From Gingerbread to Goblin Fruit: A Fairy Tale Food Round Up
Gingerbread houses deep in the forest. Baskets of treats for Grandma. Poisoned apples. Bowls of porridge, simmered just right. Food is an integral part of the fairy tales we tell, and to keep you satiated while you wait for The Fairy Tale Magazine's upcoming Issue Ravenous, we have served up a buffet of delicious folklore, literary cookbooks, luscious art, and food-themed quotations for you to savor. And, as a special treat, our Editor-in-Chief, professional composer and poet Kristen Baum DeBeasi, has baked us a playlist of music to make our mouth water! So, pull up a chair, Be Our Guest, and dine on every delectable morsel in our roundup!
Food Folklore
*If a man and a woman eat from the same beet, they will fall in love
*In ancient Greece, dill was used to garland the brows of returning war heroes
*Eat twelve grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve to usher in good luck
*Always toss spilled salt over your left shoulder to ward off evil spirits
*Spilling milk is considered a bad omen
*Dropping a tortilla on the floor means a visit from your in-laws is coming soon
*Keep fish scales in your wallet for good fortune
*Hanging garlic from the rafters can prevent the evil eye
*Place a piece of wedding cake under your pillow to dream of your future spouse
Cookbooks for your Literary Kitchen
What better way to begin a Fairy Tale Cookbook Roundup than with Alexander Höss-Knakal’s Fairy Tale Cooking: Delicious Dishes Inspired by The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Aladdin, and Other Classic Characters and Christin Geweke’s Fairy Tale Baking: Delicious Treats Inspired by Hansel & Gretel, Snow White, and Other Classic Stories. Both volumes contain fairy tale inspired recipes alongside photography by Melinda Kutelas and Yelda Yilmaz. You’ll find dishes like Mushroom Flatbread with Hazelnut Pesto (inspired by Little Red Riding Hood) and Black Forest Cherry Trifle (inspired by the deep, dark woods).
The most famous fairy tale collectors get their own kitchen volume titled The Brothers Grimm Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Fairy Tales. Robert Anderson presents concoctions drawn directly from the Grimms Kinder-und-Hausmarchen such as Clever Hans’s Sticky Bacon and Onion Pan Fry and Spider’s Web Pancakes. Divided into sections like Once Upon a Time, Crumbs & Nibbles, The Magic Cooking Pot, and Happily Ever Afters, this book is sure to delight fairy tale fans.
Once Upon a Kitchen by Leslie Bilderback offers readers 101 magical recipes inspired by Arthurian Legend, The Arabian Nights, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and even Shakespeare! Recipes include Lusty Month of May Potato Soup, Aladdin’s Magical Garden Salad, Gandalf’s Cold Chicken and Pickles, Jedi Ration Bars, Titania’s Apricot and Dewberry Crisp, and, my favorite, Witches’ Brew (a coconut shrimp green curry). The perfect cookbook for literary minds!
Magic takes over in The Wizard’s Cookbook and The Wizard’s Dessert Cookbook both penned by Aurelia Beaupommier. The first volume outlines the author’s “Who’s Who” of sorcerers before launching into magical foods for every day and feasts for special occasions. The second volume provides sweet recipes for Butterbeer, Lucy Pevensie’s Magic Cordial, and Bilbo’s 111th Birthday Cake. Fans of JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, and CS Lewis will find themselves drawn to the kitchens to recreate their favorite literary meals. And for those who prefer Elves to Wizards, check out Robert Anderson’s The Elven Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by the Elves of Tolkien.
Kitchen Witch: Food, Folklore, and Fairy Tale by Sarah Robinson does not contain any detailed recipes, but it invites readers to find magic in all corners of their kitchen. Robinson compiles the folklore and healing properties of everyday foods and explores the significance of celebrating with food as the wheel of the year turns. She also offers an historical overview of kitchen witches and a study of food in fairy tale. I love this informative book, but if you prefer your folklore with recipes try Eric Johnson’s The Folklore Cookbook: Fairy Tales and Recipes which pairs seventy-five original folktales with instructions for preparing matching dishes.
