review
by Catherine Harper
The Wicca Cookbook (Ten Speed Press, 2000, ISBN 0-89087-995-8) has made me think on the many different levels on which I approach a cookbook. For while they are at the most superficial level collection of recipes, they can also be objects of value and beauty, and the best among them can illustrate the day-to-day life, culture, lore and stories surrounding the food they portray and the people who have eaten it.
Unfortunately, The Wicca Cookbook attempts rather disparate themes within its pages, and while some of these work well enough, it does not manage to bring them all together. All in all, the book was a disappointment, but it was a disappointment not so much because any one part of it was so outrageously bad, but because the presentation of the book was in so many ways good that it promised much and then fell short.
The book is beautiful. High production values, good layout, quality paper, beautiful illustrations - primarily medieval at least in theme, many of them seem to be reproductions of medieval illustrations. The book begins with a discussion of Wicca and Wiccan ritual, continues with a discussion of medieval cookery and a section on growing your own herbs and then continues with collections of recipes devoted to each Sabbat, including anecdotes, ritual suggestions and comments on the holidays themselves.
Let's pause here for a moment. All of this is wonderful. One might ask what exactly medieval cookery has to do with Wicca, but it seems clear to me that a yearning for a time when people lived closer to the land is closely tied with many things that have brought people to the Wiccan religion. I would prefer that the book be titled The Wiccan Cookbook (or better yet A Wiccan Cookbook), but I'm willing to accept what seems ungrammatical to me as merely a dialectical variant. On the surface, this book seems to promise an exploration of medieval cooking around a seasonal theme. Or at least seasonal cooking on medieval and Wiccan themes. And the package is tasteful, beautiful and surprisingly respectful.
Unfortunately, this initial promise has little to do with the contents of the book. The section on medieval cookery is full of glaring inaccuracies - not only the stuff that scholars of culinary history might debate over, but such things as might be obvious to the casual amateur, such as including pumpkins and scotch bonnets (both New World in origin and not available in Europe until post-medieval times) in the authors' list of favorite foodstuffs. Doing so is somewhat evocative and lends ambience to the book, but it is an exercise in fantasy, not scholarship. (It's worth mentioning that Beverly Pagram has written a wonderful, well-researched and well-cited compendium of domestic lore in her book Heaven and Hearth.)
Now, I have no objection to fantasy, though I prefer mine clearly labeled as such. And indeed, I have few objections to the rest of the contents of the book, except as it seems to be an exercise in mixed metaphors. The recipes are reasonable, and in some cases even delightful, though for the most part they reflect modern sensibilities. If the recipes in this book were presented as a collection from a particular coven or region, I would smile and admire. Many of the aphorisms and observations on the Sabbats do strike me as superficial and a tad annoying, but I know I tend to be a cynic on such things. I do have to wonder at the projected audience.
As it is, the book mostly frustrates me. Why turn to people with little knowledge of culinary history to write a cookbook that asserts so many ties to history? (And how can someone who has a degree in medieval history and a background in cooking neglect the overlap of these fields?) I can dismiss the recipe for "Sunshine Jell-O" as a nod to Wicca being, after all, a modern religion. But omelets recommended for Imbolc, a time never noted for production of eggs? Omelets require fresh eggs, and in quantity if they are to be any good - there's a reason that the holidays most associated with eggs occur later in the year, after the hens resume laying in earnest. Come to think of it, I'd like to know a little more about where fresh basil is so readily available at that time of year to make basil mint pesto. I must confess I'm jealous.... Why not list instead one of the classic winter pestos using over-wintering herbs instead of fragile sun-loving basil that expires if temperatures drop below 50 degrees? And why discuss Freya in connection with salmon, in the face of such a host of traditional associations? And these are only examples from a few pages.
Someday, perhaps there will be a book that fulfills the promises The Wicca Cookbook seems to make. I hope that when it appears, it will be published in an equally beautiful manner, for it will surely deserve it.
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