book inspired food

Since we mention food occassionally in the GD I thought it might be interesting to discuss any books that might have inspired you to any culinary delights?

As I've mentioned, I'm reading The Dark is Rising series right now and found myself making scones on the weekend to munch on as I follow the adventures. I have a friend who got into french cuisine big time after reading Anais Nin! Anybody else?

Good topic!

I love good, hearty breads, interesting breads, biscuits, etc. Not wonder bread, white bread, etc. So whenever I indulge the taste buds for toast or buscuits with butter & honey I think of Gandalf, in Beorn's hall, scarfing down 2 loaves of bread with masses of butter, honey and clotted cream. I don't have the clotted cream available.

I am a confirmed carbohydrate junky, so no matter how much I also love meat (red meat), I could never do the Atkins diet. I need potatoes inall their glorous varieties, veggies, etc to go with steak and other forms of beef, etc.

I am very tempted to try and make the 'Green Pizza' featured in Invader - I can't recall now if this was with raw tomatos or if the toms wern't available and had been substitued for a local equivalent, I think it was the latter.

I always get hungry when I read the Harry potter Books!
The Little House books make me want to bake bread!

Treacle tart & pumpkin juice!

I actually got the Little House Cookbook after reading the books. I used to have a great time making all the foods contained therein. The one that held the most fascination for me was Almanzo's popcorn and milk. I thought it sounded wonderful, but it was actually pretty disgusting.

On a somewhat related note, I once made literary gingerbread based on The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter and The Sandman. It was fun, but it took ages to make the icing behave.

You've got to be kidding!

I own The Little House Cookbook, The Nero Wolfe cookbook, The Lord Peter Wimsey cookbook, A Christmas Carol cookbook, Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook The Tolkien Scrapbook, which has recipes in it, and the The Narnia Cookbook, so I guess you could say my reading inspires me to cook. The Wimsey books make me wish that I appreciated wine more. Oh, I also have a cookbook by Vincent Price and one from the Blondie comics, but I haven't read them yet. I love it when an author takes time to describe the meals and make them sound wonderful. James Herriot did that, along with the other authors I've mentioned above.

#3 - It was some local substitute, but possibly green tomatoes could do?
Also, I always wondered if the "fruit juice" was like orange juice... the combination with vodka kind of suggests it, but... who knows? I kind of got thirsty every second time they had it.

I'm not big on the books'n'food connection - I'm more for books'n'location, which is a problem when lots of the stories I read takes place on faraway planets or in imaginary worlds ;-)

I own The Mafia Cookbook, mainly because my husband doted on the Sopranos, but the recipes are too elaborate.

I've always wanted Nanny Ogg's cookbook by Terry Pratchett. Has anyone got it & like it?

MrsLee, I have James Herriot's Yorkshire and there are recipes in it that we have enjoyed. My sister gave me Aunt Maud's Recipe Book which is based on the recipes of L.M. Montgomery. They're great fun. I love the idea of Tolkien recipes and Narnia ones - very cool. :-)

#6 - When I read Farmer Boy, xicanti, I drooled through the whole damn thing. There was one dish that had apples, onions and potatoes in it, and I have tried to make it, without a recipe. I think it's meant to go with pork chops, or something. Let me know if there is a recipe for a dish like that in there, next time you get the chance to look at your Little House Cookbook, would you pretty please? :o)

I have the Dragon Lance Cookbook, and I love that. I've made beer bread and a few other things from it.

All of it is lovely!

There is a recipe for (if I remember correctly) Quick After-Battle Triple Chocolate Cake at the end of Book of Enchantments by Patricia C. Wrede. I haven't tried it, but I bet it's good.

The one thing the book Sunshine by Robin McKinley is missing is recipes. I want to know how to make Buttermost Limit and Bitter Chocolate Death and Sunshine's Eschatology and especially Death of Marat.

Recipes for Crime by Kerry Greenwood has some interesting recipes.
They range from a typical Sherlock Holmes Victorian breakfast, a Famous Five picnic (eg 'lashings of gingerbread') through to more modern Australian snacks.
More a book for mystery lovers, rather than fantasy readers though.