Where would The Fairy Tale Magazine be without our beloved trolls? Karima Cammell and Clint Marsh’s The Troll Cookbook gifts readers “the aromatic spell of a stirred pot; the ritual conjuring of ingredients; the ancient, rumbling wilderness echoed in our hungry bellies.” This treasure explores the primal flame and provides with readers with an overview of trolls before grouping its stories, folklore, and recipes by season and ending with a reminder to rekindle the flame of simple living and home cooking. Practical tips like the value of a sharp knife and the economic benefit of tending a garden are placed next to whimsical stories, gorgeous illustrations, and tongue-in-cheek troll equivalents for temperatures, measurements, and weights. The result is pure magic, and readers will soon find themselves searching the tree lines for the ancient shadows of trolls. This is one of my most precious cookbooks, and it never fails to fill my kitchen with enchantment.
The incomparable Jane Yolen, who was featured as an Enchanted Creator in our Briar and Thorn Issue, brings her folkloric magic to children in Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers and Eaters. Written with her daughter Heidi Stemple, and lovingly illustrated by Philippe Béha, this book draws connections between the art of cooking and the art of storytelling, explaining how both processes’ contain changeable ingredients which make every serving unique. Yolen and Stemple return to the intertwining of storytelling and cooking in both Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts and Hanukkah Fairy Tale Feasts, collections which feature retellings of Jewish tales alongside classic recipes. And, Jane Yolen also pens the introduction to Paul Yee’s Chinese Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook (illustrated by Shaoli Wang), a book which folds the fairy tale and folklore of China into child-friendly recipes designed to stimulate family time in the kitchen. The latest in this series is Arab Fairy Tale Feasts which features Karim Alrawi’s stories and pictures from Nahid Kazemi.
Make way for one of my favorite books of all time: The Unofficial Princess Bride Cookbook: 50 Delightfully Delicious Recipes for Fans of the Cult Classic by Cassandra Reeder. In addition to complete party menus for a Feast of Insanity and a Storming the Castle Banquet, this volume features recipes for Fezzik’s Restorative Stew and Buttercup’s Perfect (Chicken) Breasts. Filled with tidbits of information about the movie, this book is sure to be on the As-You-Wish-List of every Princess Bride fan. Find my full review of the cookbook here.
Looking for a fairy tale adjacent cookbook? Consider A Gothic Cookbook: Hauntingly Delicious Recipes Inspired by 13 Classic Tales, a text which grew out of Dr. Alessandra Pino’s academic study of how food manifests on Gothic pages. Ella Buchan, a food writer and recipe developer, joins Pino to create over sixty original recipes illustrated by Lee Henry. America’s most popular Gothic writer gets his own cookbook in A Ravenous Feast: Spellbinding Recipes Inspired by the Literary Works of Edgar Alan Poe by Veronica Hinke, and the Mystery Writers of America ban together to create Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die For. Literature lovers can also find tamer options include The Book Lover's Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages That Feature Them by Shaunda Wenger and Janet Jensen, Jane Austen's Table by Robert Anderson, and A Literary Tea Party: Blends and Treats for Alice, Bilbo, Dorothy, Jo, and Book Lovers Everywhere by Alison Walsh.
If you prefer to get your nutrients in liquid form look no further than La La Laine’s Fairytale Cocktails: Cocktails Inspired By Your Favorite Disney Characters. Dedicated to all the “Disney adults” who still believe in fairy tales, this book is divided into chapters like Snow White’s Hazy Adventures, A Whole New World of Flavors, and Under the Sea Mixology. Full-color photography allows readers to enjoy the beauty of drinks like Mad Hatter’s Punch and Enchanted Rose Martinis. This book contains the perfect concoctions for romantic evenings or girls’ nights curled up watching a favorite film. If you don’t consider yourself a Disney adult but still like to raise a glass of cheer, try the literary inspired Tequila Mockingbird by Tim Federle, a book which blends sixty-five drink recipes with scintillating commentary on the novels which inspired them.
