A Gothic Cookbook: Monstrous Meals and Culinary Chills from Literature

From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, A Gothic Cookbook focuses on thirteen different Gothic stories and their edible motifs before bringing them to life--and to your table. Delicious yet devious, this cookbook is a culinary and literary delight.

Dracula lulls protagonist Jonathan Harker into a false sense of security with cold cuts and a spicy, smoky, peppery stew. Frankenstein’s ＂monster＂ starts out as a benign vegetarian, while Mrs. Poole’s overindulgence in Mother’s Ruin triggers Mr. Rochester’s downfall in Jane Eyre - and a bitter tangerine signals a sharp, yet unheeded, warning against marriage and Manderley in Rebecca. Notice, too, how a ghostly presence craves sugar and burnt bread in Toni Morrison’s Beloved...

Inspired by Dr Alessandra Pino’s academic studies into how food manifests itself on the pages of Gothic literature and combining her knife-sharp analysis with Ella Buchan’s experience as a food writer and recipe developer, A Gothic Cookbook pays homage to the most appetizing cuts of the genre, featuring over sixty original recipes illustrated by Lee Henry.

Including recipes such as:

• Mina’s Chicken Paprikash from Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• That Very Special Gingerbread from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
• Acorn Bread inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
• And many more

Ella Buchan is an award-winning travel, food and drink journalist - and geeky gourmet - who regularly contributes to publications including National Geographic Traveller and Food, the Times, the Independent and the Telegraph. Based in North East England, she spends most of her time digging into the stories behind the cuisines and culinary traditions of places around the world, from cabbies’ shelters in London to the bodegones or traditional taverns of Buenos Aires. Ella also has experience in recipe development and a First Class degree in English Literature from Newcastle University - and is thrilled to at last be able to bring all these strands together in one beautifully bound book.

Dr Alessandra Pino is an expert on how the Gothic, food and cultural memory intersect. Alessandra was born in Hampstead, London, to an Italian mother and Venezuelan diplomat father, and grew up in several different countries. She holds university degrees in English Literature from Naples ＂L’Orientale,＂ Translation Studies from the University of Westminster and a PhD in Food, Cultural Memory and the Gothic. She worked with a Michelin-starred chef for nearly ten years before entering the world of academia. Alessandra brings to A Gothic Cookbook her deep academic knowledge, digging into food themes and motifs in a series of classic and contemporary novels from the 19th century to the present day.