Joanna Dawson, a Methodist local preacher, dairy farmer and local historian, combined her religious faith with a delight in the local traditions of agriculture and domestic affairs in the Yorkshire Dales. As she moved around Nidderdale during the mid 20th century she garnered a unique knowledge, based on the stories and anecdotes of the elderly people she encountered on her travels. Her enthusiasm led to a vast collection of unsorted and unclassified information which has only recently been discovered and transcribed. Hers is a fragrant scene from the farmhouse kitchens of long ago, when large teas and suppers featured as the reward for a hard-working rural life, and the wife by the range had skills and knowledge to be learned and passed on through the generations. Mrs Hibbert's Pick-Me-Up and Other Recipes from a Yorkshire Dale is illustrated with pen and ink drawings of items used in these old kitchens and photographs taken in the Dales a century ago, which aptly complement this evocative account of rural Dales life.
