The Afterlife Cookbook

The Afterlife Cookbook
(by multiple contributors)

As we slowly build our library of literature from within the IDUniverse, publications about food have been completely lacking… until our recent acquisition of The Afterlife Cookbook. This is a gold mine of cultural insights, as we rarely see the personal side of our adversaries and are more concerned about a Banshee’s plasma balls than what she had for breakfast.

Not surprisingly, the wide range of recipes contributed by denizens from the three regions contains countless clues about their lifestyles. While I expected monks to have a sort of monastic asceticism based on simple grains and legumes, for example, it turns out they have a fondness for extremely spicy stews and aggressively sweet puddings. Cupids dine on greasy birds in a curdled blood-red aspic, and Knights favor wild game and elaborate breads (for which there appears to be an ongoing competition, judging from the wide range of recipes comprising a long and bombastic chapter of the book).

Witches, of course, consume endless variations on bats, gizzards, and the gallbladders of bunnies… sometimes creatively combined into a soufflé or other aggregate. The recipe shown in the photo starts with an extract of these favorite flavors, infused into a port wine that would be toxic for humans and then layered with a thick spiced crabapple cider… served up with an incantation and a swirl of sparks. Susan refers to a “magic elixir” without any additional detail, and we have so far been unable to determine what this means… but it appears as an essential ingredient in most of her recipes.

Incubi tastes are bland, with a few minor variations on one fundamental recipe consisting almost entirely of beans. Abominations tend to favor garbage and don’t even bother with recipes, so are barely mentioned in the book except as a running joke among the food connoisseurs.

Conspicuously absent were contributions from the three bosses, although Anakim growled “hoomannnn” when interviewed about his tastes for the Introduction. It is believed that Gabriel has an eclectic palate, but his agent was tight-lipped and there are no recipes. And Asmo survives on pure thermal energy.

Some of the ingredients referenced in the text are difficult to acquire, but our research crew is attempting to recreate a few of the recipes and we will follow up with further commentary once a few of the safer ones have been presented to our volunteer tasters.

We are thrilled to have this essential cookbook in our library, and since our universe is outside theirs, the definition of “world rights” grows blurry and we have no problem posting a few of the recipes on our website. (If Purgatory Press objects, we have well-stocked quivers and will be delighted to meet with their team of legal archers!)

This is part of the In Death: Unchained literature collection by Steven K. Roberts.