Gatsby Picnic 2023

Every year at the beginning of September, the Art Deco Society of California hosts the Gatsby Summer Afternoon, a 1920s and 1930s themed garden party and picnic. I went for the first time last year and of course made a whole picnic spread of recipes from 1920s and 1930s cookbooks. I had a blast, but was very tired afterwards and completely forgot to finish writing my post about it…until I started preparing for the picnic this year. So here it is, nearly a year late, but just in time if you happen to be planning your own picnic.

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Avocado and Bacon Sandwich

I had to make this recipe from a 1933 cookbook just to show that avocado toast has been around for longer than you might think. Avocados were first cultivated in the United States starting in the early 1900s, and became very popular by the 1920s. They were used in all sorts of recipes, including open-faced sandwiches like this one – or, as we would call it today, avocado toast.

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A Cheshire Sandwich

“A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself, and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded by shrubs in the rich foliage of summer, was enough to catch any man’s heart…it was all in harmony; and as everything will turn to account when love is once set going, even the sandwich tray, and Dr. Grant doing the honours of it, were worth looking at.” – from Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen, 1814.

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