COOKERY book writers of yesteryear turned their noses up at the more traditional North-East dishes, sniffily excluding them from their collections.

"They felt it was beneath them to record what they regarded as nothing more than working class food," said Irene Dunn.

"Even a cookery book compiled to raise cash for Newcastle's Fleming Hospital in the 1930s, had room only for sumptuous dishes such as champion lobster, roast grouse, Champagne surprise, princess souffl and brandy mint julep among other.

"They were dishes that your working-to-middle-class families had no access to. They simply could not afford some of the ingredients."

A passionate baker, Irene is now working actively to remedy any shortcomings in the record by collating a veritable treasurehouse of recipes from the region, with a view to creating an invaluable database.

The library assistant, from Newcastle, said: "In the 1950s and 60s, when people started going to the continent on package holidays, they returned to try a lot of new dishes.

"But traditional North-East cooking has been enjoying a revival. Recent publications include the Geordie Cook Book and Northumbrian Country Recipes."

Irene has built up her collection by trawling through antiquarian book stores, attending auctions, with some even retrieved from kitchen drawers.

One of oldest is a handwritten 18th Century book including favourites such as "the Raby Receipt as made at Raby Castle".

Another prime source for traditional fare was Peggy Hutchinson, a farmer's wife who went from village to village in the North-East collecting recipes handed down by word of mouth for generations.

Among the recipes she recorded for posterity were Darlington cream crackers, Stanhope biscuits, Darlington almond cake, Esh Winning ginger shorts, Willington orange ginger bread, Annfield Plain chocolate scones and West Stanley walnut cake.

A Northern Echo booklet from the same period gives advice on everything, from candle and coverlet hints to invaluable cookery advice and recipes.

Another useful compilation was made by Muriel Gray, of Gateshead, who collected a range of dishes from newspapers and magazines, including Apple Cake the Durham Way.

Irene's own memories of regional food include singing hinny hilly scones, so called because they were so rich in fat they used to sing on the griddle.

And there was the now-familiar stotty cake - an old oven bottom cake made with leftover dough from bread baking.

And if you thought the kebabs, enjoyed by late-night beer-swilling revellers from the 1990s onwards, were a recent culinary introduction - wrong.

A recipe book taken from Temple Sowerby, Penrith, to Northumberland by Miss Bridget Atkinson for her sister Dorothy Clayton, who lived at Chesters, in Northumberland, in the 19th Century gives them an early mention.

Get a taste of the North

LOBSTER PIE

(from Raby cookbook)

Boil the lobsters, take out the meat and season with cinnamon and nutmet. Put into pie with piece of butter, six yolks of egg and a little salt. Close the pie and when it is baked enough take a gill sack (quarter pint) of sherry and piece of butter and make it boil beat an egg. Put all this together and put into pie.

COWHEEL MOULD

(Peggy Hutchinson)

Ingredients: One and a half pounds shin beef; half a cowheel and water to cover.

Method: Boil gently for four hours. Then take out the bones and put meat through the mincer. Mix liquid and meat together thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper, bring to the boil then pour into moulds. This is most strengthening. You can buy ready-boiled cowheel for a few pence - put it with the raw meat, as it takes a lot of boiling.

STAINDROP PUDDING

(Peggy Hutchinson)

Ingredients: half pound breadcrumbs; 2oz sugar; 2oz suet; half teaspoon baking powder; 1 egg; a little salt; quarter pound figs and milk to mix.

Method: Mix altogether, add the figs chopped. Place in a basin and steam for three hours.

Serve with custard.

This is a pudding that can be made up with all kinds of dried fruit.

MUTTON KEBOB

- another way (Recipe book by Bridget Atkinson for sister Dorothy Clayton 1806).

Take a loin of mutton and joint it between every bone. Season it with pepper and salt, moderately.

Grate a little nutmeg all over it and dip them in the yolk of three eggs and have ready some breadcrumbs and sweet herbs and dip them in it.

Clap them in the same shape again and put them on a small spit and roast it before a quick fire.

Set a dish under it and baste it with a little bit of butter and then keep basting with what drops from it. Strew some breadcrumbs on it all the time it is roasting.

When it is enough take it up and lay it in a dish and have ready a pint of good gravy. And the gravy that comes from the meat.

Take two spoonfuls of ketchup and a little flour and mix with the gravy. And give it a boil and pour it over the mutton.