Vintage recipes – Something for the Squeak End, 1938

It’s the last hoorah of summer, it’s the weekend, and it’s probably raining. But if you’re planning some time in the great outdoors, here’s some advice on camping cookery and gathering wild food from the 1938 Weekend Book:

I can’t emphasise strongly enough – DON’T MAKE YOUR OWN MICE IN HONEY. That way madness lies.

Also remember “Don’t cook and attempt to eat young bracken shoots because the Japanese do. What suits the hardy races of the extreme East may not suit you.”

Can’t help thinking not only how delicious the breakfast section sounds, but how different the reality would be just a couple of years later.

I have The Weekend Book in two editions, one from 1938 and one from 1955 and I find it interesting to compare the changes between the two. 1938 seems a much more hedonistic time – by 1955 the joys of tobacco are expunged, the first aid section stops looking like the contents of Doctor Dee’s cabinet and turns into something recognisable to us, and most importantly, people apparently don’t eat mice in honey anymore. (That’s unborn mice in honey incidentally. Surely that can’t have been genuinely popular outside of the vendor in The Life of Brian’s wares?)