Andrew Hunter-Murray

Waken was a corned beef substitute in the 1940s, which was made of whales.

Well, I think it was after the war, weirdly, because most, or not most, but a lot of the food shortage was the second half of the 40s, when the war was even over, and they sent whalers off to the Antarctic, because there was genuine, like, real food shortage in Britain.

And so they said, do you want to try waken?

1951 report a new unrationed meat unrationed is great you can buy as much of this as you like waken reached british shops last week it is corned whale meat with its fishy flavor removed and apparently it had not been removed sufficiently to make it not taste like whale and it was it was not popular

I'm sorry, I think there's a horseshoe theory of foods, which is where extreme deprivation would mean you had to eat whale knackers with sheep shit, and then extreme fancy foodiness means you're eating exactly the same thing.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish.

My name is Andrew Hunter-Murray.

I'm here with James Harkin and Dan Treiber.