Does the Pan Galactic Gargleblaster count? Not that I really want to try it though. I was also inspired to try Fried Green Tomatoes, after I read that book. Clamairy, I agree about Farmer Boy. It's by far the best "foodie" book in the series. The rest of the books are more survival mode. There is a recipe in the Little House Cookbook for

Fried Apples 'N' Onions
In 1 T. bacon fat, fry 6 sliced onions over med-high heat for about 3 min. Cover with 6 sliced apples in an even layer. Sprinkle 2 T. brown sugar over all, cover and cook until tender. Stir only to prevent scorching. Remove to warm plate and serve with warm bacon or salt pork slices.

It doesn't mention potatoes. Personally, I would fry the apples and onions until slightly browned to release their sugar and caramelize them. *Inhaling deeply* I can almost smell them cooking!

I don't think the recipe was given in the novel, but the scene in The Godfather film where Clemenza shows Michael how to make the sauce always makes me crave Italian.

Maybe I should post this on the "Queen's English" thread in BookTalk, but tell me please, what is clotted cream? To my American ears it sounds a bit creepy, but when I read it in context of a lovely afternoon tea, it sounds like it might be quite nice.

If you know what 'Single' cream is, 'double' cream is much thicker - Clotted cream is the next step up again, practically solid properly with an actual solid crust. Still tastes like cream, goes very well on scones and cakes.

Thanks reading_fox. It sounds like it might be somewhat similar to cream cheese, at least in texture if not in taste.

I've always gagged a little when coming across the term "clotted cream." I imagine it as the lumps of stuff you get when milk goes REALLY sour.

Clotted cream is to die for. When my wife and I visit a tea shop for afternoon tea, we look forward to the scones with clotted cream and jam. You can find it in British grocery stores and tiny jars are often available in some high end grocers such as Whole Foods and Wegmans.

Clotted cream fudge is delicious as well, better than a lot of chocolate fudge that I've had. I never really knew what clotted cream was on its own though, thanks.

Oh God that sounds good! Somebody send me some!!!!

#24 polly, here you go. Try these, and then pass along to littlebookworm.

www.cakes-direct.co.uk/creamteas.php

*Um, no connection to the business, sorry! Just a delightful picture*

#10: Nanny Ogg's Cookbook is more for sniggering at than cooking from, I'd say, with a tendency to the aphrodisiac. Fun, though.

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge is my food fantasy book, with a proper understanding that even a young lady of the most fastidious manners should appreciate lovingly-prepared food. And there's Ratty and Mole's picnic in Wind in the Willows - probably the first description that made my mouth water.

More recently, and slightly (but not much) more anchored in the real world, Victoria Clayton's heroines cook their way through her books (Dance with Me, and others) with varying degress of success and much entertainment. Her description of trying to buy vegetables in rural Ireland Moonshine reminds me of my childhood in the Scottish Highlands.

In my family we have clotted cream with our Christmas pudding. Bliss.

According to The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, klah is made with 2 tbsp sweet ground chocolate, 1/2 c dark cocoa, 3/8 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp dark instant coffee ground to powder, and a pinch of nutmeg. I can attest that it is quite tasty. :)

whoa, sounds like it packs quite a kick too!

This is the big drawback of the Redwall series. You get this real craving for soup and cheese and all around hot meals in general.

#27 Wow I'm a huge Pern fan but hadn't ever picked up that book! I can't believe they went so far as to give a recipe for klah!

#27 - mmm, I want some!

what is klah/

It's the coffee-substitute stuff they drink on Pern.

Anybody know how to make malak?

The Blue Sword

hmm I always pictured Klah more tea like for some reason 8)

I just figure that any hot, addictive drink in a fantasy, (or a piece of science fiction), is meant to be a coffee equivalent. :) Just the other day I was thinking how strange it is that writers don't stint to include tea in their books, but very few people who set their books in imaginary places include coffee. They've always got something slightly coffee-like instead.

The funny thing is, malak is specifically neither coffee nor tea - Harry mentions at one point that it tastes as good as it smells, "which gives it points over coffee". And, later, she's drinking tea and she realizes "uneasily that she'd rather be drinking malak".

