OP: Feast

Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1972. Paperback. Good. First printing.

We’ll never understand the folks that staunchly stick to the “shut up and get to the recipe” philosophy because they miss out on stunning intros like this: “In May 1970, I decided to take mescaline for the first time in about a year; the reason mainly being that I wasn’t feeling well, that is to say mentally, and only somewhat physically.”

You will not be surprised to learn that this quote comes from a 1972 cookbook written by a small hippie commune of fewer than 20 people once situated in Woodstock, NY. The headnotes throughout are equally wonderful and range from a poem describing the “hallucinatory reverie” inspired by a McDonald’s hamburger to a political diatribe which invokes Donner party cannibalism, pornography, Kierkegaard, concentration camps, and cookbooks within the span of four short paragraphs.

The recipes are far more square by comparison—excepting the section called, “How do you feed the hole in your head?” populated with peyote tea and THC-infused bites—but still cover the cosmopolitan range of their contributors. There are blintzes, pernil, ceviche, solyanka, curry, and souffles. And, of course, millet burgers and vegetable pies for the crunchiest of the bunch. 

Rounding out its utility to the target audience, Feast also offers homesteading and child rearing advice, all quite practical.

While the pages are totally clean and unmarked, the glued binding is somewhat fragile, and the spine is creased. The paper wrappers are beginning to crack at the hinges and threaten to split off. A library checkout card and folder are pasted on the rear free end paper. Scarce. First and only printing.