Cookbook of the Living Dead

(Sorry to reprint this blog; I published it before by mistake. Here are the corrections from class)

My roommate has dragged me down into her latest obsession: The Hunger Games. However, I am hardly one to complain. I have only read the first book and subsequently seen the movie, but I find myself drawn into this dystopian world. I have always loved stories set in a dark future or parallel world. So yes, I was happy to be drawn into this obsession, though I was surprised where it took me.

For a gift, my roommate received The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook.

There couldn’t have been a louder scoff than mine. A cookbook? For the series based upon children killing each other or starving to death? The fact that it is also “unofficial”, with a clear warning on the bottom that this cookbook is “not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by Suzanne Collins, her publishers, or Lionsgate Entertainment Corporation”, seemed to be the nail in the coffin. So, basically, this product didn’t come from a corporation looking to make a cheap buck, but from some random chick looking to edge in on someone else’s idea to make a cheap buck.

But I do have a soft spot in my heart for cookbooks. As an English and Writing major, after I finish all my homework of reading, writing, and analyzing, I usually am not up for indulging more with the written word. But I like flipping through cookbooks, looking for some new taste to try out for dinner. And The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook surprised me.

The recipes in it looked good. They looked different, which is a rare enough occurrence after two or three cookbooks, and they looked really delicious. This isn’t some half-hearted “Peeta Ham Sandwich” cookbook, but one full of real meals people will want to eat.

The book is broken up into ten Chapters: Breakfast of Champions, Breaking Bread, Keep the Camp Fires Low and Forage (Soups, Stews, and Salads), Humble Beginnings, Sink or Swim-Seafood, Don’t Call Me Chicken (Poultry), Put Some Meat on Your Bones (Beef, Lam, and Pork), Wild Game for Wild Girls, Just Desserts, and Katniss’s Family Book of Herbs. The author, Emily Ansara Baines, tries to give recipes from all sides of Panem: from the rich and luxurious Capitol to the hearty and the survival-oriented world of District 12.

I was surprised to see an entire chapter devoted to bread in this cookbook. Bread is extremely important to The Hunger Games triology, especially in the first book. All of the Districts make their own bread, and Peeta comes from a bakery. The bread in this chapter seems easy enough to make and some sound delicious, like the Heavenly Onion and Dill Bread.

This book has a lot of interesting additions besides the bread. There are also several jam recipes, like Jewel-Colored Mint Jelly and Orange Preserves. Jelly isn’t something you see in ordinary cookbooks; usually it comes in some sort of Do-It-Yourself book. There are also tea recipes and a smattering of goat cheese recipes, stemming from Prim and her goat Lady. The Honey, Goat Cheese, and Apple Tart recipe was what originally endeared me to this cookbook. I remembered how The Hunger Games mentioned this dish in the text, and how tasty I thought it sounded at the time. The cookbook also includes things you might remember from the book like the Orange Chicken that Katniss eats at the Capitol, the Lamb Stew with Dried Plums, and District 11’s Crescent Moon Bread with Sesame Seeds.

Lamb Stew with Dried Plums



District 11's Crescent Moon Bread with Sesame Seeds





The cookbook also has your classic sections: breakfast, poultry, seafood, red meats, and desserts. The poultry section is pretty impressive. I made the Moist Chicken in Basil Cream Sauce, clearly one of the decedent Capitol dishes. I sautéed the chicken in butter and drenched it in a heavy cream, parmesan, and basil sauce. It turned out fantastic; I couldn’t stop myself from indulging. Also looking good from that section is the Orange You Glad I’m Chicken and Katniss’s Picnic Chicken Salad.

Moist Chicken in Basil Cream Sauce

However, the poultry section reveals the cookbook’s biggest problem: it uses a lot of exotic ingredients that are difficult to find. This section not only has chicken, turkey, and duck, but partridge, dove, groosling, and pheasant. Since the book focuses on the scavenger District 12 and the over-the-top Capitol, several recipes include ingredients that will take some tracking down. Examples include primrose root, arrowhead tubers, yucca stalks, wood sorrel, kudzu, and Braunschweiger liver sausage. I am in favor of leaving Wal-Mart and looking for some of these things at farmer’s markets or specialty stores, but the fact that the author suggests ordering most of these ingredients from the Internet makes it too much of a hassle. Also, the chapter Wild Game for Wild Girls has recipes for rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, venison, beavers, mountain goats, and rats. Though I suppose hunters would like recipes for leftover venison, beaver and raccoon push this section to a completely worthless area.

Still, I find that 30-60% of the recipes in any cookbook are worthless due to bizarre ingredients, personally disliked tastes, or difficulty to prepare. The fact that I definitely won’t make some of the cookbook's recipes doesn’t take away the appeal of all the things I want to try from The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook.

What really impressed me about this book was the effort. Emily Ansara Baines could have renamed some Betty Crooker recipes,  and then popped out a waste of space book mostly composed of pictures of the actors from The Hunger Games movie; that would have also made money. But she didn’t; she instead put together a cookbook full of recipes people will want, one that draws from a source people love. She even included a chapter at the end that explains how to find your own wild herbs, berries, and vegetables like Katniss does. But especially since Baines mentions Peeta’s fatal slip with the nightlock berries, this section really should have included pictures.

So yes, if you are a French trained chef you might be embarrassed to put this besides all of your soufflé and risotto cookbooks. And yes, Baines does write an introductory sentence explaining how each recipe relates to The Hunger Games trilogies, and some of these lobotomize the reader with their grasping at straws, overly analyzed, metaphorical technique. However, this cookbook isn’t just going to gather dust in your respected Peeta or Gale Shrine. With the Odds in its Favor, The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook beat my disbelief and proved itself worthy through 150 respectable recipes (minus the rat recipe).