(Yeah, I've read it a few times ;)

I think I read a recipe for malak once, but it wasn't by McKinley, it was some reader's rendition.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder always made me hungry. :)

I always wanted to roast potatoes, pour maple syrup on snow, and make taffy after reading that book.

Edited to add ... oh, yeah! Little White Horse and the Redwall series ... mmmm. Yep, they make you hungry, too.

Smitheeeeeee!!!!!! Welcome back, woman!
:o)
You have been missed.

Long time no see! Nice to have you back, hungry or not :-)

I made a cake after a recipe in Jim Button when I was six or seven.

#29 Yep the Redwall books always make me hungry as well. The elderberry wine sounds so good and I don't even like wine ;)

eta. there is also otter hot root soup. I did some searching on the web and there is actually a site of redwall recipes. http://www.redwall.net/kitchen/main.html

Three books that had me salivating like Pavlov's infamous Dawgs:

Pomegranate Soup
Chocolat
Under the Tuscan Sun

:o)

>20 MerryMary: No, not quite that solid. Like really thick whipped cream (not the stuff you squirt out of a can, thicker). It tastes somewhere between cream and butter - very very rich, not as sharp as butter nor as bland as cream. Lovely.

>21 Morphidae: No, that's fresh sour-milk cheese (it is, really. Tastes awful to me, but I don't like Swiss cheese either - too sharp). Clotted cream isn't the least bit sour. It is frequently possible to find it in gourmet stores - pricey, though.

There's also the Aunt Dimity mystery series by Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death is the first one, and has a recipe for raisin-oatmeal cookies in the back. Each one has a recipe that's featured in the story. The only one I've made is butterscotch brownies (blondies) - they're _almost_ as good as the brownies I usually make, but the chocolate wins.

The Triple-Chocolate After-Battle Cake is a lot of fun to _read_ - I haven't tried making it, it sounds like one of those restaurant cakes where it's so chocolate you're almost sick after half a piece. Maybe someday.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome and the rest of that series tend to have some _lovely_ food in them - and I don't much like fish! Roasted potatoes, though... Oh, and speaking of roasted potatoes - The Secret Garden! When they're spending all their time thinking how to get food, I _have_ to be eating something or I get starving too.

>20 MerryMary: No, not quite that solid. Like really thick whipped cream (not the stuff you squirt out of a can, thicker). It tastes somewhere between cream and butter - very very rich, not as sharp as butter nor as bland as cream. Lovely.

>21 Morphidae: No, that's fresh sour-milk cheese (it is, really. Tastes awful to me, but I don't like Swiss cheese either - too sharp). Clotted cream isn't the least bit sour. It is frequently possible to find it in gourmet stores - pricey, though.

There's also the Aunt Dimity mystery series by Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death is the first one, and has a recipe for raisin-oatmeal cookies in the back. Each one has a recipe that's featured in the story. The only one I've made is butterscotch brownies (blondies) - they're _almost_ as good as the brownies I usually make, but the chocolate wins.

The Triple-Chocolate After-Battle Cake is a lot of fun to _read_ - I haven't tried making it, it sounds like one of those restaurant cakes where it's so chocolate you're almost sick after half a piece. Maybe someday.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome and the rest of that series tend to have some _lovely_ food in them - and I don't much like fish! Roasted potatoes, though... Oh, and speaking of roasted potatoes - The Secret Garden! When they're spending all their time thinking how to get food, I _have_ to be eating something or I get starving too.

#42 there are all sorts of non-grape wines. My OtherHalf doesn't like any grape varieties, but is a huge fan of Strawberry, Plum, Blackcurrent wine etc. The are often much sweeter than you'd expect wine to be. Often made by small independant producers, commonly available in fruit growing areas.

After watching Arsenic and Old Lace I've always been a bit leery of homemade wines. :) We used to buy wild plum wine and it was scrumptious.

Mmmm, this thread made me think of the Provence books by Peter Mayle, the first being A Year in Provence. Lots of good food and wine. I very much want to go to Provence and eat and eat and eat. I've always remembered his advice about finding the best place to eat for lunch. Find a truck driver sometime before noon, drive after him, and let him lead you to his favorite restaurant for lunch. They always know the best places to eat. I really want to try that!

