In 1940, to capitalise on the success of Gone with the Wind, toothpaste company Pebeco published a tie-in cookbook, featuring recipes such as Coffee Cake Wheels and Georgia Peach Trifle. Since then, hundreds of films and TV shows have left their culinary mark. Here we prepare a meal, with each course coming from a different TV of film tie-in cookbook.
Hors d’oeuvre: Obi Won Tons
From the interplanetary franchise comes The Star Wars Cookbook
Admittedly, “chubby 36-year-old trying to impress his younger girlfriend” isn’t the demographic Lucas and pals are aiming for with this book. It is however a perfect introduction to baking for kids, consisting of characters’ names followed by the word “biscuit”. I was under the impression wontons were dumplings, filled with meat and poached in soup. This recipe is, simply, spring roll sheets baked and sprinkled with poppy seeds. It should be called Obi Won’s Flossing Nightmare. For an authorised book it is, sadly, unlikely to stir much enthusiasm from the franchise’s devoted fans. You do get cookie cutters with it though.
Starter: Sticky Fingers
The BDSM phenomenon’s fowl-based Fifty Shades of Chicken
Innuendo-wise we should be thankful cockerels aren’t the subject of this book. Prepare yourself for prefixes to chicken dishes such as “mustard-spanked”, “popped-cherry” and “spatchcocked” (that last one is legitimate). For this simple but satisfying starter, cut strips of chicken breast, submerge in salt, pepper, chilli powder and ground cumin then toss in melted brown sugar, honey and bourbon. Penetrate a hot oven and after five or six minutes slowly withdraw.
Main: Quails Drowned in Butter
Epic fantasy Game of Thrones presents A Feast of Ice and Fire
After having my request for direwolf chops dismissed as “silly” by my butcher, he then refused to pre-drown my quails. I had to settle for stupid, humanely killed ones. It’s an impressive main, with quails, in fact, marinated overnight in a kind of rich Elizabethan béarnaise sauce then roasted and presented on a platter surrounded by the poor bird’s own eggs. The book is intense – the culinary equivalent of spending the weekend with a live-action role-play group. Divided into GoT’s many regions, it even gives you the medieval version of a recipe before the corresponding modern one.
Side: Bob’s Tainted Meat Treats
Zombie apocalypse drama inspires the lighthearted The Walking Bread
Spare ribs are not the most obvious side dish for quail, but certainly a fun one. Cooked in ketchup, sugar and soy, you serve the ribs in a bread roll, bringing to mind the famous Charlie Chaplin bread roll dance, albeit using a severed and mutilated poisoned leg. This unauthorised accompaniment to The Walking Dead follows in the footsteps of publisher Trapeze’s other titles – Baking Bad and Game of Scones.
Pudding: Shelly Johnson’s Cherry Pie
David Lynch’s 90s whodunnit Twin Peaks has a perfect partner in Damn Fine Cherry Pie
More than 200 pages inspired by a dead teenager found on a riverbank wrapped in plastic. This ode to Twin Peaks is a slice of edible fan art. Lindsey Bowden, author of this unauthorised cookbook (and creator of the show’s UK festival), shares with us recipes for doughnuts, burgers and trout marinated in coffee as well as a lesson in tying a cherry stem in our mouths, like Sherilyn Fenn did. As for the Cherry Pie, Shelly Johnson’s secret addition of bourbon to the Double R Diner’s staple dish is a choice move.
Drink: Poussey’s Prison Hooch
Female prison drama Orange Is the New Black has the authorised Bites, Booze, Secrets and Stories from Inside the Big House
Finally! Prison food! We all want to eat like we’re incarcerated, right? But what to make from this diverse bunch of recipes complementing the backgrounds of all the different inmates? Well, after mumbling several times, “There’s no way they’d have that in prison,” I settled on Poussey’s Prison Hooch, aka moonshine or toilet wine – combine every alcohol in the cupboard and serve over ice. Or, if you’re after authenticity, take a bin bag, fill it with mashed up oranges, bread, ketchup and water, keep it behind a radiator for a month and filter through a sock. Delicious.
