It's the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. and you know what that means: it's time to break out the delicious food! Turkey carved to perfection, mashed potatoes swimming in gravy, flaky biscuits and steamy stuffing and more; I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. But beyond just being a good time for eating food and giving thanks for family and abundance, it's also a good time for reading about food, and giving thanks that fantasy and sci-fi books have a long history of food decadent food descriptions.
After all, it's hard to feel totally immersed in these rich secondary worlds without knowing what the people there are eating. Let's celebrate the holiday by raising a glass to six fantasy and sci-fi books (or series) that describe their culinary fare with such gusto that they're likely to send readers right back to the refrigerator for leftovers.
1. Redwall by Brian Jacques
Look, if we're going to talk about excessively detailed descriptions of feasts in fantasy books, we'd be fools not to start with Redwall, the young adult fantasy series by Brian Jacques. There are 22 books in the Redwall series, and it's pretty much a guarantee that if you crack open any one of them, you will be treated to hearty feasts and raucous songs. They're so much a part of Jacques' formula that I doubt there's a single book in the series that forgos them.
Redwall is all about a bunch of mice and other critters who live at the titular Redwall Abbey, where they periodically come under threat from scoundrels like an army of rats, a cunning fox out to kidnap the dibbuns (children), and more. But between all the adventures, the creatures of Redwall love nothing more than feasting on meals consisting of things like watercress salad, blackberry pies, homemade ale, pastries dripping with clover butter, and all sorts of other inventive dishes. They're mice and shews and moles, after all, and Jacques delighted in making their choice of food reflect their laidback forest-dwelling lifestyle.
2. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Just like Redwall, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is all but infamous for its lengthy descriptions of food, so much so that the series received one of the first great modern tie-in cookbooks with A Feast of Ice and Fire in 2012, which recreated Martin's imagined recipes for real.
Martin is renowned for his deep worldbuilding in Westeros, and that is fully reflected in its food. The meals always reflect the economic and social status of the people eating them, so readers get vivid descriptions of everything from honeyed chickens and sweetcorn fritters, to Sansa's beloved lemoncakes, to the disgustingly dubious makeshift ingredients in Flea Bottom's signature bowl of brown. Food is another character in A Song of Ice and Fire, and Martin makes it just as detailed as any other part of his fantasy world.
3. Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminaryan
Interstellar Megachef is a recent sci-fi book by Lavanya Lakshminaryan that takes the premise of a cooking show like The Great British Bakeoff and launches it into space. The story is about Saras Kaveri, a chef from Earth who seeks to enter into the famed Interstellar Megachef cooking show, where she'll pit the recipes of her homeworld up against the austere, synthesized fare of the show's host world, Primus. A chance run-in with a corporate inventor named Serenity Ko who wants to perfect the next food sim — if she can only learn how to cook — adds even more spice to the equation, as the they become unwitting allies and then something more against the backdrop of the cooking competition.
Interstellar Megachef uses its food descriptions not just as a way to titillate, but to dig deeper into themes of how food is changed and colonized as the boundaries of civilization change, and how it can come to mean something deeply personal to the people who create and consume it. The result is a cozy sci-fi book that has enough meat on it to leave you full as if you've read a full-blown epic.
4. Legends & Lattes by Travid Baldree
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree is the fantasy book which kicked off the current cozy fantasy trend that has swept the genre in recent years, and in many regards, it's still one of the best the subgenre has to offer. This book follows an orc mercenary named Viv who decides to retire from her life of bloodshed and open up a coffee shop. In a city where no one knows what coffee is.
The result is a charming read that not only has heartwarming passages reflecting Viv's emotional journey, but plentiful descriptions of all the different drinks and pastries she and her coffee shop employees add to the menu. From richly aromatic coffee to heavenly frosted cinammon rolls and crunchy fruit and nut pastries (called "Thimblets"), Legends & Lattes puts the reader right inside the coffee shop and satiates them enough that they won't want to leave.
There are three books total in the Legends & Lattes series as of this writing: the original novel, the prequel Bookshops & Bonedust, and the newly released sequel Brigands & Breadknives.
5. Casthen Gain by Essa Hansen
Casthen Gain is the newest book on this list, and also perhaps the most imaginative in terms of its cuisine. This space opera novella is a prequel to Essa Hansen's The Graven books, which sees a culinarian stranded on a dangerous planet as part of a battle royale contest to get in the good graces of the titular interstellar criminal organization, the Casthen. Of course, one can't survive such an affair on an empty stomach!
The story follows our culinarian hero Sentace Ketch as he struggles to stay alive, fighting off various other beings who've all been stranded alongside him. The premise of the book is action-packed, but one place Casthen Gain really shines is in how inventive its cooking is. The Graven takes place in a multiverse filled with innumerable bubble universes, ranging in size from large enough to encompass entire planetary systems to a pinprick. Each of these universes has different properties which warps the physics of whatever's inside. Sentace is an expert at navigating these universes, and uses them to create culinary wonders with the flora and fauna he scavenges from the alien world around him. Casthen Gain delivers a healthy dose of both action and character-focused story, and food descriptions that are out of this world.
6. Seven Recipes for Revolution by Ryan Rose
The last book to tempt our tastebuds today is Seven Recipes for Revolution by Ryan Rose, the first novel in the What We Eat series. This one is pitched as The Bear meets Attack on Titan, which should give you an idea of just how out there things get in this food-driven epic fantasy.
Seven Recipes for Revolution is all about a butcher named Paprick, who desires to learn the finer culinary arts. He sneaks some ingredients home to practice making dishes out of magical monsters — an act which could get him executed — and after a trip to the local black market, accidentally cooks a never-before-seen recipe that transforms him into a kaiju. And that lands him firmly in jail.
Paprick manages to talk his way out of that and into becoming a chef's apprentice, because the power of his new secret Recipe is sought after. While it may have undertones of those other comp titles mentioned above, what this book reminds me of the most is Delicious In Dungeon, with monstrous food lending an unpredictable and fun quality to its meals that keeps you guessing each time Paprick gets ready to make a new dish. Variety is the spice of life, as they say — and in this case, it may be the key to undermining the corrupt world of high cuisine as well.