Category:Historic recipes

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First peel your hedgehog...

In this category you will find recipes and ideas, starting from the 1940's, and going all the way back to the 14th century. A number of these recipes were issued by the Ministry of Food as a post-wartime attempt at self-sufficiency, these recipes are post-fixed (MoF). A large number of these recipes will not have been tried out for a while and I can give no guarantee of their outcome, however, they make good sense to me and have the backing of history. A large number of these recipes and comments are from a wonderful cookery book, Food in England - Dorothy Hartley which I can thoroughly recommend.

...and regarding hedgehogs as food, Ms Hartley's view, to which I concur:

"The gypsies encase them in clay and bake them in their open fire. When cooked the case is broken off, bringing with it the prickles and the skin; it is like very tender chicken. But hedgehogs are completely harmless, and do en enormous amount of good in the fields and gardens by devouring snails and slugs. They become very tame, especially in dry weather, when they are glad of water. They are very fond of bread and milk, which trait has caused them to be accused of stealing it from cows - a complete fallacy. They also eat fallen fruit in the orchard, and are credited with rolling in it in order to carry it off on their backs. Thousands of these harmless little furze pigs are run over by motorists on the roadways at night; they do not bolt when frightened, but roll up , lie still and are crushed to death. No one should harm a hedgehog."

Some of the recipes might be strange or unusual but hopefully they will give you some ideas and inspiration.

Notes on cup measurements