Well, that would work fine, as long as it doesn't end up at a McDonalds. :) When on vacation we've learned to ask people, "Where do you eat?" If you ask where is a good place to eat, they will send you to a ritzy tourist place which isn't always the same as a great restaurant.

Anything by Joanne Harris makes me hungry (including her cookbook!). The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon makes frequent mention of yummy-sounding food.

And, #38 -- yes! Pouring maple syrup on snow is something I always wanted to try too. My mom let me try it with that fake Log Cabin stuff once, but that's not real syrup and Maryland winters just aren't cold enought to freeze maple candy, even if we have snow. :(

Oh, and I tried an organic blueberry wine once that was quite good.

Dark is Rising is one of my all time favorite series. Scones are a good idea, but, you really need a rather good pot of tea, too!

Lilian Jackson Braun Cat Who... books always make me hungry. Even the descriptions of what Quill prepares for the cats are often mouthwatering. I've seen a cookbook based on the series but it was out of range of my pocket money at the time.

For Harry Potter fans there are some good recipes over at mugglenet.com. I used their recipe for butterbeer for a HP a few years ago. The taste was fantastic. Although it was so very, very sweet no one could drink more than a half a cup.

Whenever I read English books, I crave Indian and English food. After reading A Long Way Down, I needed to order in a curry. And I sulked for days abut my lack of crisps. I was born in the wrong country - I LOVE English food.

#29 I too start drooling whn reading Redwall books. There's a book, you know - The Redwall Cook Book. I need to buy it, although my cooking inabilites are epic.

Teany had great recipes, and made me long for my vegan days.

And Little House In The Big Woods inspired me to go try to hunt squirrels as a girl.

Also A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. I dream of those pickles. And broken crackers.

Now I'm hungry. Great.

#52- I LOVE English food.
Seriously? All those "pies" and grey sausages and lamb roast with mint sauce and baked beans & ketchup with everything and...?

That said I really like fish'n'chips. But on a plate, with remoulade - not wrapped in paper in the middle of the night, hehe.

#53 Yeah, I really do. For my 20th birthday, I tried to convince my friends to go to an English-style restaurant. I love bangers and mash. I love the big insane breakfasts. I love tea with EVERYTHING. I love it all.

I'm 100% italian descent, might I add, so this passion for English food causes a massive amount of anxiety among my relatives, who are all off-the-boat.

#54 - Perhaps you were switched at birth with another infant...
:o)

Glad to know other people have book inspired cravings too - when my husband and I were reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows there's a scene where Ron mentions wanting a bacon sandwich so we were inspired to have BLT's the next day!

>53 Busifer: Busifer! I'm deeply saddened by your feelings towards my wonderful country's cuisine, in particular the fact that you don't appear to think that pies are wondrous! How can this be? Pies are magical. And sausages are only grey if you've done them wrong. Seriously, good british food can be great. I realise it's often done badly and I'm possibly taking this a mite too seriously, but I do get rather defensive about my lovely isle's contributions to cooking :-)

Plus, ketchup with everything is heresy.

Now, tea with everything, yes. Tea is the panacea, after all, and you never know when you might be sickening for something :-)

Hehe, I knew I might offend someone with that remark ;-)

Now, a friend of mine is of mixed british descent - her dad was an expat living in... eh, Tanzania, if I don't remembers this wrongly (he moved back home when he got elderly).
Anyway, she LOVE english style pies and always do them for dinner when she invites people over. She also go to the local "english" shop and buy specially imported english sausages...
I can eat it. But it's not my choice in foods. Sorry.

I've also had typical english food, I guess, when visiting London.

Not to mention being to mediterranean resorts catering to the english, where no geniune food can be found. Sole with baked beans, anyone? During a trip to Menorca I learnt that this is because some englishmen seems to take a suitcase packed with foods with them - cheese, sausages, tins w/baked beans... as they don't trust unknown brands.
But I guess that's about class; most working class people went there, or so it seemed to me.

BTW - Bangers and mash is VERY common in Sweden, I don't consider it "typically" english at all.
It's the kind of food you give kids who won't eat anything else, or something you stuff between the pub and home, late at night ("mosbricka").

