August 10, 2020

The Fictionality of Recipes

Aimee Jurado

A major aspect of food writing - how we know that we’re reading food - is the inclusion
of a recipe in the story. Often overlooked, the inclusion of recipes in food novels do more for the
story than act as a peppering of detail; it’s symbolic of larger events happening within the
character or plot, or between the writer and reader. While recipes do this in food novels
specifically, the inclusion of recipes is impactful in the world of fiction in general, both in the
nature and overall understanding of the genre. This is because the inclusion of recipes - a writing
traditionally seen as technical and instructional - blurs the line between fact and fiction when
written through a fictional lens. This blurriness further complicates our understanding and
acceptance of what is real and what is imaginary, as well as our already complex and differing
definition of fiction.

The existence of a recipe in fiction is confusing: the recipe does not exist because it is
written as fiction, and yet, performing the recipe gives it the potential to materialize. Bee Wilson,
in “The Pleasure of Reading Recipes,” writes that, “every recipe, whether we cook it or not,
offers a vision of the good life, and a way of tasting food in your brain. It doesn’t need to
actually have been eaten in its time to feel real to us now.” What Wilson suggests, and what
many other writers acknowledge, is the fictionality of recipes and their dual existence as real and
imaginary. Wilson is right in that reading recipes manifests as meals for our mind, meaning that
fictional recipes occupy real space in our lives. However, this existence can go beyond our
imagination; from fictional recipes, we are able to make real food, forcing us to acknowledge the
tangible qualities of the “imaginary” dish sitting right in front of us. Ultimately, what we do, or
choose not to do, with recipes define how they exist within our own reality. The character, Billie
Breslin, of Ruth Reichl’s Delicious! does not exist, nor does her career or colorful life in New
York City. But if I were to follow her gingerbread recipe, the recipe she holds so close to her
imaginary heart, does it become real? While Billie doesn’t exist, her gingerbread - a major part
of her pretend life - would exist in my very real thoughts and could physically exist in my very
real kitchen. Regardless if these recipes are ever cooked or not, the potential for their existence is
always present, complicating their nature as fiction. 

This blurriness does more than muddle our perceptions of fact and fiction - it complicates
our understanding of fiction as a whole. In general, we accept works of fiction and instruction at
face value, assuming that what we read is either completely made-up or completely true. In the
case of fictional recipes however, the understanding we have of what is fiction and what is
instruction changes. Readers typically don’t think twice about the legitimacy of a recipe for
butter chicken they came across in a magazine. In a novel however, the legitimacy and existence
of a recipe is questioned because recipes are assumed to be truthful, due to their instructional
form. But by folding a recipe into fiction, a genre meant to entertain the imaginary, readers must
ignore whether the recipe actually works or not, leading to an understanding that these traditional
rules don’t apply, that what we believe is fact and what we believe is fiction may not be. How
then, do we distinguish the real and the imaginary within food fiction? Perhaps fictional recipes
exist in the same realm as historical or science fiction, where readers are asked to imagine the
story within realities that have happened or realities to come. But you can’t bring history to life
 August 10, 2020

the way you can bring a recipe to life, and you can’t knead Ray Bradbury’s ideas into something
tangible and space-occupying. Eventually the readers, the less critical or less culinary-minded
ones at least, accept the recipe as a real part of this fictional world, without the slightest concern
for its validity or taste. 

There are many ways to complicate fiction, and even more ways to complicate food
fiction. To say though that recipes complicate fiction would be an understatement; fictional
recipes disrupt the understanding that readers hold of what is real, what is imaginary, and how
they exist. The existence of recipes and their place in reality and fantasy depend on what we do
with them - if performed, the recipe becomes reality. If read, accepted, and understood, it lives as
literature. But maybe it’s this state of limbo that attracts readers to food fiction. As Adam Gopnik
in his article “Cooked Books” says about reading recipes, “we know that we are not seriously
expected to cook this; rather, we are to admire, over and over, the literary skill, the metaphysical
poetry, required to bring these improbable things together.” Perhaps it doesn’t
matter how recipes and fiction intersect at the crossroads of reality and fantasy - it only matters
that they do.