DINING WITH DALI...

Words By Oscar

Craving a “Bush of crayfish in Viking herbs”? Fancy a “Leg of lamb shot with Madiera”? Maybe you’ve had a long day and need some good old-fashioned “Eels with Beer”. You know, classic , comfort food.

Ross

136 similarly chaotic recipes lie beneath the ornate cover of Salvador Dali’s Les Dîners de Gala, a surrealist cookbook ranging from the genuinely delicious-sounding to the “why, please no, this is disgusting, stop”. Dedicated to his wife, Gala, the original book was published in 1973, and printed in only 400 copies. This limited release left the cookbook in a position of extreme rarity and cult following, eventually leading to its re-publishing by Taschen in 2016. It is this revived version of Dali’s culinary mania that lies open beside me, Dali’s illustrations of reverse mermaid trout and horror scapes of the uglier side of the digestive system looking up at me.Before you read on, I’ll give you the fair warning that Dali gave his readers:

“If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you”.

- Salvador Dalì, Les Dîners de Gala

Now, this book isn’t all weird, it is also wonderful, with the main barrier being the old-fashioned nature of the recipes. Granted, some are more surrealist in their method and presentation, I’m looking at you “Frog Cream” and “Peacock à l’Impériale dressed and surrounded by its court”, these are recipes by the way, not early 2000’s emo album titles.

Dali’s recipes are based on Nouvelle Cuisine, a culinary style that was increasingly popular in Northern Spain in the ’70s, and were designed to be made for Salvador and Gala’s insanely weird “parties”. The couple’s famous gatherings featured exotic animals roaming the room such as Babou, Dali’s ocelot house cat, mandatory costumes, plates of weird and wonderful surrealist cooking that line the pages of Les Dîners de Gala and well, some other adult stuff we won’t get into here.

So as you can see, while I may use some of Dali’s weirder recipes to shock and amuse, these are not “joke” or purely artistic recipes. Dali had these dishes cooked for his guests and they actually ate them. Admittedly, I wouldn’t mind a starter of “Escalope of foie gras wrapped in chicken” and I’m not a desert person but I would try a bowl of Dali’s “Old champagne Sherbert”.

FOOD.

Editor: Saiba Haque

Deputy Editor: Maya Glantz

Digital Editor: Emma Witham