For a cozy tavern-inspired meal, why not try The Copper Spoon Chronicles Cookbook? Emily Teuscher offers a culinary quest through a world of flavor and fantasy, peppering her stories with recipes like Roasted Garlic Butter and Hen and Hearth Stew. I follow Emily on TikTok where she posts meals for weary travelers, and her concoctions never fail to delight me! This beautifully illustrated book is sure to be a favorite among Dungeons and Dragons players and adventurers!
Finally, nothing is more fairy tale than celebrating the wheel of the year, and Erika Kubick’s gorgeous text Cheese Magic: Seasonal Recipes, Plates, and Pairings does just that, providing readers with delectable concoctions to carry them from Imbolc through Yule. Divided into eight seasonal sections and illustrated by Devon Forst, this book will keep cheese-lovers’ mouths watering as the wheel turns.
I love to flip through cookbooks and dream about recipes for parties, celebrations, and gatherings with friends. We hope our list of literary cookbooks inspires you to make some magic in your own kitchens!
Art and Quotations to Savor
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy" (Christina Rossetti)
"Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy” (Christina Rossetti)
"Then she went into her most secret room--no one else was allowed inside--and she made a poisoned, poisoned apple. From outside it was beautiful, white with red cheeks, and anyone who saw it would want it. But anyone who might eat a little piece of it would die" (Little Snow White, The Brothers Grimm)
"The bird sat on the roof, and when they came closer, they saw that the little house was built entirely from bread with a roof made of cake, and the windows were made of clear sugar" (Hansel and Gretel, The Brothers Grimm)
"One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter" (Little Red Riding Hood, Charles Perrault)
"At noon she found dinner ready, and while at the table, was entertained with an excellent concert of music" (Beauty and the Beast, Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont)
Music for Cooking
Compiled by our Editor-in-Chief Kristen Baum DeBeasi
This playlist includes a variety of food/topics around food and hunger from fairy tales old and new. Some of the pieces are inspired by the Brothers Grimm (Hansel & Gretel), Disney (Beauty and the Beast), Christina Rosetti (Goblin Market), The Nutcracker, Narnia, and a mashup of many familiar fairy tales. Two modern sonic retellings are: The Golden Fly One. This is lovely solo piano music by Alessandra Celletti. I like to imagine that her suite for The Golden Fly loosely shares fantasias on the Celtic tale of The Golden Fly (related to the myth of Étaín) involves food and drink, specifically a pivotal moment wherein the goddess Étaín, transforms into a golden fly and falls into a queen's cup, is drunk up by the queen, which leads to her magical rebirth as a human girl after the queen gives birth to her. It’s not clear that this is the inspiration according to the composer, but for me, that’s always been the story I connect it with. And the art song I composed, “Ravenous” based on Sally Rosen Kindred’s poem that’s inspired by the Grimm's tale "The Raven.”
We hope From Gingerbread to Goblin Fruit: A Fairy Tale Food Roundup has fed your soul while you wait for the Fairy Tale Magazine's upcoming Ravenous Issue! Fill your kitchen with music and bake up some magic for the people you love!
Kristen Baum DeBeasi, the Editor-in-Chief of The Fairy Tale Magazine, was born a flower child (on the inside). In fact, she remembers communing with the flowers surrounding her PNW home as a young girl. It wasn’t until later in life when her inner flower child grew bold enough to emerge (on the outside). Kristen has loved faeries and fairy tales for as long as she can remember. She is a poet, writer, and composer with a M.M. in theory and composition. The marriage of storytelling and music guides her creative expression. Visit her at: https://www.kbdebeasi.com/
Kelly Jarvis works as the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine, is a Recurring Columnist for Eternal Haunted Summer, and teaches writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University. Her work has been featured in A Moon of One’s Own, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, The Magic of Us, and Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. Her debut novella, Selkie Moon, was named a semi-finalist in the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship and her Gothic historical romance, Sea and Stars, won a Literary Titan Gold Book Award and a Literary Global Gold Seal. Connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/
