Upon receiving my copy of The Random Guide to Cannabis Cookery by Lord Tayler Pryce, I was excited for two reasons. For starters, I'm as at home in my kitchen as a I am in my garden, and secondly, coming off a recent harvest I was flush with weed for experimenting.
The book is laid out in standard cookbook format with a series of sections each dedicated to a specific category of recipes. The first chapter consists of recipes for what the author calls “thy Lord's fat, they Lord's blood and thy Lord's sweat.” The Lord's fat is a basic bud butter, the blood is a clarified bud butter and the Lord's sweat is a canola oil extraction – each of these ingredients will serve as the basis for all the other recipes in the book. The other sections are devoted to dessert syrups, desserts, poultry, seafood, pork, vegetarian and miscellaneous entrees and side dishes.
The Random Guide to Cannabis Cookery is presented in simple paperback form. This cookbook would sit quietly, not drawing much attention to itself thanks to its plain white cover with black type, illustrated only by a black and white image of a cherub walking under presumably falling marijuana leaves. This theme of simplicity carries over to the inside of the book as well, as there are no full illustrations or pictures of any kind. Of the 92 recipes presented, we are given zero images of finished products by which to compare.
Inside, we lose the simple typeface in lieu of a Celtic style font. The ye ol' English theme doesn't stop at the font, but rather carries over to the language used as well. I can appreciate the author's attempt at gimmick here, however in the end I wish he had opted not to go this route. It causes no real confusion but can be annoying at times.
Once you have chosen a recipe, you'll find yourself with a possible problem when it comes to actually measuring out the ingredients. The measurements given are fairly simple and any one with some experience in the kitchen will have no problem preparing them. However, with the mix-mash of units of measurements used by the author, you may find yourself wondering if the author was sampling the recipes when writing this. In a single recipe you'll find directions using both ounces and teaspoons/tablespoons on dry goods, as well as cup/ounces for wet ingredients. There were even a few recipes where eggs are measured in ounces. The author would have been prudent to pick one unit of measurement and stick to it.
With the writing and poor choice of measurement units out of the way, we can focus on the recipes them self. Are they any good? After all, a cookbook can be as well written and presented as possible, but if the recipes are no good, then who cares. Well, to find this out I picked three recipes to try. I picked a simple baked chicken paired with mushroom saute and a side of bell pepper corn.
I chose these three because they all called for Lord's fat and they sounded great – plus, I was especially looking for how well the recipes helped hide the taste of the weed. Having cooked with cannabis more than a few times, I know sometimes the taste of the weed just can't be hidden. So, I was looking to see if this was a problem with some of the less flavor-heavy options. I also chose the chicken to see how well the Lord's fat took to a long baking time at a fairly high temperature. The mushrooms were my biggest concern, as mushrooms soak in flavors very easily.
The baked chicken recipe called for six thighs smothered in a butter garlic sauce and baked for about an hour and twenty minutes. The mushroom saute recipe includes a white wine butter sauce for sauteing, and last but not least the bell pepper corn is pretty much what it sounds like – corn with bell peppers and onions. When first adding the butter to the pans, there was a strong aroma of weed and I was worried, but as you follow the recipes you lose all sense of the weed in the butter as the presence of the other ingredients takes over.
Once the meal was prepared and appetites were at their peak, it was time to finally taste this cannabis feast. For serving purposes, I placed the mushroom saute on the chicken with the corn on the side, and I must say it was amazing. The mushrooms were my favorite part of the whole meal. The white wine sauce really balances the earthy goodness of the mushrooms with a soft garlic background.
Serving the mushrooms with the chicken was also a good call, as the chicken really only tasted like garlic and black pepper – a good sign, as it means the weed taste did not come through. The corn was another smash hit – there was nothing particularly special about it, but giving a new treatment to an old staple is always welcomed. The best thing above all else is the fact that the weed flavor was not present in any of these dishes. If it wasn't for incredible buzz – thanks to being laced with an ounce of high quality buds – you'd never know it was there.
Over all, I'd say The Random Guide to Cannabis Cookery is worth the trouble of dealing with its idiosyncrasies. