As the tap dancing feet of Astair
And like an echo far away,
A nightingale sang in Berkley Square"
- A nightingale sang in Berkley Square, 1939, lyrics by Eric Maschwitz, music by Manning Sherwin
Recently, I've joined in with the #collectionfishing themes on Twitter. It's a kind of a game that people play. Well, people who are interested in working with, or delving into, online collections. Each week a theme is set, and people go fishing in all sorts of online collections and share what they've found, or what they hold. I've only been doing it for a week or two - and when I say 'I've' I really mean 'Auckland Libraries' because I've been doing it on our work tweetstream - for a couple of weeks and OH! The things I've seen. The curious, the poignant, the straight up bizarre. It's fantastic. It was while I was keeping an eye out for #collectionfishing links for the #feast theme that I came across the image attached to this post of soldiers preparing a hangi in the Western Desert. It's a curious picture that made me a tad bit teary eyed because here is a little bit of home in a place that is oh so far away from it. I liked it so much I wondered what we had on our shelves that matched this topic - cookbooks and recipes from wartime. So I rounded up what I could get my hands on at such short notice, read them, admired the pictures, didn't understand the schematics for huge ovens AT ALL, and have tried a recipe or two already. With adjustments obviously, because the quantities are GINORMOUS. Even if you're not interested in #collectionfishing or wartime recipes, you've got to admit, this is pretty damn interesting all the same. This week's theme is #cars and, wow, have I seen some great things people have shared so far. To give you an idea, here's ours from yesterday. And so I give you: 5 cookbooks with recipes from the frontline. I might even see you playing along on Twitter with all of us, too. You can find Auckland Libraries on Twitter at: @Auckland_Libs.
