The Uncanny Gastronomic – Strange Tales of the Edible Weird
The Uncanny Gastronomic: Strange Tales of the Edible Weird, edited by Zara-Louise Stubbs / 286-page paperback from the British Library’s “Tales of the Weird” series, published 2023 / ISBN 9780712354288
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A brush with the mushroom devil whets the appetite. The meat at the werewolf’s table is a dish to relish. Dessert with London’s cannibal club may be the cherry on top.
From fairy tales and folklore focused on magical foods and strange eating came an enduring tradition of writers playing with food and the uncanny. In the fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this tradition thrived, with themes of supernatural consumption, weird transformation and sensual euphoria as key ingredients.
Raiding this dark pantry of writing, this new collection presents a feast of sixteen classic tales, two poems and one essay, with choice morsels by masters of the macabre including Shirley Jackson, Franz Kafka, Angela Carter and Roald Dahl.
