’, where she found ‘a small tongue is a good buy’ and ‘brawn which is very cheap and not difficult to make’. You may be horrified to read her recipes on page 161 for half a pig’s head and for ox cheek.

With regard to the word ‘remains’ in my title, I believe that this book, which has never been out of print, remains relevant today. Her techniques, hints, values and ingredients have a place in 2025, with the desire of many for quick cheap meals. The ever-increasing costs of food remain and Jocasta’s recipes have a timeless quality. Jocasta was forced to be resourceful and to make the best of what was available, much as many have to do today. If you, like me, are holding on to an original copy, you may like to reread it for yourself and perhaps give an updated copy to anyone managing on a tight budget. 

Sue Blything Smith

Goodwin. D (2025) ‘What I Learnt from Being Disinherited’. Available at: https://daisygoodwin.substack.com/p/what-i-learnt-from-being-disinherited

Goodwin. J (2014) My mother, Jocasta Innes, who abandoned us.’ Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/17/mother-jocasta-innes-abandoned-us

Innes. J. (1971) The Pauper’s Cook Book Penguin Books Middlesex.

Spital Life Books (2013) At Jocasta Innes’ House by the gentle author. Available at: https://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/05/08/at-jocasta-innes-house/