For the 1937 Club: Cold Cookery by Helen Simpson
I was going to review another Golden Age mystery for my third contribution to the 1937 Club, but I didn't like the one I read very much, so my attention was caught by a little booklet that I had dug out when I first started thinking about books for April's reading week. It turned out to be a lot more fun - and interesting too. COLD COOKERY was published by The British Electrical Development Association of Savoy Hill, WC2. In those days such organisations really did have their offices on some of the capital's most exclusive streets - Savoy Hill seems to be just behind the hotel itself. The purpose of the booklet is to persuade people - mainly women, here unashamedly referred to as housewives - to invest in a fridge. It seems to be aimed at 'normal' families, which I find quite interesting in itself - did people really have domestic fridges in those days? My own parents married in 1952 and all they had was a 'food safe' - a sort of wooden cupboard with a wir
