On Sunday, June 14, 2015 at 7:02:53 AM UTC-10, taxed and spent wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>
> Lots of obits. Check Google News, too.
>
> https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...te +patten+99
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...n-dies-aged-99
>
> Cookery writer Marguerite Patten, the author of more than 170 books, has
> died aged 99, her family said.
>
> Patten was famed for her no-nonsense approach to home economics, and was
> employed by the Ministry of Food during the second world war to advise
> Britons on how to make the most of their rations.
>
> She was the host of the BBC's Kitchen Front, offering up recipes using
> powdered egg and spam for Britain during the blitz.
>
> She made her first television appearance in 1947 and was a regular guest on
> both Masterchef and Ready Steady Cook in later years.
> ADVERTISING
>
> Despite being given a CBE for services to cookery, and having sold 17
> million copies of her books, Patten always refused to call herself a
> "celebrity chef".
>
> "I am not," she told the Telegraph, in one of her last interviews. "To the
> day I die I will be a home economist."...
>
> (snip)
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/wo...t-99.html?_r=0
>
> By William Grimes
>
>
> Marguerite Patten, a home economist who told ration-pinched British families
> how to make a satisfying meal out of nothing during World War II, and later
> became one of the country's first television chefs and the author of more
> than 170 cookbooks aimed at average Britons, died on June 4 in Richmond,
> Surrey. She was 99.
>
> Her death was announced by her family.
>
> Known as the queen of ration-book cuisine, Ms. Patten worked in the advice
> division of the Ministry of Food, which was created in 1939 to oversee food
> distribution during the war.
>
> She went to markets, hospitals and factory canteens, offering tips and
> giving demonstrations on how to make something out of virtually nothing,
> with wartime creations like "mock cream" and "mock duck." She also dispensed
> advice and recipes on "The Kitchen Front," a morning radio program on the
> BBC.
>
> In the austerity years after the war, with rationing still in force, Ms.
> Patten continued to help British housewives desperate to put a meal on the
> table, introducing them to the pleasures of Spam and other exotica. When
> rationing came to an end in 1954, she incorporated new ingredients like
> olive oil and avocados into sensible, low-cost dishes that required a
> minimum of effort and time, primarily through her cookbooks, which sold some
> 17 million copies all told...
>
> (snip)
>
>
>
> Lenona.
>
> -----------
>
> First time I ever hear SPAM referred to as "exotica". And probably the
> last.

A block of material that's made from meat paste and cooked in the can - that sounds pretty exotic to me! :-)