‘The Radiation Cookery Book’ is not something you would automatically pick off the shelf and cook from, but it has intrigued me for a while now. The word radiation now has a red flag next to it for obvious reasons, but the term radiation here is about the radiant cooking of food, nothing to do with nuclear cookery. A modern gas-fuelled way of cooking from the early 1930s, when a lot of folk were possibly still cooking on wood fires or an old Victorian suite or range. So, I think this is a book to sell new and fancy cookers to housewives who would love to have the latest gadget in their kitchens, and oh, how modern.

The recipes are actually very good, simple, with some old favourites, and the wording of how to use the cooker in each recipe is great. The more I read this book, the more it fascinates me. It has some wonderful ingredients, lots of herring, eel, John Dory, damsons, greengages, and plenty of menu suggestions to cater for invalids, guests staying, and breakfast dishes. It has it all. It has a feel of being very American, with the wording of an old American film, and the ‘Regulo’ way of controlling the temperature. With a recipe for American breakfast biscuits, I have my suspicions this is a massive advert, or possibly a book that comes with your new cooker.

Nonetheless, there are some wonderful recipes closer to home too, for sheep’s head, calf’s head, brain sauce, calf’s sweetbreads, and mutton cutlets. I love mutton. It is a very fascinating book indeed.