From Tins to Tables

Agnes May Warren née Randall was born on 3 September 1911 in Matatiele, Natal. She cooked on a Defy Dover coal stove that burned twenty-four hours a day. She drank Mazawattee tea — loose leaf, steel teapot, warmed cups, milk first. She never lounged in the lounge. Everything happened in the kitchen.

Her two tins — including the Queen Elizabeth tin — held handwritten recipes from 1914 onwards, clippings, remedies, a Girl Scout certificate from 1922, and a secret she never spoke of in her lifetime.

In her final months Daphne gave the tins to DuGallan — her last wish that he carry on the journey of discovery. Inside he found more than recipes. This is the companion to the Hughes Chronicles: the real book that was inside the tins all along — fifty-four illustrated pages of recipes, remedies and the family history woven between them.