Gypsy Creams
Cookeen
Woman's Realm / 18th March 1967
*David Attenborough voice* “Now, here we have a marvellous example of a traditional housewife in the wild: a Llandovery farmhouse, to be precise. Watch her nimble fingers at work as she bakes countless pies for her family, and lovingly lines their arteries with Cookeen.”
Ahem. Cookeen is still around, of course, and appears to have made a comeback, due to cookery programmes encouraging us to get our mixing bowls out. Nowadays, Cookeen is owned by Princes, who are based in the Liver Building in Liverpool, rather than in Kildare House in London. The reason why I bothered looking this up was because the company I work for now occupy Kildare House as one of their many London offices, oddly enough.
Tags: Cookeen, cooking, motherhood, retail, social history
8 Comments
Tanya Jones on 28 July 2010 @ 8pm
Get yerself some Cookeen, and you too can be as smug as Mrs Price!
Estelle on 29 July 2010 @ 9pm
8 or 9 pies a weekend! Wow.
Anonymous on 30 July 2010 @ 1pm
How old do you reckon Mrs Price is? Looking at the hair, clothes and glasses, I’d say late forties. But look at the face – nineteen?
Tanya Jones on 31 July 2010 @ 7am
Yes, I was wondering about her age myself. If she’s got 5 kids, my guess is early 30s, but maybe the glasses were a ruse to confuse people.
Martin Fenton on 1 August 2010 @ 11pm
Cookeen’s factory is in Erith, South London. If you’ve ever been past it while they’re refining, you’ll certainly know about it. A more persistent and unpleasant odour that that produced at Pura in Canning Town. It was my unfortunate lot in life to have to pass both factories on a regular basis in my days in London.
Fortunately, I now live a stone’s throw from Cadbury’s in Birmingham. Much more pleasant on the old shonker, especially in the Autumn (Easter Egg manufacturing season.)
Tanya Jones on 2 August 2010 @ 5pm
That Cadbury smell is amazing. Hope it heals the bad memories, Mart…
Jam Shambles on 4 August 2010 @ 6pm
I used to live near the McVities factory in Stockport. Loved going past there on baking day :oD
offensive_mango on 28 July 2010 @ 7pm
“Can you make light, perfect pastry?”
No :(