Reviewed by Susan Thurston

Cooking with the Muse: A Sumptuous Gathering of Seasonal Recipes, Culinary Poetry, and Literary Fare
by Myra Kornfeld and Stephen Massimilla
Tupelo Press, April 2016
$32.95; 500 pp.
ISBN 978-1936797684

Cooking with the Muse: A Sumptuous Gathering of Seasonal Recipes, Culinary Poetry, and Literary Fare is culinary-reader of delights nested together much like a matryoshka doll. With hundreds of recipes, poetic prose pieces, cooking and poetry notes, and lavish illustrations, this literary-cookbook defies simple classification. Authors Myra Kornfeld and Stephen Massimilla offer a lap-filling volume that could be criticized for overreach if it weren’t such a fascinating genre-blending, seasonally-framed journey through history and culture.

The dense, luxurious volume begs to be taken from the kitchen to the bedside. Distractions and redirections are tucked into the “Poet’s Notes.” The note for “Anasazi Bean Chili with Roasted Eggplant” informs that, in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” the purpled-colored Apples of Sodom that Lucifer’s fallen angels consume are eggplants. Or you’ll encounter references to contemporary poems, such as Ellen Bass’s “Eating the Bones” in the “Roasted Butterflied Sumac Chicken” recipe.

The recipe introductions are poems themselves, as “Baked Seckel Pears with Pomegranate Syrup” instructs readers to “spoon the hot red juices over [the pears] at regular intervals as they bake, until they are wrinkled and tender as antique Italian wine skins.”

The recipe narratives might at first seem over-written, but they possess a seductive elegance. Sophisticated culinary terms, from chiffonade to mirepoix, are made understandable and possible for even the uninitiated cook. Descriptions of ethnic dishes such as colcannon and bastilla become invitations to create. And the measurements are accurate, as all of the recipes tested produced the promised results.

Along with highlights by literary anchors from John Keats to Grace Paley, Kornfeld and Massimilla’s own poetry adds flavorful sumptuousness to dozens of the recipes. Many would serve well as an introduction read aloud when presenting a dinner party dish. For example, table guests would thrill to a plattered presentation of “Seared Duck with Plum Sauce,” with the cook reciting the paired poems

“Plum Hunger”

Distant honk of train,

Moon streaked with ducks

over wine-summer marsh.

with

“After Basho”

Never forget to see

in sockets of the thicket

night-black eyes of plums.

This book would be welcomed by anyone passionate about history, poetry, and food. The writing alone will have readers feeling plump and blissful with satiating narratives and sensual themes.

Now, it is time for this reviewer to get back into the kitchen to create “Warm-Hearted Pea Cakes with Sesame Crust and Garlic-Piquillo Pepper Sauce,” or “Delicata Squash with Cranberry-Date Cornbread Stuffing,” or “Salad of a Thousand Leaves.”

Susan Thurston is a novelist, journalist, and award-winning poet with work appearing in publications including The Writer’s Almanac and Low Down and Coming On (Red Dragonfly Press). Her novel Sister of Grendel (The Black Hat Press) came out in 2016. A passionate cook, she co-authored Cooking Up the Good Life with Chef Jenny Breen (University of Minnesota Press).