A Gothic Cookbook Guest Post: Supper and the Supernatural

Gothic literature-loving foodies, you’re in luck! A talented team is putting together A Gothic Cookbook, which explores the role that food plays in classic and contemporary Gothic texts and allows you to bring the spirit of your favorite Gothic settings to life in your own kitchen. This gorgeously illustrated cookbook will feature over sixty recipes inspired by thirteen different Gothic texts. The cookbook is currently being crowdfunded on Unbound, so if you want to get your hands on a copy be sure to support the campaign! In the meantime, check out this guest post by one of the cookbook’s creators. Below, Ella Buchan, co-author of A Gothic Cookbook with Alessandra Pino, talks about how food is the most underrated character in Gothic literature:

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A bowl of velvety paprika hendl or chicken paprikash, inspiring warm thoughts of home while the chilling unknown lies ahead (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). A ghostly presence that craves sugar, “as though sweet things were what she was born for” (Beloved, Toni Morrison). A lavish afternoon tea, laid out daily on the dot in deference to the deceased (Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca). And, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a vegetarian “monster,” who forages for acorns and berries rather than deprive the humans whose acceptance he so desperately craves.

Food may not be the first thing that springs to most people’s minds in connection with Gothic literature but, in fact, it’s an important and evocative device that many authors use to create tension, suspense, sadness and, often, a warm sense of comfort that jolts and jars with the chilliness that defines (as much as can be) the genre.

Take Jonathan Harker, whose journal draws us into Stoker’s novel and to Dracula’s castle. The paprika hendl—a traditional Hungarian stew laced with paprika—he eats at the Hotel Royale in Budapest is both unfamiliar and comforting, prompting him to jot a memo to “get recipe for Mina”, his fiancée. It’s a simple dish, and a simple line, yet it’s as laced with foreboding as the stew is laced with paprika.

In du Maurier’s masterpiece, Rebecca, food features prominently once more. It’s an early alarm bell warning of Maxim de Winter’s controlling nature; after his disappointing proposal, over breakfast, he offers her segments of his tangerine, which leaves a “sharp, bitter taste” in her mouth. Later, food weighs down tables at the ball, where chicken in aspic, soufflés and salmon and lobster mayonnaise are a symbol of social status—and an ever-present and often brutal reminder of the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca.

Housekeeper Mrs Danvers, in particular, will not allow her to be forgotten, and food is among the weapons in her arsenal. It attacks regularly but especially at half past four, when the daily “performance” of laying afternoon tea begins. Every object is crisp and pristine to the point of seeming sinister: “the silver tray, the kettle, the snowy cloth.” The spread itself is evocatively described, with “dripping crumpets … tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, floury scones.” There are “mysteriously flavoured” sandwiches, and “that very special gingerbread.”

Yet the deliciousness is soured by a ghost because, as our narrator bemoans, “the food we ate was the food [Rebecca] liked.” Maxim’s second wife feels—and is treated like—an interloper, and wresting control of the kitchen becomes her mission.

Similarly, in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, a seldom-seen presence haunts the house. This time it’s gin, in the form of the “private bottle” kept by Mrs Poole and from which she often takes “a drop over-much,” that plays a crucial role, allowing Mr Rochester’s incarcerated wife, Bertha, to break free from her room and roam the hallways at Thornfield.

Another Gothic classic that is rich in evocative descriptions of food is Toni Morrison’s seminal Beloved, a ghost story about the unnatural, undying horrors of slavery. The spirit craves sugar with a ferocious appetite matched only by her hunger for her mother’s love; Sethe feels “licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved’s eyes.”

These are the stories, and dishes, that have inspired us to write A Gothic Cookbook, which for the first time brings together a diverse range of classic and contemporary Gothic literature and tells their stories through food. Each of 13 chapters focuses on a Gothic novel or short story, discussing its edible themes and motifs before sharing recipes that readers can recreate in their own kitchens.

There’s hot negus and a gin and tonic cake, inspired by Jane Eyre, chicken in aspic and afternoon tea delights a la Rebecca, and bone broth as featured in Susan Hill’s terrifying The Woman in Black. The “bird and radishes” consumed in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is reimagined as spatchcock chicken with radish salad, while we’ll also share a recipe for chocolate mousses and a Chilean seafood stew or “chupe,” as featured in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby.

So, while the edible and the Gothic maybe strange bedfellows—or dinner party guests—they’re actually rather well acquainted. Food has, and continues to be, used by writers of Gothic literature to potent effect.

Like the warning signs telling Jonathan Harker not to journey to the castle, it was there all along—simmering beneath the surface, drawing us into the darkness and tempting us down a deliciously dangerous path.

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Food and travel journalist Ella Buchan is co-writing A Gothic Cookbook with her friend Alessandra Pino, an expert on food in Gothic literature and a PhD candidate at Westminster University, London. The original, and gloriously Gothic, hand-drawings that illustrate the book are by artist and graphic designer, Lee Henry.

The book is currently crowdfunding on Unbound, with more details of recipes, a sample chapter and ways you can support (and help make the book a reality) here.

Follow @agothiccookbook on Twitter and Instagram for updates.

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And stay tuned next month, as I plan to test out one of the Gothic Cookbook recipes!