You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

4.0

A Literary Holiday Cookbook: Festive Meals for the Snow Queen, Gandalf, Sherlock, Scrooge, and Book Lovers Everywhere by Alison Walsh is a 2020 Skyhorse publication.

Every year, as the holidays descend, I cringe at the thought- but the one thing I look forward to is the food. We tend to indulge in many dishes, drinks, and desserts during the months of November- January that is seldom served outside of the holidays.

As much as I appreciate the variety of traditions we enjoy now, I have often been fascinated by the various holiday feasts depicted in books and movies.

That is why, when I came across this book, I knew I had to check it out. I thought it might be fun to re-create the holiday scenes in some of my favorite books, plus, it might be a creative way to liven up one’s holiday feast- and maybe lead to a few fun, lively- and safe- socially distant- conversations.


While the cover of the book suggests the recipes are those featured in Christmas themed novels exclusively, to my great delight, I found the book also included recipes for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and New Year’s. There is also a gift giving section at the end of the book, along with references, a conversion chart, and an index.

Each book featured has a menu, and every recipe has a photo of the finished product, a quote from the book the recipe was featured in, or inspired by, the ingredients, and instructions.

I didn’t find any recipes that called for super hard to find ingredients, and the instructions, are thorough enough, and easy to follow.

I thought this collection of literary themed menus and recipes was a great idea!! While most of the recipes come from classic novels, they will seem fresh to us because they are not as common. There are also many fun party foods, especially the ones for Halloween, although many of these were not actually featured in the book- such as Dracula’s Dinner Rolls, for example.

The presentation is simple, straightforward, and organized and has given me plenty of ideas to try all throughout the holiday season- plus, it was fun to reminisce about the books these recipes were derived from.

Not only did I find these recipes tempting- I was also tempted to re-read some of these great classics and add those I have yet to enjoy!

4 stars