Cooking with Magic

I was in the local bookstore to pick something up, and what I was looking for wasn’t there. I browsed around a little since I had a 20% off coupon, and I saw this: The Wizard’s Cookbook. I made an impulse purchase. I regret nothing.

This is a cookbook, but all the recipes are based on characters from modern fantasy literature and include everything from the expected Harry Potter and Wizard of Oz to the equally cool but less expected Magica DeSpell, Link, Asterix and Obelix, Bewitched, and Dungeons and Dragons. Thankfully there’s a reference guide to who/what everyone is at the beginning that also includes page references for the relevant recipes. Some individuals have more recipes than others.

The recipes are divided up into categories: “Magical Food for Everyday”, “Feasts for Special Days”, “Marvelous Snacks and Sweets”, and “Bewitching Potions”. Some of the individual titles make it hard to tell what the recipe actually is, like “Brochettes of Finely Chopped Enemy” from Aladdin. Reading the actual recipe and it’s basically falafel. The titles are usually justified by a relevant literary quote (perhaps slightly doctored) such as: “‘When, like me, you are a powerful wizards with designs upon the Sultan’s throne, you have to be able to command respect. I’ll tell you a secret: ever since my faithful servant spread the rumor that this recipe is made from the flesh of my enemies, they are terrified whenever they see me. Ha! ha! ha!’ –The Vizier”.

The recipes themselves actually look pretty good, and many are written in the style of the title and story. My favorite has got to be “Witches Soup” as in Roald Dahl’s The Witches. I’d actually forgotten about this book of his, and I’ve read nearly all his novels. The soup itself is basically potato and zucchini soup with tapioca pearls flavored and dyed with tomato juice. This actually sounds tasty, and the recipe contains instructions like, “Rrrinse and peel the potatoes, and cut them into verrry large pieces. Rrrepeat with the zucchini.” Sometimes you have to read carefully too, since ingredient lists might contain things like Fruits of Intention (aka limes) and Fizzing Spirit of Troll (or tonic water) {both ingredients for Invisibility Potion from Dungeons and Dragons}. There’s also fairly reasonable looking recipes for things like Butterbeer, and Turkish Delight.

I find it unlikely that I’ll try everything in this book, since for example I don’t like mussels (Sorry, Magica) and I have no idea where I’d go to find kiwi juice for Green Potion (Sorry Link!) or boar (Sorry Asterix and Obelix). If I really wanted to, I could dive an hour and a half to the nearest Whole Foods where I’ll bet such things are available, but I just don’t care quite that much.

In spite of some ingredients and things I just don’t care for, this is still a fun book. It’s entertaining just for the reading, although I do think quite a few of the recipes are promising. I now also must get my hands of the Bartimaeus trilogy which inspired 8 recipes (several of which look promising) and sounds like an interesting read.