PHOTOGRAPHS MAJA SMEND FOOD STYLING LOTTIE COVELL STYLING VICTORIA ELDRIDGE

On the face of it, a recipe is a workaday thing: a list of ingredients and a set of tasks. In the hands of a good cook, though, that carefully written guide to a dish is about transformation. Add imagination and a bit of flavour nous and the result can be sublime. But there’s something more at work here…

Anticipation sets stomachs rumbling, eating gives satisfaction and memories of special dishes – the smells, the tastes – live on, long after the event. Here’s a menu created from the memories of the delicious. team. We hope it’s set to live on in your memory, too

HOW WE CHOSE THE RECIPES

First we had the idea of a childhood memories menu – with all the warm and cosy associations that has. Then we put the question to everyone on the team: what one dish would each person want to nominate. When the results came in, we chose the four loveliest sounding that would work together in harmony. The carrot cake is an extra, really, to serve with a cup of tea (once we tasted it we felt it was too good not to include)

food for friends.

MENU FOR 6

From the Kentish kitchen of Gillian Bourdeaux Baked creamy garlic mushrooms

From the Somerset kitchen of Katherine Stone Salmon and egg kedgeree

From the New England kitchen of Carol Vumback Apple pie with crumble topping

And, for later, from the Lincolnshire kitchen of Lesley Bradshaw Carrot cake

Karen (centre) with mum Gillian and brother Mark

“My late mum inspired me as a cook, and this is a dish I remember her making several times. We didn’t have it that often because it was more of a dinner-party thing, a starter, and we didn’t have three-course meals unless people came round. I associate it with special occasions, lots of people laughing and chatting, Mum whipping things up in the kitchen wearing a natty mini skirt and wafting Chanel No5, me looking on shyly and helping with chopping and stirring.

I’ve made these garlicky creamy mushrooms so many times since leaving home. Why? Because they taste wonderful, they take about 20 minutes to prep and (best of all) you can make the whole thing ahead, then leave the little dishes in the fridge ready to flash through the oven just before everyone sits at the table. That’s my kind of cooking. I’ve tweaked the ingredients a bit. Mum used soured cream because in the 1970s, when I was in my teens, you couldn’t buy crème fraîche here. But now you can and I prefer using that because its higher fat content makes it less prone to splitting in the heat of the oven… Enjoy!”