Florence's fish cakes — the real recipe (and why mine never come out the same)

My great-grandmother Florence made the best fish cakes in the family. Nobody disputes this. There have been arguments at the dinner table over the last one, at birthdays with thirty people round it.

The recipe my mother gave me on a crumpled napkin reads: "1 spoon of butter, 1 of flour, warm milk, finely flaked haddock, a pinch of nutmeg, salt to taste."

But the secret, I worked out years later, wasn't in the ingredients. It was in the time. Florence stirred the white sauce for exactly 35 minutes, sitting on a low stool by the stove, with the wireless tuned to a dance band. If she stopped sooner, the cakes came out pasty. If she stopped later, they stuck.

The music was serious business. She said the mixture "needed to hear Glenn Miller to find its character."

I've tried twenty-three times. They never come out the same. I suspect it's because I listen to podcasts.