Gastronaut: Adventures in Food for the Romantic, the Foolhardy, And the Brave

An irreverent journey through the culinary world of the exotic, the bizarre, and the truly extraordinary, Gastronaut is equal parts cookbook and quest book. For your bedside or your stoveside, this hilarious and captivating journey through some of the strangest food experiences, past and present, is divided into three levels of escalating difficulty. Whether you're ready to gild your breakfast sausages with gold, re-create the Last Supper, or cook a whole pig in an underground fire pit, this book takes it all on with gusto and little regard for what one might call decency.

Gastronaut answers questions like:
• what foods make us fart?
• how do you make your own moonshine?
• is it possible to teach grandmas to suck eggs?
• how would you stage a bacchanalian orgy in the comfort of your own home?
Here is the perfect book for people who are fascinated by the wilder side of food and who, every now and then, want to show off their penchant for the extreme.


THE GASTRONAUT'S CREED
Food will consume 16 percent of my life. That life is too precious to waste; therefore:
• I resolve, whenever possible, to transform food from fuel into love, power, adventure, poetry, sex, or drama.
• I will never turn down the opportunity to taste or cook something new.
• I will never forget: canapés are evil.
• I will remember that culinary disaster does not necessarily equal failure.
• I will always keep a jar of pesto to hand in case of the latter.

First published in Britain, this "gastronautical questbook" is an irreverent and unexpected journey through several culinary oddities. Gates, a comedy producer, director, scriptwriter, and self-described "epicurean desperado," assures readers, however, that each of the featured bizarre recipes is "real and practical." With more than 50 black-and-white photographs and several charts, the book begins with a chapter on gilding Cheetos and sausage with gold leaf, then moves on to famous last meals, cannibalism, aphrodisiacs, and more. Recipes are given for such interesting dishes as Chicken-foot Stew, Nettle Haggis, Lumpydick, Butt Sandwich, Cow-Heel Soup, and Buckinghamshire Bacon Badger. A list of useful web sites is also included. Overall, this is a fascinating collection, but it's not for the weak of stomach. Recommended for all libraries with strong food history and cookery collections.--Lisa A. Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib., Lister Hill

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Comedian Gates is an "epicurean desperado," willing to cook and eat anything--at least once. After all, he argues, if we eat 22 tons of food over our lifetimes and use 16% of our waking lives preparing food, shouldn't we try for the occasional "culinary epiphany" by maximizing our "excitement-to-mastication ratio"? A "culinary disaster" is not necessarily a "culinary failure," he reminds readers as he explains how to prepare fish sperm, sweetbreads, head cheese and cow heel. He admits he hasn't (yet) tried some dishes--such as those for Roasted Placenta Loaf, and Quick 'n' Easy Termites--but most have the user-friendly directions that signify a well-tested recipe. The book has no rigid structure, so a chapter on gold-plating food leads to a section on how to recreate a bacchanalian orgy or even the Last Supper, followed by an exploration of cannibalism and a look at cooking with aftershave. By the time readers reach the 11 pages of directions for producing an imu (a Polynesian pitbake requiring, among other things, a huge yard, a couple of truckloads of scrap iron and a small lamb or goat), they'll be with Gates in spirit, even if they're not ready to bring in the backhoe. (Apr.)

[Page 152]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.