Salvador Dali’s rare, legendary 1973 cookbook Les Diners de Gala, just reissued by Taschen. Dishes like “Veal Cutlets Stuffed with Snails,” “Thousand Year Old Eggs,” and “Toffee with Pine Cones” will see the light of the day on November 20th, for the first time in over 40 years. The book, represented “a dream fulfilled” for Dalí, “who claimed at the age of 6 that he wanted to be a chef.” The bizarro cookbook pairs 136 recipes over 12 chapters (the 10th of which is dedicated to aphrodisiacs) with the his exceptionally strange illustrations and collages created especially for the publication. The artworks depict towering mountains of crayfish with unsettling overtones of cannibalism, an unusual meeting of a swan and a toothbrush in a pastry case, and portraits of Dali himself mingling with chefs against decadent place settings.
Dalis Rare Cookbook
However, Dali is widely known for his opulent dinner parties thrown with his wife Gala, events that were almost more theatrical than gustatory. In addition to the bizarre dishes he and Gala prepared, the guests “were required to wear completely outlandish costumes and an accompaniment of wild animals often roamed free around the table”…..
Only around 400 copies of Les Diners de Gala are known to survive, most of which sell for hundreds of dollars. However Taschen has finally made this rare book available for the first time in 43 years as a new reprint currently available for pre-order.
