Alison Holst was also creative and innovative, wowing New Zealand audiences with new things like garlic and food processors. Photo / File
The recent news that Alison Holst has had to hang up her apron hit Steve Braunias hard. He takes a look at her influence on New Zealand kitchens over the past 60 years.
Anyone would think she'd died. Dementia is another kind of ending, and the announcement earlier this month that it had got Alison Holst, taken her captive, was like news of her death. Alison has left the kitchen.
She was sentimentally thought of as Mother of the nation. It went deeper than that. She was Nana of the nation. The way to a country's heart is through its stomach and Holst fed New Zealand for six amazing decades, stuffing us with mince, muffins, orange syrup cakes, cream of swede soup, sweet and sour chicken livers, lamb with cucumber sauce, crumbed brain with tomato sauce - her first book, Here's How (1966), is like a founding document.
I interviewed her in 2000. I asked her: "What's for dinner?" She said: "Well, I've got a pork fillet." She went to describe how she would marinate it in sesame oil, chilli, and soya sauce then saute it quickly, with asparagus, new potatoes and baby carrots from her garden. "Yum," I said. "Yes," she said.
She liked good, simple cooking, family dishes, tasty and nutritious. But she was also creative and innovative, wowing New Zealand audiences with new things like garlic and food processors. Her delicacy of touch was evident in her fruit shortcakes, made with scone dough and whole berries. She moved from pig's head brawn (1966) to gluten-free chocolate brownies (2012).
Two years of living in California inspired many of her recipes in Food Without Fuss (1972) - she went to town on pancakes. She sometimes made food to forget. She edited the frankly absurd Lambtastic (1987), which collected more than 200 recipes for lamb, many of the fruitastic variety, such as shoulder chops with bananas, lamb and pineapple ragout, and the ancient Maori dish, Nga Tuhoe lamb (add 1 x 310g can mandarin pieces).
Every so often she issued a greatest hits. When I interviewed her, it was on the occasion of The Ultimate Collection, but there were ultimate collections before and since. Her publisher, Neil Hyndman, is releasing her Complete Home Baking Collection at Christmas. He likes telling the story about when she popped into his Dunedin bookstore in 1994.
"There are a lot of books here about muffins," he said to her. "Why don't you put your name on one?" She did, he published it, and Marvellous Muffins sold 282,386 copies.
According to Sarah Forster at New Zealand Booksellers, three of Holst's books have gone gold (over 50,000 copies), and three went platinum (over 100,000). Hyndman's own figures include 33,776 for NZ Diabetes Cookbook, 58,2015 for Baby Food, 240,970 for School Lunches And After School Snacks and 272,192 for 100 Great Ways With Slow Cookers. Although Neilsen Bookscan rank her as New Zealand's second best-selling cookbook author (behind Annabel Langbein) since their records began in 2009, and the eighth best-selling author overall, her collection of over 100 books since 1966 almost certainly qualifies her as the best-selling author in New Zealand history.
Sensational sales, a deep trust. She was reliable, helpful, one of us. In 2011, it was seriously rumoured that she was in line to be appointed the next Governor-General. There was always something of the teacher in her. She once told her friend Sharon Crosbie that if she had a million dollars at her disposal, she'd put an oven in every classroom.
She went to teacher's college in Auckland after graduating from the University of Otago with a home science degree. Her first books pay credit to Eleanor Gray, head of the home science department. Former book publicist Kathryn Carmody went on an author tour with her in 2011, and remembers Holst taught her a technique for folding plastic shopping bags.
"While she folded, she told me a story about who had taught the technique to her and how they had come to be working together. It made quite an impression on me - there we were, years later, and she was still giving credit where it was due."
News of her ill health was first hinted at in March, by Terry Moore, editor of the Hibiscus Matters newspaper. Holst had moved to Orewa, and the paper published her recipes. Moore wrote, "Alison's memory is declining, and the deadlines of developing recipes and writing is a stress that she no longer needs."
This month, her son, Simon Holst, confirmed she had dementia. "She's not really even cooking at home anymore," he said. "It's all got a bit much."
They were dreadfully sad words. It signalled an end to her role in New Zealand public life, to her honest, generous, steadying presence. The real pain is personal. Her family are looking after her at home.
