Victoria Lily Hegan Ponsonby, Baroness Sysonby ( Kennard; 1874 – 2 June 1955), was a British cookbook author with an "eager and unconventional mind" whose recipes were popular during the 1930s and 1940s. Her friend Osbert Sitwell described her book ''Lady Sysonby's Cookbook'' as "varied, historic, traditional, and not intended for the rich man's table alone".

Life

Born Victoria Lily Hegan Kennard, the daughter of Colonel Edmund Hegan Kennard, she was also known by the name "Ria". Lady Sysonby said that she took no particular interest in cookery until she married, on 17 May 1899, to Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby, the private secretary to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

and later to

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second child ...

. She decided, she said, to study cookery "in a practical way", helped by a collection of recipes inherited from her great-grandmother, her grandmother and mother. Her recipe collection was first published in 1935, the year of her husband's death. Despite their position in the higher echelons of British society, the family were "never particularly well" off, according to ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', and at one point had to withdraw their daughter from boarding school because they could not pay the fees. Unlike other upper-class food writers of the interwar years, such as Dame

Agnes Jekyll Dame Agnes Lowndes Jekyll, ( Graham; 12 October 1861 – 28 January 1937) was a Scottish-born British artist, writer and philanthropist. The daughter of William Graham, Liberal MP for Glasgow (1865–1874) and patron of the Pre-Raphae ...

, Victoria Sysonby needed the money that her cookbook brought her. But her love of food was wholly genuine, recalled her friend Lord Esher after her death, in a letter to ''The Times''. He remembered her "exquisite cookery", her "original and charming personality" and that she demanded "quality in everything around her". She and her husband (who went by the nickname "Fritz") had two children: Edward Ponsonby, 2nd Baron Sysonby, and Loelia Lindsay, who married and divorced the second duke of Westminster. Lady Sysonby served 1916–18 in the French Red Cross in France as a Canteen Worker (two medals). She died in 1955, after having endured "manifold sufferings" in her later years. She liked to say that her "greatest triumph" was "a caravan holiday when for ten days she did the entire cooking to the unqualified satisfaction of him who ate it" (meaning her husband Fritz).

Work

''Lady Sysonby's Cook Book'' — which was illustrated by

Oliver Messel Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel (13 January 1904 – 13 July 1978) was an English artist and one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century. Early life Messel was born in London, the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel Leonard Messel a ...

— includes recipes for Soup, Fish, Luncheon Dishes, Meat, Poultry and Game, Vegetables, Salads, Puddings, Savouries, Cakes, Jams and Jellies, Sauces, Sandwiches and Mixed Drinks. She was addressing an upper-middle-class audience, noting for example that "all self-respecting households start the midday meal with a dish usually of eggs in some form or another". In the second edition, in 1948, she addressed the question of postwar scarcity in the kitchen, noting that margarine could be used instead of fresh butter and "top of the milk for cream". She also included a recipe for the wartime favourite,

Woolton pie Woolton pie is a pastry dish of vegetables, widely served in Britain in the Second World War when rationing and shortages made other dishes hard to prepare. The recipe was created by François Latry, Maître Chef des Cuisines at the Savoy Hotel in ...

, made from vegetables, white sauce,

Bovril Bovril is a thick and salty meat extract paste, similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar and as cubes and granules. Its appearance is similar to the British Marmite and ...

and a "small pinch of ginger". Her recipes came from a surprisingly wide range of countries: New Zealand raspberry jam, Hungarian chocolate, Italian gnocchi ("when after a long day, you come in tired and late, this rapidly made rough gnocchi with cheese and herbs is sustaining and easy on the digestion"), Russian cabbage soup, Greek moussaka (her recipe for the latter was a concoction including potatoes, mushrooms, grated carrot and even spaghetti in place of the usual aubergine). She lamented the "fashionable craze of slimming" and the way it caused people to wave away "even the most delicious" of puddings, but noted that "thanks to the war, and the even worse restrictions now, nature has done the thinning for us!" Victoria Ponsonby is also credited with creating the ribbon for Military Cross in 1914.Hoyte C. Evans, “Kitchener and the Military Cross,” ''Journal of the Orders and Medals Society of America'' (March–April 1957): 14–15, accessed 3 November 2020, http://www.omsa.org/files/jomsa_arch/Splits/1957/87251_JOMSA_1957_March-April_13.pdf

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sysonby, Lady English food writers 1874 births 1955 deaths British baronesses by marriage Victoria English cookbook writers British women food writers Wives of knights