Faced with a half page to fill in a magazine, the most grown-up and professional solution for an editor is probably not to draw a picture. Nevertheless, this is what I have been doing since last summer.

The concept of a cookstrip comes from Len Deighton, better known as the author of The Ipcress File and a bundle of other novels made famous when Michael Caine donned a handsome pair of tortoiseshell specs to become Harry Palmer, the blue-collar James Bond.

The story goes that Deighton worked his way through art school as a chef, and used to draw himself little illustrations to remind him of the recipes. A newspaper art director spotted them on a visit to his kitchen, and he ended up with a regular strip in The Observer in the 1960s, later authoring several cookery books. One of these was the Action Cook Book, which I bought for my brother a few years ago, and in which I first encountered cookstrips.

My own magazine is for more outdoorsy sorts, and last June, while watching a demonstration of how to remove the breast meat from a dead pigeon without using a knife, I struck up a conversation with a man who offered to send me some tried and tested campfire recipes.

Here are some: