Customer Reviews

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The original title of this re-release is "The Magic of Food" from 1990. Llewellyn has put this book back into print.

I love the opening lines "Food is essential to our lives. For many of us, the art of cooking and eating is a chore. For others, it is a great delight. And for some, the culinary arts and their products are indulgences. Food is substituted for love. Food is an excuse. Food is a god."

Scott explores all these aspects of food, as well as its magical properties and how this magic affects us and can be worked into our lives. The first part of the book is a small introduction to the magic of cooking, associations, tools, histories, practicing food magic and even some discussion on vegetarianism.

The meat and potatoes, if you will, of the book are the sections on specific types of foods. The foods are broken down into groups, like bread and grains, fruit, spices and herbs, etc. Common names, specific names, ruling planets, ruling elements, energies, lore and magical uses are explored, explained and looked at in its uses in magic and healthy living.

Mini-discussion on uses of salt in foods, substitutes for additives that do not promote overall good health, the healing qualities of foods, little known facts on food usages and food preparation make each of the topics covered interesting as well as useful.

"Nuts & Alleged Nuts . It is curious that one contemporary slang term for insanity is "nuts," as in, "That politician's gone nuts." In the past, these crunchy foods were thought to bestow wisdom, not mental derangement.*"

Footnote "*Then again, wisdom and insanity are often subjectively determined."

Scott's wit and humor are prevalent throughout the book as well as generous helpings of his wisdom and vast knowledge base.

And we are also treated to "Scott's Favorite Recipes". Appetizers, such as magic herb toast, beverages, desserts, main dishes. all here for you to consider and concoct in your own kitchen. Even magical soups and romantic salads are here for you to consider.

The book has a good table of contents, indexed, and contains a good glossary, tables of correspondences and bibliography. There is a mail order resource list which appears to be current, where you can get those hard to find ingredients.

Overall, a good book for your library, a better book for your kitchen and an essential book to have in your Cunningham library. boudica

Scott Cunningham does it again, this time with a wonderful tome that's part cookbook, part philosophy of food.

Cunningham divides the book up based on food groups, and there's so much information on each that you'll probably never look at your spice rack in much the same way again. Cunningham goes into detail about the associations of each type of food, but his book is structured in such a way that you can easily see how to assemble the ingredients for whatever magickal effect you desire.

The book's highlight is its recipes. The desserts are amazing, and the magickal soups are the kinds of things you wish you could order on a menu. Whenever they put up a Wiccan restaurant in my hometown, I hope they'll use this book as a guide.

Wicca In The Kitchen is the result of more than 17 years of investigation by one of Wicca's most important authors. Cunningham shows how one can effect change in any area of life by selecting food for its magical properties and consuming it with a specific goal in mind. Wicca In The Kitchen includes lists of magical correspondences for every kind of food and supplies magical diets for certain universal goals, including love, health, protection, abundance and psychic awareness. Organized by category, it also provides 27 of the author's favourite recipes and their magical applications. It is a delightful book that ought to appeal to all those interested in bringing a little magic into their lives and especially to Wiccans or to anyone whose hobby is cooking and who is looking for something that is a bit different. The book concludes with a glossary of terms, a bibliography and an index.

I was replacing, my first copy decided to go live with someone else. I find this an excellent for someone with little experience with herbs and their uses and some one who is a novice in the kitchen.

I like having it to use as a resource so I can double check what I'm doing, as I sometimes cannot remember as well as I use to.

This is one book that I will never lend out. I fell in love with it after just reading the first few pages. Scott Cunningham writes with such warmth and sincerity. This book is chock full of information on almost everything you can find in the kitchen, and it even offers you suggestions on the magical uses of each food. As soon as I got it, I copied a bunch of the ideas down into my Book of Shadows. This is one book that you must have.

Great recipes of yummy foods. Mr. Cunningham has put into the hands of wicca; foods of foods that will help you in love, money, protection..ect. ect. This book is simple and easy to use. Mr. Cunningham has also helps the readers what food belongs to Elements and planets. If you are the Kitchen witch or what to be a better Kitchen witch, this book will boost your knowledge. Worth the money and the time.

This is a good book that doesn't offer too many recipes...I already like my OWN recipes! But, what it does do is highlights many ingredients I already use, and let's me know what magical properies they have. This allows me to customize my own recipes to express the magical intention (along with flavorful intention) I am crafting. It could use MORE ingredients,(which is why I gave it a 4*and not a 5*,. as there are some common ones that are missing, but overall it is a good reference for the magical kitchen.

Though this is by the late great Scoot Cunningham who is missed terribly by the Pagan Community, I have found fault with it. @ major flaws.

1. The index is terrible. It was probably from the earlier edition and not updated when this edition was typeset. Its kind of annoying to look something up with multiple entires only for all of them to be wrong, even blank pages!

2. There are mix ups that can't be reconciled. I have Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs and some entries are completely different. For example, in Magical Herbs, Banana is Feminie, Venus and Water. In this book, Banana is associated with Mars and Air (No mention of gender but if its associated with the planet Mars, there ain't no way its feminine!). So which is it? And then which book is right? There are others. To me this is something Llewellyn before selling these.

Otherwise, this book is one of the very few that takes on magic in food and does for the most part very well. The author breaks them down into categories of fruit, vegetables, herbs and even drinks as well as associations. Handy!

I love this book.
I've always struggled with my weight and I hate to cook. But, when I saw this book about cooking and Wicca combined I was curious. And then once I read the opening chapters I was truly inspired. I've never taken the
time to spiritualize eating much less cooking. And when I tried it, it slowed me down and suddenly I started loosing weight and gaining strength. It changed the way I look at things in so many ways.
Blessed Be.

I love this book! Even if I had no inclination toward kitchen witchery before, this book makes the idea sound fun, exciting and fulfilling.