I am surprised no one mentioned Like Water for Chocolate! I had a hankering for mole for years after reading that, and found it to be as good as I imagined.

Edited to get the right touchstone....which does not appear to be loading!

I don't mind English food. I especially like the English breakfast. I think the best part of being in England in terms of cuisine is the Indian food though. I wonder if it's just as tasty in India?

Don't you have Indian food in the US? It's all over Europe, like chineese...
I have to admit is not as spicy here as in the UK, though. But an friend of indian heritage says english style indian food are the one closest to the original.

We have it, but it's not nearly as common, and we actually have no Indian food where my parents live. There's some in Boston near where I go to university though. You can get some of the ingredients in food stores, but they're more generic curry types, instead of specific meals. It also doesn't taste quite the same, unfortunately. =(

This leads to massive curry cravings and I always go for some shortly after arriving in England. =)

I can understand that! For myself, I eat indian food for lunch two or three times a month; there's an indian restaurant 50 metres down the street from the office where I work :-)

I'd love to try out some Indian food, if I could ever find it around here (fat chance). Are there any dishes that tone down the spice? Spicy hurts my tongue :(

edited to add a forgotten preposition!

Yes, anything called "korma" can generally be trusted as safe for those who don't want spices to burn their mouth to cinders ;-)

Thanks, Mrs. P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korma It looks yummy!

I ate Indian food in London last time I was there, and have now been spoiled. It's SO much better than what we have here.

Darn, now I want Indian food, and I am broke and lacking money for anything but laundry.

I WISH I had been switched at birth! Unfortunately I have the mushy features and psychotic tendencies of my parents' families, so I'm doomed.

#57 LizT - I agree, English pies are Love.

littlebookworm, if you are on the Cambridge/Somerville side of the river, I highly recommend Punjabi Dhaba in Inman Square (near Harvard). Really good and the guys behind the counter are characters!

Busifer, I am jealous! My Indian cravings will probably end when I move to the UK in 1-2 years, though. ;)

missylc, My boyfriend and I actually went there on a "date" (we don't really do dates) last time he was visiting me and we did indeed enjoy it! I have fast and free access to both Cambridge and Boston from my school. We're going back there next time he visits. :)

We didn't talk to the guys behind the counter though, will have to remember that! Thanks!

>36 xicanti:

About coffee, I noticed there often seems to be some second-rate substitute in fantasy novels too, thats why Fire Sword made me smile - At random intervals we learn of the heroine's burgeoning magical skills via her attempts to create coffee (that and the fact its got a semi-naked woman holding aloft a sword with a wolf at her heels on the cover - how could it go wrong lol)

#60 "I wonder if it's just as tasty in India?"

Its different.

As tasty yes, actually tastier in India - depending on where you go.... But the food you get in Indian restaurants is more of a banquet style food, than that eaten every day. On the other hand they do it eat it every day, which gets to be a bit much after a while. Lunch and dinner I could cope with, lunch dinner and breakfast was too much. There is a vast amount of time spent cooking by 'traditional' ousewives and servants, so each meal consists of many dishes. There are a lot of ingrediants that don't often make their way out of india - many many varieties of gourds etc.
The banquet difference is even more pronounced with Chinese restaurant food, and chinese in china food.

"suitcase packed with foods with them - cheese, sausages, tins w/baked beans... as they don't trust unknown brands.
"
I have known people like this, its not so much trust as that you can't get baked beans abroad. or cheddar. etc. A day without a piece of real cheddar is hard. Your fancy foreign soft smelly cheese is all very well, but it's not cheddar is it?

There are some really very poor english sausages. But there is also a revival in proper sausages to delight anyone.

Mmm, Indian food! I could live off of roti. I really, really could.

My next-door neighbors are Indian, and I love going to family weddings and events with them. The food is always to die for. Similarly, my uncle is partnered with an Indian woman, and her family's events are always fantastic. So much good food!!!

#71 - its not so much trust as that you can't get baked beans abroad

It's like my inlaws - they went to Thailand for 4 months one winter and when they came home they complained that the hard bread was so expensive there! Duh. Bread is not a big food item in Thailand, of course hard bread imported from Sweden from half around the globe is expensive!

