Marguerite Patten is one of Britain's best known and best loved cookery writers. She is the author of over 170 books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Her Cookery in Colour was first published in 1960 and with sales of over 2 million copies has broken all records in cookery book publishing. She was awarded an OBE in 1991 for 'services to the art of cookery' and in addition she received Lifetime Achievement Awards in 1995 from the Guild of Food Writers, in 1996 from the Trustees of the Andr Simon Award, in 1998 from the BBC Good Food Awards and in 2007 Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. Here she turns her attention to one of her real true passions - the classic cookery of the British Isles.

From traditional breakfasts, to high teas, from roasts to hearty soups she has selected a collection of over 400 of her favorite recipes showing the enormous and exciting variety of British produce and cooking. She covers soups, fish dishes, meat, poultry and game, vegetables, salads and savory dishes as well as puddings, baking and preserves. Marguerite Patten's career spans more than half a century and began before World War II working for the Ministry of Food. She had a weekly television program in the early days of broadcasting in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. Since then she has lectured, given countless thousands of demonstrations and written articles and cookery cards and many, many successful books. She will celebrate her 94th birthday this year but still works full-time and lives in Brighton.