A Feast of Ice & Fire

One of my very favourite things to do is to cook themed food with my besties to go with books we’re reading, TV shows we’re binging or films we’re watching. We had a big cooking session earlier this year for “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe“, but one of our favourite TV shows to cook themed food for is “Game of Thrones”, the TV adaptation of the fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R R Martin. Although he says he’s not much of a cook, Martin peppers his books with vivid descriptions of food. A little while ago, in response to my declarations of love for cooking themed food, I received this cookbook via Redditgifts. After struggling to avoid spoilers during my five weeks of American literature, we decided to go all out with our food and I decided to cook one of my favourite “Game of Thrones” recipes.

“A Feast of Ice & Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook” is a cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer, with an introduction by George R R Martin himself, based on food described in his fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire”. The cookbook is mostly divided by regions of Westeros, the land in which the novels are set, each of which have their own particular climates and cuisines. The cookbook also has some preliminary chapters on how to stock a medieval kitchen and some basic medieval recipes which give the chef some grounding upon which to tackle some of the recipes.

Many of the recipes have a traditional version and a modern version. So, if you want to try and cook aurochs or spice your food with grains for paradise, you can! Otherwise, you can use more modern ingredients for a more contemporary flavour. This time I went for a recipe I had tried before: Sister’s Stew. I really l like food where the plate or bowl is also food, and this one never disappoints. It’s a deliciously creamy seafood stew served in a bread loaf bowl.

This is a beautifully structured, immersive cookbook with a dash of medieval history. A good bit of fun to spice up a TV night, though it looks like we’ll have to wait until 2019 to try more recipes!