I've been thinking about social class and food. The trigger was the news that a leading heart surgeon wants to ban butter, a foodstuff that is integral to my happiness, in order that people might live longer. I read this, and I went into a complete funk. Even frozen butter only lasts for eight months; it's not like we can stockpile. But then it dawned on me: in a few months' time, there is going to be an election, and it is highly likely that the victors will be the Conservative party, whose members have libertarian instincts. In the case of butter, then, our law-makers will think: If people want to eat butter, let them. Why punish the careful butter lover in order to save the butter abusers from themselves? This analysis – eat your heart out, Keith Joseph! – made me feel so joyous that I momentarily considered voting Tory.

But then, despair once more (I know: my moods). Tony Blair, the first public-school educated prime minister since Alec Douglas-Home, brought sun-dried tomatoes and extra-virgin olive oil, items which I am sure also grace the sleek melamine counters of the Cameron household. But still, he never felt all that posh to me; and even if he was, it wasn't too hard to imagine Cherie scoffing the odd Pukka pie. The incoming Conservatives are, however, extremely posh. Honestly, they are. A few years ago, when Iain Duncan Smith was the Tory leader and it looked like they might never be in government again, I travelled the country talking to its members about its future. One of these was George Osborne, then a moderately obscure backbench MP. I remember our encounter vividly. In fact, I'll never forget it. It was, you see, George's conviction that things were pretty desperate. The party needed to reach out.

He looked over at me, eagerly perched in the passenger seat of his car. "What the Conservative party needs, Rachel, is people like you…" he said. A brief pause, during which I absorbed this exciting information. "Ordinary people!"

Oh boy.

So, having ceased worrying about butter, I immediately started worrying about food trends in a more general sense. I like cooking, I love eating, but I am, as George so helpfully pointed out, terribly ordinary. Thus in order to keep ahead of the curve kitchenwise, I'd better start learning to be, well, less ordinary. I need to get posh. The question is: how?

At first I thought the only thing for it was to head to Wiltons, the extremely grand restaurant (est 1742) in Jermyn Street. OK, so these days you can follow Wiltons on Twitter. But that doesn't make it any less posh; you can probably follow George Osborne on Twitter if you're so inclined. Wiltons, though, is perilously expensive, and I am currently broke (this, perhaps, is another sign of my inherent ordinariness). So I turned to my beloved Abe Books for help and, three clicks and two days later, it was with me: the cook book to beat them all – even Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – when it comes to social class. Now all I need to do is work my way through its 200 "carefully tested" recipes by May.

Eat Like A Lord by Rita Grosvenor (brilliant name, in this context) was first published in 1973 and details the gastronomic preferences of some 75 British peers, among them the then Marquess of Anglesey, the then Duke of Roxburghe and the then Earl of Longford; also Baron Snow, aka the novelist CP Snow, and Baron Thomson of Fleet, though they don't count for our purposes, being of humble origins and state-educated. Naturally there are lots of recipes for grouse, pheasant and kidneys. Plus a few things in aspic. But there is some seriously weird stuff, too – and that's before we even get to the photographs. (The one that made me cry with laughter is of the Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford "dining on caviar at the Hertford Club in London". Also on the table is what looks like duchess potatoes for 24. "The dish in front of them is a lemon meringue," reads the caption.) Stuffing a peach with prawns should probably be illegal, and I particularly dislike the idea of honeydew melon in curry sauce, a favourite of the then Lord Pembroke.

All of this was somewhat intimidating, not to say repulsive, at first. But I read on, and I now think that I could rather enjoy the coming of (upper) class to my kitchen. The Earl of Morley wanted a recipe for his wife's blackcurrant leaf sorbet to be included, and so it was, in all its glory. ("Delicious," says Lady Morley, "and it tastes of muscats.")

But the recipe with which I'm really taken was a favourite of Lord Avon, aka Anthony Eden. Alas, the book does not reveal whether the former prime minister cooked this himself, but I've already begun picturing him, not in his homburg, but in a flouncy, pastel pinny. For the dish in question is a violet souffle, made with candied violets and Kümmel. This does not sound remotely ordinary to me. It sounds exquisite – as posh as a pudding can be.