Diet books always say that you shouldn’t read while you eat; authors of diet books are no fun. Eating while reading (or reading while eating) is a hallowed tradition; I’m sure the ancient Egyptians dribbled honeycake crumbs on their papyri. How else can you explain the number of literature-inspired cookbooks?
Take The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired By Celebrated Works Of Literature And The Passages That Feature Them by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen. Before each recipe there is an excerpt from the book that inspired it, ranging from Henry James to Bridget Jones.
Beloved author Jan Karon’s Mitford series was the inspiration for Jan Karon’s Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader, edited by Martha McIntosh. Brief passages from her books are paired with recipes inspired by them.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, there’s I’m In the Mood For Food: In The Kitchen With Garfield by Jim Davis. Yes, it’s a cookbook from everyone’s favorite lasagna-loving cat, peppered with cartoons and full of kid-friendly recipes.
There must be an even stronger connection between food and mysteries, because there are quite a few mystery-themed cookbooks.
For their book A Taste Of Murder: Diabolically Delicious Recipes From Contemporary Mystery Writers, authors Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl solicited recipes from such diverse mystery writers as Robert B. Parker, Anne Perry, Tony Hillerman, Sue Grafton, and Richard North Patterson.
Lilian Jackson Braun contributed a recipe, which is pretty sporting of her considering that she has not one but two cookbooks based on her popular Cat Who series. You can hardly read her books without getting hungry—there’s so much good eating going on–and The Cat Who… Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes and Menus Inspired by Lilian Jackson Braun’s Beloved Bestselling Mysteries and The Cat Who…Reunion Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes To Share will give you that recipe for chocolate pound cake from The Cat Who Saw Stars or thimbleberry pie from The Cat Who Went Underground so you can eat right along with the characters. After all, fictional calories don’t count.
Two other mystery writers who have their own cookbooks are Patricia Cornwell’s Food To Die For: Secrets From Kay Scarpetta’s Kitchen and Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook For Mystery Lovers: Favorite Recipes And Anecdotes From The Co-author Of The Mrs. Murphy Mysteries by Sneaky Pie Brown, aka Rita Mae Brown.
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Finally, when you have a lot of people who like to read and eat, and who like to share books and food, what you end up with are Book Clubs that serve refreshments. For those folks there is Read It And Eat: A Month-By-Month Guide to Scintillating Book Club Selections And Mouthwatering Menus by Sarah Gardner. It’s organized by month, each highlighting a different literary theme, with recipes inspired by that month’s books.
When we read a book we want to feel a connection to the characters; if we can’t, chances are we won’t finish the book. But for books we really like and are totally immersed in, eating food based on those books is a way to have a deeper connection with the world of that book.
