"The blonde hadn't showed. She was smarter than I thought. I went outside to poison myself, with cigarettes and whisky."

November 28, 2011 10:10 AM

Reader, I marinated it. [independent.co.uk] What if Virginia Woolf, Geoffrey Chaucer or Raymond Chandler had turned their talents to food writing? Mark Crick imagines the contents of the celebrity cookbooks of yesteryear.
posted by Fizz (26 comments total)

this is harry mathews' "Country Cooking from Central France"
posted by taltalim at 10:23 AM on November 28, 2011

The knife was still in my hand but I couldn't hear any sirens.

My cooking generally goes like this. That is how I like it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:27 AM on November 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is great, thanks for it.
posted by Daddy-O at 10:30 AM on November 28, 2011

Hemmingway:

Steak. Rare. Eat with Nurse. Bed Nurse. Remember Nurse.
posted by The Whelk at 10:32 AM on November 28, 2011 [4 favorites]

Loved this!
posted by chatongriffes at 10:33 AM on November 28, 2011

For sale: Cuisinart. Used once.
posted by griphus at 10:38 AM on November 28, 2011 [6 favorites]

Excellent.
posted by honest knave at 10:59 AM on November 28, 2011

Ooh Ooh - I'll do James Frey!

I grew up cooking a ton of steak. Like, a steak every day, sometimes more. I once at an entire cow. With just a fork. Seriously, I was really into steak. Yeah... yeah, that's the ticket!

So anyhow, not many people know the intimate details of lifelong steak cooking like I do. You have to use sea salt or the whole thing is MEANINGLESS. It's critical that the salt not touch any of the fatty part! Wrap the steak in saran wrap and cook it until it's grey - a lot of people don't know this, but take it on my authority as a lifelong expert in the gritty real world of steak cooking, this is the way it's done unless you're some sort of phony dilettante.
posted by freebird at 11:05 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is just to say

You should take all
the plums
that are in
the icebox

And mix
them with cinnamon
along
with some port

Baked thusly
they are delicious
so sweet
yet not cold
posted by Westringia F. at 11:06 AM on November 28, 2011 [10 favorites]

so much depends
upon

a red salmon
fillet

glazed with olive
oil

beside the white
garlic cloves.
posted by emelenjr at 11:36 AM on November 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

I mis-read "Raymond Chandler" as Raymond Carver, but oddly, the piece works for both of them.
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 11:46 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Irvine Welsh:

Ye tek same beans, cut oof the lid wi tin opener, and pour inta yon pan. Put the pan on the stove an ye wait a few mins. Atween whiles, geet yer laif of Hovis an pop two sheaves in the toaster. When the toast pops oop, pour yir beans on top.
posted by metaxa at 11:51 AM on November 28, 2011

Gacht.... I missed off...

... ye glaykit wee radge, ye!
posted by metaxa at 11:52 AM on November 28, 2011

The Chandler, at least, is terrible. It's just generic "hardboiled," and reads like it was written by someone whose sole exposure to Chandler was from watching parodies of old Bogart movies based on Chandler books with screenplays that were by Faulkner anyway.
posted by Amanojaku at 12:19 PM on November 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

The Chandler, at least, is terrible. It's just generic "hardboiled," and reads like it was written by someone whose sole exposure to Chandler was from watching parodies of old Bogart movies based on Chandler books with screenplays that were by Faulkner anyway

Agreed it's easy to pick out stuff that's "off-note" about the Chandler one, but I still thought "None of them moved" was funny.
posted by juv3nal at 12:22 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll do Kerouac:

Outside the lights of Tucson in a flaming red dusk over the desert, he stopped and I lit a fire with mesquite branches, adding bigger branches and logs later, as it got dark, and when the coals were hot I tried to hold a steak over them with a spit but the spit burned so I just fried the huge steaks in their own fat in my lovely new potpan cover and handed him my jackknife and he went to it and said "Hm, om, wow, that is the best steak I ever et."

posted by MrMoonPie at 12:44 PM on November 28, 2011

Bolognese Machiavelli

1. Arrange to have garlic and onions cast into hot oil.
2. The carrot and celery you must divide against themselves. Ground beef, too, shall turn upon the burner; crush any coherent resistance with a spoon of wood. Sautee until no hint of blood remains to stain your hands.
3. Perhaps, in a dark place without witnesses, the tomato shall meet with the knife.
4. The basil and parsley you may use without consequence. For long minutes, all shall be muddled and roil on the surface of the flame.
5. If it is most advantageous, store cold for the proper day.

posted by urschrei at 12:44 PM on November 28, 2011 [14 favorites]

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish
Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish?

from The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook
posted by Auden at 12:53 PM on November 28, 2011 [6 favorites]

Now I'm going to spend all day trying to write a cassoulet recipe by Thomas Pynchon, thanks a lot. (Hint: it's long.)
posted by mek at 12:54 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have lots of literary inspired recipes, let me check my recipe box.

Hmm...the Sylvia Plath recipe card is just a picture of an oven door open.
_{Too soon?}
posted by Fizz at 1:26 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you like this sort of thing you'll probably enjoy these two recipes by Chuck Wendig (which I swear I'm going to make someday).
Sinner's Stew
Sausage, Apples and Pasta in Brown Butter
Guess What, Pig Butt
posted by smartyboots at 1:28 PM on November 28, 2011

Er, three recipes. Math is hard.
posted by smartyboots at 1:34 PM on November 28, 2011

Emily Dickinson

We dine tonight on Roast with drippings—Father will be glad
Austin will be over too, I guess, along with Mabel, too
Except—the roast is Delmore, who did no harm at all
Save break a fence to mount the Neighbor’s spotted heifer
What Chariot stopped for him, our Bloody Sacrifice?
Well, and the butcher at the back door—hands hanging dumbly like two slabs of meat
Bread and a thimble of wine in my room tonight
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:35 PM on November 28, 2011

almost passes the Gillian's Island Theme test.
posted by The Whelk at 5:38 PM on November 28, 2011

Possibly related: Terry Pratchett did this to himself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on November 29, 2011

And I might or might not be working on a Douglas Adams recipe for grilled cheese.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 AM on November 29, 2011