Dame Alison Holst likes to think that she has dirty cookbooks in most New Zealand homes.
"It's the books that get spotted and messed up and used all the time that are the good ones.
People write to thank me and say how much they have enjoyed the recipes. It's lovely and it's very kind of people to do those things," she says.
Having sold considerably more than four million copies of her 100 cookbooks, not to mention her television appearances and innumerable cooking demonstrations throughout the country over almost 40 years, she has become a household name in New Zealand.
She tells the story of her life and work in her memoir, A Home-grown Cook (Hyndman), that she is launching around the country this month .
Born in 1938, she grew up in Opoho, in Dunedin, in the 1940s and '50s. Her father lectured at Dunedin Teachers' College and her mother was a kind but determined woman. However, none of her three daughters are determined at all, Dame Alison says with a laugh.
Nevertheless, all three have made their marks. Patricia Payne became an international opera singer and Clare Ferguson is an international food stylist in London.
Dame Alison was teaching at the home science school at the University of Otago when she was asked to front a television programme on cooking family food. At the time, the only cooking show on television was Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet.
"He was a great showman, but he was a chef, not a home cook, and New Zealand women were up in arms. They complained loudly to the television network that the "Gourmet" wasn't presenting the sort of recipes they wanted to cook for their families," she writes.
Despite her initial trepidation, the series Here's How: Alison Holst Cooks took off in the late 1960s, and her first cookbook, with the same title and illustrated with colour photographs, was published in 1966.
"People didn't have large numbers of cookbooks as they do now. My mother had Aunt Daisy and a community cookbook, but they didn't have cookbooks with pictures in them, so it was quite a novelty," she said.
"It was obviously what people wanted and there were some very simple things like crunchy cabbage. People would stop me in the street and say 'we loved that cabbage. I didn't know cabbage could be so nice.' I thought, fancy, something as simple as just cooking cabbage makes people excited. That made me more enthusiastic about teaching people simple things. Simple things are just as important as the other things. I think a lot of people don't realise that. They think the more complicated it is the better it must be."
She and her family lived in San Francisco for two years while her husband Peter did his postgraduate medical study.
She went to Chinese cooking classes in Chinatown and discovered interesting things such as artichokes in the local greengrocer's.
"I didn't remember ever seeing them before in New Zealand, and what's more he was a nice man and told you what to do with things. That is always very helpful."
In her demonstrations she often introduced new ingredients, such as garlic or soy sauce to her audience, but did so gently.
"I'd often say it's not essential to put this in but it will taste better if you do."
People would bring her new appliances hoping she would find them useful and use them in her demonstrations. Some she took up with gusto, such as the electric frying pan, and she has written books about food processors, microwaves and slow cookers, but sometimes she decided it wasn't worth doing anything about a new gadget although she appreciated seeing them. "I'd never promote anything I didn't think was good," she said.
Her early aim, to teach young mothers to cook, has not changed over 40 years, although now there is perhaps more need than ever. She has done innumerable demonstrations for kindergartens and Plunket, not only to raise funds, but also as a way of showing young mothers who did not know much about cooking, how easy recipes could also be delicious, she said.
During her long career she travelled widely overseas to promote New Zealand beef and lamb. People would send her recipes - sometimes just addressing them to "Alison Holst, New Zealand" but they still reached her, she said.
"I think sharing recipes is an important thing to do. It used to be done more than it is now. That was more in the days when you had a handwritten recipe book."
Despite the numerous honours she has been awarded, she is modest. "It's very nice. I hope I deserve it," she says of her 1983 Queen's Service Medal, 1987 Commander of the British Empire honour, 1997 honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Otago and, in 2010, Dame Companion in the New Zealand Order of Merit.
She thinks there is nothing worse that someone who thinks they know everything.
"Sometimes you can make something you think is going to be absolutely great and it's not particularly good so that's the end of it, but I like thinking, well what went wrong, what would happen if I did this and would it make it better?
And sometimes it's really good and sometimes it's not." She still finds great satisfaction in cooking. "There's nothing nicer than taking something out of the oven or microwave and you know it's turning out really well."
She hasn't quite retired yet, she says. She and her son Simon Holst, with whom she has collaborated for many years, have just published Gluten free baking (Hyndman).
In the back of her memoir are 17 of her favourite recipes.
When asked which she would choose for us to publish she chose macaroni mix-up. "It's a nice easy recipe, all in together. Everybody seems to like it and it's not expensive," she said.
Macaroni mix-up
This tasty one-pan dinner is easy enough for a "learner" cook to make and ideal for anyone who hates lots of dirty dishes after they cook. This recipe is a later version of a dish I used to cook for my flatmates in Auckland.
For 4-5 servings:
1 Tbsp oil
500g minced beef
1 tsp oreganum
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 cups uncooked macaroni
4 cups boiling water
½ cup tomato paste
3 cups frozen peas or mixed vegetables
1. Heat the oil in a large, non-stick frypan and cook the mince over high heat until it has lost its pinkness, stirring it continuously and breaking up any lumps.
2. Add the oreganum, salt and sugar, then the uncooked macaroni, and the boiling water. Stir to mix.
3. Cook with the lid on for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, and making sure the mixture is bubbling gently but not sticking to the bottom.
4. Stir in the tomato paste and the frozen vegetables, turn up the heat until the mixture starts to boil again, then lower heat, replace the lid, and cook gently for 10 minutes longer. Add more water if the mixture looks dry before the macaroni and vegetables are tender.
5. Serve in bowls, sprinkled with grated cheese or chopped parsley.
(From A Home-grown Cook).
See her
Dame Alison Holst will be talking at Dunedin Public Library tomorrow at 5.30pm. Tickets $5.
Read It
A Home-grown Cook by Dame Alison Holst with Barbara Larson is published by Hyndman.
Freebies
The Otago Daily Times has nine copies of Alison and Simon Holst's Gluten free baking (Hyndman) to give away. To enter the draw for one, write your name, address and daytime phone number on the back of an envelope and send it to Gluten free baking, Editorial Features, Response Bag 500010, Dunedin, or email playtime@odt.co.nz with Gluten free baking in the subject line, to arrive before November 7.
