Brew-mania!
In honor of a successful move to a new apartment, and the unpacking of the kitchen, I’m set to brew again!
In addition to brewing something from Game of Thrones, I’d love to explore more boozy goodness from other fictional worlds. I’m giving this poll a full month, at the end of which I’ll make the top two reader picks, then post the recipes. Have a favorite fictional alcohol that’s not on the list? Add it!
“Laura made a great chili. She used lean-cut meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice, and a pinch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot on. He had even written down the sequence of events, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura’s chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay–it was certainly edible, and he ate it, but it had not been Laura’s chili.”
–American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Predictably, this chili is as delicious as you would expect after reading through that description.
I love the colors of this thick and savory chili, those rich dark reds, the flashes of orange carrots, and the sprinkle of seasonings. The huge amounts of cumin and spices amp up the other flavors, while the dill and lemon add a bit of an acidic zip. I’d never before added cocoa powder to a chili, but after this batch, will do it to every chili to follow. Although not specifically mentioned in the ingredients listed in the novel, the cocoa deepens the flavors of the chili, and could potentially account for Shadow’s inability to really recreate Laura’s recipe.
Ingredients:
Cook over medium heat for at least an hour. As with most stews and soups, the chili is much better the next day.
To paraphrase one of our Twitter followers, it would be wrong for our primary blog to dominate our other pursuits. We’ve loved stepping into the kitchens of Westeros, but it has opened up our own kitchens to the foods of other places, times, and fictional works. As we continue to update this blog with Westerosi cuisine, and shepherd it through the transition into something new, we also wanted to share our other work with you.
If you have any questions for us, or suggestions, we’d love to hear them!
Chelsea researches and translates historical recipes with the special kind of geeky enthusiasm unique to former classics majors, (which she is) and bronies, (which she is not). In addition to being a food and history geek, Chelsea is an artist. Among her current projects are a hand-drawn map of Westeros, an icon of Baelor the Blessed, and a playable game of Cyvasse. While working on IatC, Chelsea discovered she especially enjoys channeling her artistic skills into staging and photographing food.
In addition to maintaining the various online facets of IatC, Chelsea also has her own food blog, Food Through the Pages, in which she explores both historical cookery and food-from-fiction. She welcomes emails from all bacon enthusiasts, fictional foodies, aspiring food stylists, hobbits, and authors eager to see their fictional food realized!
Sariann continues to explore historical recipes, and dishes that are too tasty to not make. Her blog, Chopped Ginger, includes recipes for cocktails, savory courses, and the best dual Clotted Cream/Scone recipe that ever was. She is fascinated by the the history behind food; where it comes from, why it was made, and why we still eat it, or in some cases, why we don’t. In the near term, she will be transcribing and cooking through a hand written Victorian cookbook from Dorset, sharing images of the beautiful calligraphy and of course the finished dishes themselves.
Always on the lookout for unique local or family recipes, Sariann loves digging into the story behind the dishes. Want to know the history behind your grandma’s secret recipe? Sariann would love to find out for you! Contact her through ChoppedGinger with any cultural culinary inquiries, and she’ll get to work. What better way to learn about the past than through something we all love – food!