Well, would you look at that. Tomorrow is April 20, better known as 4/20. Here at Twirlit, we of course know nothing about that — especially if you’re any of our parents reading this right now. But we’ve, y’know, heard about it. From a friend.

For some reason, we’ve been inspired to offer up this recipe from the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, along with a neat little history lesson. We’re not suggesting you actually make it — although some folks certainly seem to enjoy it. We’re just sharing it because hey, the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook is a classic.

Here’s a little background on how this curious recipe found its way into a mainstream cookbook:

Alice B. Toklas, nearing her deadline with Harper’s for a cookbook/memoir, found herself short of recipes to share with her readers. In a bind, she solicited recipes from her friends — one of which ended up being this hashish fudge recipe, provided by her friend, painter Brion Gysin (oh, those creative types). Toklas was apparently unfamiliar with the recipe’s secret ingredient, and included it in her cookbook without giving it a test run. While the raunchy recipe didn’t make it into the American version of the book, the British publishers left it in — and so, cookbook history was made.

We don’t suggest you try this at home — or at your bridge club.

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HASHISH FUDGE

(which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)

This is the food of paradise — of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises: it might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR. In Morocco it is thought to be good for warding off the common cold in damp winter weather and is, indeed, more effective if taken with large quantities of hot mint tea. Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected. Almost anything Saint Theresa did, you can do better if you can bear to be ravished by ‘un évanouissement reveillé‘.

Take 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon coriander. These should all be pulverised in a mortar. About a handful each of stoned dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of Cannabis sativa can be pulverised. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient.

Obtaining the Cannabis may present certain difficulties, but the variety known as Cannabis sativa grows as a common weed, often unrecognised, everywhere in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa; besides being cultivated as a crop for the manufacture of rope. In the Americas, while often discouraged, its cousin, called Cannabis indica, has been observed even in city window boxes. It should be picked and dried as soon as it has gone to seed and while the plant is still green.