Alice Madden was born on April 24, 1896, in Sydney. Her little sister, Amy, arrived about four years later, although no one can be sure exactly when. Their father, William James Madden, was a clerk and a stickler for discipline, education and elocution. Until she died at the age of 99, and even with her mind long gone, Alice would parrot “how do you do?” when someone greeted her, the vowels rich and voluptuous. 
Alice and Amy’s brother Charles was sent to university and became an architect. Brother Edwin became a trade union leader. (He would have been Prime Minister, people said, had he not died prematurely; Alice maintained that his kidneys failed because he was always too embarrassed to ask where the toilet was.)
Alice, who admired silent-screen siren Theda Bara, wanted to become an actress, but William James put his foot down. Alice and Amy were sent to secretarial college. Alice became secretary for the manager of a large music shop in booming Sydney city, had manicures (never cut your cuticles, she would say) and bought expensive silk undergarments and books. In 1935, she married Charles Hadorn, a gruff workaholic Swiss immigrant, and moved into an Art Deco house designed by her brother in Sydney’s still-rural outskirts. In her fine white house, she buried herself in books for the next 50 years.
Amy fell in love with Matson-Oceanic Line sea captain Theo Iverson, married him, and moved to San Francisco, where she wore the latest fashions, entertained frequently and had a waffle iron and a fancy electric fruit juicer.
On January 30, 1938, Amy took out her pen and ink and wrote in an elegant hand on the end paper of a book called Any One Can Bake (compiled by the Educational Department of the Royal Baking Powder Co., 100 East 42nd St. New York City).
This is what she wrote:
Dear Alice,
The following pages (if you ever get round to digesting more than the pretty pictures) may prove beneficial to you and to those for whom you day by day perform the necessary labour pertaining to the grand art of cookery.
However, much flour has passed through the sifter since that day (on one of Mother’s rare absences from “No. 29”) you besought Mrs Shirley to divulge the secret of properly cooking a 5lb hunk of corned meat. Nevertheless, if you can follow step by step instructions on any one of these recipes so that same may look like so much as a second cousin to the particular picture represented, “you are a better man than I am Gungha Din”. (Am not quite sure if Kipling would recognise the spelling.)
Here’s to your success,
Amy
San Francisco, CaliforniaPS: I feel it is my duty to inform you that this book was, for a limited time only, given away with a 30 cent can of the said baking powder – hence the act of generosity in passing same to you.
I know Alice used Any One Can Bake because on page 16 (“Royal Biscuits with Variations”) she has written in blue ink:
What the Australian terms a ‘scone’, the American calls a biscuit.
What the Australian terms a ‘biscuit’, the American calls a cookie.
And when I rub my fingertips across page 69 (“Tropic Aroma and Other New Cakes”), they come away gritty with the remnants of 50-year-old flour. I don’t know whether Alice cooked any of the recipes on page 31 (“Crumpets, Gems and Muffins”), but I have no doubt that if she had – perhaps the pecan muffins – she would have had the sense, unlike me, to know when to stop eating the results of her labour.
Because Alice Hadorn, my darling grandmother, always knew when to say, “No thank you, I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.”
1938 Pecan Muffins
1 cup graham flour
1 cup flour
4 tablespoons brown sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder
½ cup chopped pecan nuts
1 cup milk
1 egg
4 tablespoons shortening
Mix together dry ingredients; add nuts, milk, egg and melted shortening and beat well. Put one tablespoon batter into each greased and floured muffin pan or small muffin ring; put half pecan on each muffin and bake in hot oven at 425°F, eighteen to twenty-five minutes, depending on size of muffin. Makes twelve muffins, or twenty-four if baked in small muffin rings.
For the sake of historical authenticity, the recipe above is written exactly as it is in Any One Can Bake. I’d add these notes:
• Graham flour is coarsely stone ground, whole wheat flour – plain wholemeal worked for me.
• Any baking powder will do.
• Add an extra 12 pecan halves to your pecan quantity to adorn the muffin tops.
• I used melted butter for my shortening.
• 425°F is 220°C and, if you’re using a modern, fan-forced oven, far too hot for this purpose. I’d keep your temperature at 180°C (350°F). (I didn’t follow my own advice, as you’ll see from the swarthy pecan nuts in the photograph.)
• These muffins should be eaten fresh out of the oven; keep them until the next day and they’ll disappoint you terribly.