Her own mother, Margaret Payne, died in 1985. I asked her in 2000, "What did your mum make of your fame?"
She said, "She was ... bemused by it. Sometimes she enjoyed it. I used to pack her up in a car and take her around the country where I was going to do fundraising demonstrations, and she loved that. She just loved that. She would be with a group of ladies who would look after her for the evening, and ... my mother was a very memorable sort of lady.
"A taxi driver will say to me now, 'I drove your mother in a taxi.' And someone will come up to me at an airport, and say, 'I sat by your mother in an aeroplane." She was very outgoing. Very friendly. She'd do anything to help anybody."
Her book The Ultimate Collection included recipes for Margaret Payne's coffee creams and cheesecake tarts. I asked her about that, and she said, "My daughter Kirsten used to spend a lot of time with my mother when she was a little girl. And after my mother died, Kirsten made and brought me a batch of cheesecakes, my mother's cheesecakes, and I was very moved by it. My mother would have been so pleased. She wasn't there, but her cheesecakes were marching on."
So much of what she said about her mother was as if she was describing herself.
Annabel Langbein
Favourite of her recipes: Oakhill potatoes.
I've always had huge respect for Alison. She lived just up the road from us when I was growing up in Wellington and my mother had gone to the same home science school as her in Dunedin, so they were friends. I used to babysit her kids.
My mother used Alison's Kitchen Diary series all the time. She brought new flavours to our table, but the recipe I most strongly associate with her is a classic - Oakhill Potatoes. My mother often made it for weekend lunches and when my own kids were growing up I used to make it for them, but to get more vegetables into them I'd sneak in lightly cooked broccoli or, in the spring, fresh asparagus. It's very comforting, quite inexpensive to make and really delish.
Peter Gordon
Favourite of her recipes: Coconut macaroons.
We had her cookbooks at home in Whanganui, and I'd watched every television show she'd ever made when I was growing up. But it wasn't until I met her that I realised how influential she'd been all of my life. I was cooking wagyu beef on a barbecue in the Hawkes Bay, and when I heard that she'd be one of the guests, I think I may have blushed. When she arrived I really, truly blushed and I almost couldn't speak.
Alexa Johnston
Favourite of her recipes: Instant icecream.
Her ice-cream recipe, made in the food processor with cream and frozen berries is a triumph of economy and style, and it tastes superb. I have always admired her calm good humour and sensible approach to cooking and baking dilemmas.
Annabel White
Favourite of her recipes: Chili con carne.
Alison is so much more that a collection of recipes. Her tireless travel to do cooking demonstrations and share her knowledge around the country from church halls or overseas posts (I first met her in Washington DC in the embassy in 1986 when she was promoting New Zealand lamb) were impressive. I always said it was due to the fact she needed very little sleep - she's one of those rare people that only needs four hours a day. She would often be up at 4am checking recipes or page proofs. Then by 6am, a walk! Her tips are fantastic (put baking soda in you hand and break up the lumps before adding to the mix) and what she can do to a simple potato pie, or raspberry jam (beat for five minutes after cooking) are delicious Kiwi favourites.
On a personal level she supported a fledging food writer (which is unusual in this fiercely competitive industry) and insisted I should do my first book and even got her publisher to contact me directly. She gave sensible and helpful advice and was the person you could call when you had a cooking dilemma.
Good cooks are generous cooks and giving people. That's her spirit and let me tell you that what she can do to the humble sausage casserole will inspire tears of joy.
Ray McVinnie
Favourite of her recipes: Lemonade scones.
I have a great deal of respect for Alison. Not only is she very smart but she also has a great sense of humour and never seemed precious or took herself too seriously.
Ben Bayley
Favourite of her recipes: Pavlova.
Her pavlova recipe is the best I know and still use it at Christmas. Alison's cookbooks were always in Mum's kitchen when I was growing up. Baking was where my interest in cooking started when I was a kid, and her books were the go-to for the best recipes. We spent last weekend at our family bach in Raglan, where Alison's Anzac biscuits were prepared by my girls Ella and Mila - the next generation of young bakers inspired by Alison's fantastic and reliable recipes.
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