Read Martin’s foreword to the new cookbook and pick up an elaborate new recipe
On May 7, author Chelsea Monroe-Cassel’s The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook arrives to bookstores, offering 80 recipes culled from across the Seven Kingdoms. In his foreword for the book, A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin heartily endorses Monroe-Cassel’s documentation of the delicacies that range from Dothraki to Dornish, and goes a step further, making the case for why he’s a fan of indulging in the “gratuitous.” Read on for Martin’s words, debuting exclusively on Polygon, and a recipe for a roast worthy of the writer’s filling tomes.
A TASTE OF WESTEROS
Are you hungry again?
Good. This is just the book for you: a cookbook full of recipes from the world of Westeros, the setting for A Song of Ice & Fire, Fire & Blood, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and my other epic fantasies.
Over a decade ago, we gave you the first official cookbook, A Feast of Ice & Fire, with recipes from all of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and a few of the lands beyond. That was very well received, so here we are again. Make no mistake; that book is not this book. You cannot eat the same thing every day, so Chelsea Monroe-Cassel has returned with all new dishes, compiled with the aid of Maester Alton—a food-obsessed maester of the Citadel, who has wandered through the realms and throughout history, collecting recipes from both high tables and low.
They certainly tempt me. I don’t cook . . . but I do eat. That much I have in common with my characters. Rich or poor, old or young, male or female, maester or mummer, highborn or low, we all need to eat . . . and what we eat can say a lot about us.
There is a lot of food in my novels. Everything from wedding feasts with seventy-seven courses to that horse’s heart that Daenerys Targaryen wolfed down. Too much food, certain critics are wont to complain. The word they like to trot out is gratuitous. Uncalled for, unnecessary, unwarranted, just too damn much. My great big fat novels would not be nearly so big and fat if only I would cut out all the gratuitous feasting, the gratuitous violence, the gratuitous heraldry, and of course the gratuitous sex (that is usually the biggest complaint).
To which I say, pfui.
When used in the context of literary criticism, “gratuitous” usually translates to “more than I wanted” or “did not advance the plot.” And you know, often that is true. Was it necessary for me to mention that the minor knight who just entered the lists bore seven golden hedgehogs on a field of dark green? In that sex scene, couldn’t I just have tumbled them into bed and cut to “the next morning”? And the feasts, oh those feasts, surely the only thing that mattered was what the characters were saying, not the honey-roasted duck they were eating as they said it?
Well, no. Not for me.
It’s not the destination that matters to me, it’s the journey. I have been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember. A reader of fiction, specifically. Fiction is not about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. It can educate, but it is not educational at heart. For that, nonfiction is infinitely superior. Fiction is about emotion. The heart, not the head. Fiction gives us vicarious experience. It takes us beyond ourselves and the world around us.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” I said once. “The man who never reads lives only one.” I grew up in the projects of Bayonne, New Jersey. Our family was working-class and poor. We didn’t even own a car. We never went anywhere. But I had books. Books that took me to Paris and London, to Barsoom and Trantor and Middle-earth, to Ancient Rome and the Hyborian Age and Chicago in the Roaring Twenties. I danced at Gatsby’s parties, climbed Mount Everest (and Mount Doom) and the Cliffs of Insanity. I loved and lost, I loved and won, I kissed a thousand fair maids, I climbed a scaffold with Sydney Carton and did a far, far better thing than I had ever done.
Reprinted from The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel
Makes: 1 roast of about 4 servings
Prep: 30 minutes
Cooking: 2 hours
Pairs well with: Riverlands Creamed Leeks; Hippocras
There is a saying in Westeros: Heavy is the head that wears the crown. But heavy also is the feast table that bears this impressive centerpiece. Crown Roast was a specialty of the head cook in the Red Keep in the early days of King Robert’s reign. He was called Oswyn, and he was good enough to speak with me at great length about the demands and opportunities inherent in feeding a royal household. I heard his account of expansive versions of this dish made with aurochs ribs — roasts so huge a grown man could stand in them with room to spare. The recipe below is a much more reasonable size, suitable for an intimate dinner or for making an impression on a small party of guests.
As a son of the stormlands, King Robert generally preferred venison or boar to aurochs. This hearty roast is ideal cold weather fare, with a dense oaten stuffing laced with bacon and fruit. The meat slow cooks until it just about falls from the bones in a delicious heap. The spice blend dances over the roast, pairing beautifully with both the crisped bacon and the rib meat. Each bite of the soft stuffing that fills the hollow crown hides small bites of apple and onion kissed by herbs. It is a splendid meal that leaves one sated and happy.
1 rack (about 4 pounds) boar or pork ribs
1½ tablespoons Freehold Spice Blend (see below), or spice rub of your choice
About 5 uncooked bacon strips
