it's enough to make you sick...

The Pilgrim Penguin has caught a virus and has spent today on the couch at home and will need to take at least another day off work. This is a bit of a downer. However, to brighten the day a little, she is going to share something from her reading. Be warned however, that you should not read this post while eating...

Alice Thomas Ellis quotes from a letter written to her:

"You throw doubt, tinged with scorn, on the efficacy of mice as a specific for children. In 1920 when I was four years old an old woman who lived near my family in Radlett and whom I used to visit on every occasion I could find, would give me sugar mice to eat.

These were made by skinning mice, which she had caught in an ordinary mousetrap, emptying them and then tying them by the tail to a wooden spoon where they were suspended into a strong sugar syrup in a cast iron saucepan over a slow heat. After some hours (or days) the mice became crystallised and, when they were cold, she would give me one to eat.

They were delicious and even the bones were crisp and edible (not unlike the bones in a mature tin of sardines). I remember her saying that I would never have chest trouble if I ate these 'sweetmeats'. I am now over seventy and have had little to complain about health-wise as one says these days, in the years between these delightful treats and now." (page 31 Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring)

To think we wasted all our mice by poisoning them!!