Personally I think a big part of going abroad is to taste different kinds of food.
I even think so after spending 14 days eating rice and beans and old hen when in Cuba.
I can understand that we go abroad for different reasons. But 14 days without baked beans or cheddar don't seem so bad to me, even if those items are substitued for swedish staples.
Eating foreign food is not like taking poison...

#73 Busifer:

I agree, part of the enjoyment of traveling is tasting different cuisines. My wife and I went to Puerto Rico on our honeymoon, staying at a Hyatt resort about 25 miles west of San Juan. The resort included about 6 restaurants, but none served Puerto Rican cuisine. I can get Italian and Asian near home, so why would I want those when I am in Puerto Rico? We went into the nearby village and enjoyed the local foods from a few restaurants and cafes, especially the mofongo (mashed plantains with your choice of meat fillings served in a wooden pilon).

Funny story - when we were in New Brunswick, Canada to see the Hopewell Rocks and walk on the floor of the Bay of Fundy we had breakfast at a small restaurant adjacent to our motel. I ordered bacon with my breakfast, assuming I would get Canadian bacon - which is leaner and, to me, tastier, than traditional bacon. I was very disappointed when I received 3 slices of soggy bacon I could have gotten in any American diner. My wife still laughs about that one.

As for hard bread being expensive in Thailand - I went to Bermuda for a business trip and everything is expensive there. There is no land for agriculture, so other than the locally caught fish, everything is imported. I had a small pizza and a salad for dinner one night which cost $30. For my own amusement, I checked out the local supermarket and was surprised to find American store-brand products for sale inside at about triple the prices I pay back home. The name brand products were even pricier.

Back to book-inspired food :o) I had completely forgotten until I started nibbling on some just now -- I'm completely addicted to candied pineapple since reading about it in the Harry Potter books (Slughorn's favorite bribe).

Oh man, the food in the Little House books! I made horrendous messes as a child, trying (unsuccesfully) to create Wilder meals from Farmer Boy!

As an adult, Lawrence Sanders' Archy McNally books are stuffed with descriptions of wonderful meals. Of course, I would be dead if I drank even a third of the alcohol those people swill down in the McNally stories..!

yes much to much alcohol going on in books!

There is a little house cookbook out, I saw it a few years ago!

#52 ellevee: Ohhh I recently read Neverwhere and I've been craving vegetable curry ever since. Hmmm! I've never had it, I might add, or at least I don't remember ever having it. We do have Indian restaurants here, Panama City is very, how shall I put it, cosmopolitan? Lots of different cultures here, lots of cuisines, but... I don't go out much :P

#59: Arctic-Stranger: I was thinking the same thing! The first book I thought of as I read the thread was Like Water for Chocolate! Hmmm! That book had me salivating all the way! :P~

#73: Busifer: I agree. I make it a point to try local foods whenever I travel. I mean, why order something I could easily get at home, right? Where's the fun in that! Sure, there have been some disappointments, but still. Like last year, in Buenos Aires, everyone was raving about the famous Argentinian beef and barbecues, etc. And I really don't like beef. I mean, I can eat meat, I'm not a vegetarian or anything, but, it's so boring! They don't even use anything more than salt & pepper for their "famous" barbecue, and they use ALL parts of the cow, yuck! Then again, there have been a few nice surprises: about 10 years ago, in Peru, I got to eat cui, hmm, I think the equivalent in English is guinea pig, but I'm not sure. Was tasty, though... But the best was the Peruvian ceviche, ahhh! Better than Panamanian ceviche, by far.

#76: estarriol: I agree about Lawrence Sanders's Archy McNally books. The food mentioned in those books sounds really tasty.

Ohh and Dean Koontz almost always mentions food in his books. The way he describes what his characters are eating, ahhh!!! To die for. Last one I read of his was one of the Frankenstein series, I don't remember if it was the first or the second one, where he describes the detectives having a Cajun meal, ohhh!! I had a craving to try that for quite a while after I read it. No Cajun restaurant here, though :( And several of his books with psycho killers (if I recall correctly, Hideaway, Mr Murder, Dragon Tears) mention junk food profusely.

