ALTON’S Wey Valley Radio (WVR) hosted Jenny Mallin, author of A Grandmothers’ Legacy.

On WVR Ms Mallin talked about how difficult it was to get her thoughts in order to write about the past, to research what happened in India and to include Anglo Saxon Indian recipes from a 100-year period.

During the interview, WVR’s Christine Rowley said: “It is such a shame that nowadays we seem to have lost this tradition of passing down not only memories, but techniques and skills used in cooking.”

Jenny Mallin, who has appeared on BBC’s Woman’s Hour, BBC South News and BBC Radio, recently won the Best in World cookbook award in the self publisher category at the Gourmand World Cookbook Society (the equivalent to the Oscars in the book industry) where she competed against 208 other countries and represented Great Britain at the finals held in China.

Describing herself as “a girl on a mission” Ms Mallin’s aim is to spread awareness of the Anglo Indian heritage, which played a great part in the British Raj and its history and to do so through the medium of food.

Described as: “A

memoir of five generations who lived through the days of the Raj’, A Grandmothers’ Legacy tells the story of Ms Mallin’s own family and features the recipes its membes have recorded over the years.

The book took her six years to complete and

contains 70 recipes, selected from a pool of more than 500, and “tested, re-tested and converted into metric,” using her mother as chief taster.

Christine Rowley is keen to hear from anyone who has “a story to tell or something exciting they would like to share with Alton and the surrounding area” on Wey Valley Radio.

Anyone interested in contributing should e-mail her at: christine