By L. John Harris
Inventing cookbooks is not a new task for me. As publisher of Aris Books in the 1980s, I focused on literary offerings that we referred to as “armchair cookbooks” — tomes you could read without ever venturing into the kitchen, like Mythology & Meatballs by Daniel Spoerri and The Feast of the Olive by Maggie Blyth Klein.
With the titles below, I have gone one step further. You don’t even have to read these books. Just feast on the titles and let them feed your funny bone. (Apologies to those allergic to gluten and bad puns.)
SAMUEL BECKETT: Waiting for Gigot
JOSEPH CONRAD: Lard Jim
MICHAEL CRICHTON: Jurassic Pork
CHARLES DICKENS: The Pickle Papers
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY: Cream and Punishment
WILLIAM FAULKNER: The Sound and the Curry
WILLIAM GOLDING: Lord of the Fries
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls
JAMES JOYCE: Finnegan’s Cake
HARPER LEE: To Cook a Mockingbird
JACK LONDON: The Kale of the Wild
THOMAS MANN: The Magic Muffin
HERMAN MELVILLE: Moby Duck
HENRY MILLER: Tropic of Caramel Corn
MARGARET MITCHELL: Gone With The Wine
MARCEL PROUST: In Search of Lost Thyme
JEAN PAUL SARTRE: Beans and Nuttiness
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Henry Ate
JOHN STEINBECK: Of Spice and Men
J.R.R. TOLKEIN: Lord of the Onion Rings
LEO TOLSTOY: War and Pizza
MARK TWAIN: Huckleberry Flan
JOHN UPDIKE: Rabbit Reduction
VOLTAIRE: Candied
KURT VONNEGUT: Breakfast of Champignons
ALICE WALKER: The Collard Purple
OSCAR WILDE: The Pitcher of Dorian’s Gravy
L. John Harris is a Berkeley-based writer, illustrator and filmmaker, and t he former publisher of Aris Books. He’s the author of Foodoodles: From the Museum of Culinary History and Café French: A Flâneur’s Guide to the Language, Lore and Food of the Paris Café. “If Authors Were Chefs” is adapted from his forthcoming book, My Little Illustrated Plague Year Journal.