What's the matter with these touchstones, anyway? Must be hungry after all this talking about food...

#79 Odd Thomas made me want good diner food really badly, and incredibly sulky when the food was mediocre and the fry cook was surly.

Back in college my group put on a themed dinner, including both punnish entries like that in The Star Wars Cook Book and Serve it Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey -- we really enjoyed the liquid nitrogen ice cream -- but there were some more in-character ones as well, like lembas bread from Tolkien and Fairy Cake (I think from something Gaiman.

It's been long enough that I can't remember the exact contents of the menu, and I've been having very little luck finding recipes of the latter category online -- so I greatly appreciate the suggestions in this topic. Sunshine definitely deserves inclusion in any future occurrence.

I've posted my recipe for Alice's Plum Cake from Through the Looking Glass over in the Literary Cuisine group, but I'm still having trouble figuring out how to hand it round and only THEN cut it... perhaps an arrangement with fishing line akin to the old Mr. Wizard trick of slicing a banana inside its peel with needle and thread?

I'm just trying to end the italics, they hurt my eyes.

I'm not reading anything appetizing right now.

The Lord of the Rings, Little House on the Prarie, The Wind in the Willows, Narnia, Harry Potter, and so many of Anne McCaffrey's books (especially Pern with The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern handy with accompanying recipes). To me, a book is really good if it's got some good home cooking.

Years ago I read all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. Wolfe had a great cook named Fritz who prepared shad roe whenever it was in season. I was curious but had never found it on a menu till I went to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station in NYC. It was delicious and I've been hooked ever since

kathi - I'm a big Wolfe fan too, in fact I was just reading through If Death Ever Slept with The Black Orchid group. In it is mentioned a dish which consists of "whipped avocado with sugar, lime juice and Green Chartreuse." I can't figure out what that would be. Soup? Drink? Sorbet? It doesn't sound very good to me, except maybe the Green Chartreuse. :)

There's a recipe for bread pudding made with donuts in To Die For by Linda Howard - a way, way over the top concoction, which I am sure guarantees a heart attack for anyone who dares!

After a recent reread of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe my friend and I attempted to make Turkish delight. It turned out rather more runny than it should have been. And we also decided the flavor just wasn't that great.

We intend to try making treacle fudge because of Harry Potter. We did make butterbeer, but it was so rich we didn't even drink one mug. (We just did it with cream soda and butterscotch sauce I think, and then warmed it up.)

>14 bluesalamanders: & 44 There is a recipe for (if I remember correctly) Quick After-Battle Triple Chocolate Cake at the end of Book of Enchantments by Patricia C. Wrede. I haven't tried it, but I bet it's good.

The Triple-Chocolate After-Battle Cake is a lot of fun to _read_ - I haven't tried making it, it sounds like one of those restaurant cakes where it's so chocolate you're almost sick after half a piece. Maybe someday.

I actually did make this cake right after I read the book, and it's really, really good. The three chocolates are baking cocoa, chocolate milk, and chocolate chips. It's dense but not overly so, and not super-rich, AND it kept really well just loosely covered on the counter for a week.

#87 left33: My wife and I took the easy way out, we went to a Turkish grocery store and bought some Turkish delight. It was available in several flavors, I don't remember exactly what we got, but we weren't too impressed.

lefty33 - I made the Turkish Delight in The Narnia Cookbook, my kids loved it, me, eh. A lot of sweetness.

#88 - You mean the cake lasted that long! That just doesn't happen when I'm involved, or my family.

>91 Choreocrat: I know, I was surprised too, but one of my housemates is very lactose intolerant, so she wasn't helping, and the other one made a huge batch of very very rich chocolate friands the next day, and then I made a strawberry glacé pie for a dinner party that weekend, etc..... so a 9x13 cake pan took us a while.

> 85 - It's actually a pudding. I saw my coworkers eat it on a business trip to Brazil and it really freaked me out. They have several different varieties of avocados, though, so they may have used a sweeter version than the one we're used to in the North.

"The cat who" books by lilian jackson Braun will make you hungry too! Start with the first one; The Cat Who Could Read Backwards"

vortenjou - Thank you. It sounds....interesting. :)