P. C. B. Newington · illustrated by Beryl Irving · first published 1947 · this edition 2026 · for the home
Good Food
By P. C. B. Newington, with drawings by his sister Beryl Irving. The cookbook written from memory in the Singapore camps.
In February 1942, after the fall of Singapore, Campbell Newington, Beryl Irving's brother, was interned at Changi and later at Sime Road, and as the rations shrank he began writing down every recipe he could remember. At Sime Road he founded a weekly gourmets’ club he called Good Food, where a broken sheet of asbestos was the table, boxes were the chairs, and the men reconstructed imaginary dinners course by course. Charles Grenier of Ipoh printed the result in 1947, with a cover and drawings by his sister, Beryl Irving. It has been hard to find for many years. This edition sets the text afresh, keeps her drawings where they were, and adds a foreword and notes on the camps: a cookbook you can cook from, and a record you will not forget.
- Hardback214 pages, cased, drawings by Beryl Irving, 156 × 234 mm£24.00
- Paperback214 pages, drawings by Beryl Irving, 156 × 234 mm£16.00
- EbookEPUB, read on any device£11.99
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Beryl Irving's drawings for the book
Look inside
Pages from the print file of this edition, shown at the proportions they print. Tap or click a spread to see it large.
Twenty-three chapters, breakfast to sweets
- Breakfast Dishes
- Cocktails
- Hors d’Oeuvres
- Soups
- Fish Dishes
- Casseroles, Side Dishes and Entrées
- Veal
- Lamb and Mutton
- Offal
- Pork
- Chicken and Duck
- Cooked Meat Dishes
- Continental Dishes
- Curries
- Vegetables
- Puddings
- Pastry and Cakes
- Sauces
- Salad Dressings
- Chutnies
- Savouries and Supper Dishes
- Sandwiches
- Sweets
Then the author’s notes To the Modern Cook and General Notes, and an index. “Chutnies” is his spelling, and stays.
Who it is for
Cooks who like a kitchen with a date on it. Prices are pre-war, katis sit beside ounces, and some recipes are two lines long. It is not for the beginner, as the preface says, and that is its charm.
Families of the Changi and Sime Road internees, and anyone who reads the history of the Far East prisoners. This is what one man did with three and a half years and no kitchen.
Malaysia and Singapore, at home or abroad. The book was printed in Ipoh for the households of 1947, and its pantry is theirs.
Collectors of Beryl Irving, for the cover and the chapter drawings, in the only book she illustrated for her brother.
Read two recipes
Sime Road Salad
1 small Carrot-grated: ½ clove Garlic-minced: 4 tops Ceylon Spinach with young leaves: 4-5 leaves Indian lettuce spring onions. Capers:
Moisten with thick Mayonnaise and sweeten to taste. Heap on lettuce leaf and chill. Garnish with egg, chillies (sliced) etc.
Groundnut Toffee
2 Katties Roast Groundnuts, coarsely ground, 2 Tins Condensed or Alpine Milk, 2 lbs. Brown Sugar, 1 tablespoon Butter, ¼ teaspoon Salt.
Mix sugar with one cup of water till dissolved. Add milk. salt etc. Boil, stirring all the time until thickens.
As printed in 1947, punctuation and all. The salad is named for the camp where it was dreamed up; a kati is about 600 grams. The other 520 are in the book.
What is inside
- Breakfasts, cocktails, fish, curries and chutneys, puddings, savouries and sandwiches
- Malayan pantry terms beside English nursery comforts
- Some recipes skeletal, others generous and exact: the unevenness is part of the record. "Not meant for the beginner", as the preface says
- Beryl Irving's cover and chapter drawings, where she placed them
- A foreword and notes on Changi and Sime Road in this edition
A note on the book
Good Food was written without a kitchen. Philip Campbell Beatson Newington, a planter in Malaya and Beryl Irving's brother, was a civilian internee of the Japanese in Changi prison and then Sime Road camp from February 1942 until August 1945, and the recipes were set down in a notebook from memory as the ration fell, by May 1945, to four ounces of rice a day. At Sime Road he founded a club called Good Food that met once a week for an hour on the embankment outside his hut: a broken sheet of asbestos on a box for a table, a menu, and every course from cocktails to savouries discussed in detail until everyone had dined in imagination.
The recipes were gathered in two ways: from memory, and through the inter-camp post, by which he exchanged recipes with the women in the women's camp for flower and vegetable seeds. His preface, dated Ipoh, September 1947, says the book "is not meant for the beginner", that prices are pre-war, and that katis and tahils ride side by side with the English pound and ounce.
After the war Charles Grenier and Co. of Ipoh printed it, with a cover and drawings by his sister, Beryl Irving. It was issued for the householders of post-war Malaya, European and Asian, who were cooking for themselves for the first time: the foreword, by A. J. H. Dempster, Assistant Food Controller for Perak, dated 2 October 1947, says that women were dispensing with paid cooks and needed to learn the food of the country, and hopes for a second edition. It is the fourth book on this list and the first not written by her, and it belongs here for the same reason as The Family Week-End Book: a book for the home, from its time, with her pictures in it. The text is set afresh from the 1947 printing; spelling, measures and advice are as published, and printer's errors have been silently corrected.
The copy it was set from had travelled further than the book ever did in print. It belongs to the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the University of Michigan, one of the largest collections of cookbooks in the world, where a Malayan camp cookbook with Beryl Irving's drawings was kept safe. That is how this edition exists.
D. B.
The edition
| First edition | Charles Grenier and Co., Ipoh, Malaya, 1947 |
|---|---|
| Set from | A copy of the 1947 printing in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive, University of Michigan |
| Extent | 214 pages |
| Illustrations | Cover and chapter drawings by Beryl Irving |
| Trim | 156 × 234 mm |
| Hardback ISBN | 979-8-9931355-6-4 |
| Paperback ISBN | 979-8-9931183-0-7 |
| Ebook | EPUB |
| Publisher | Dawnchild Books |
Bookseller or librarian? The trade page has the advance information sheet.
Do you remember this book?
Tell us who gave it to you, when, and what it was like. We read every memory, answer the ones that ask a question, and with your leave quote the best of them on this page under a first name.
Next from Dawnchild
The Family Week-End Book, Beryl Irving, 1941. Hardback, forthcoming. After it, Elfin Song, Florence Harrison, 1912.