Author(s): Frances Osborne

Biography & Memoir

"Lilla Eckford was born in 1882 into a British colonial family in the small Chinese trading port of Chefoo. Her mother, Alice, was a lively woman with a love of cooking she passed on to her identical twin daughters. Lilla vied constantly with her sister, and seeing her fall in love with a naval captain during the Boxer Uprising, Lilla quickly copied her by marrying his best friend, a handsome army captain. When her new husband realized she was not wealthy his passion cooled, but Lilla won him back by transforming a fishing hut in Kashmir into a haven of homeliness. This talent that would play a vital role throughout her lifetime- when the Japanese invaded China, Lilla was interned in a civilian camp. She sustained herself through semi-starvation by composing a book of recipes and household hints that charmingly ignored the realities of war. his precious book, now in the possession of the Imperial War Museum, inspired Lilla s great-grand-daughter, Frances Osborne, to tell her story. The resulting book a joyous blend of personal history and world events, period atmosphere and family anecdote will make you laugh and cry."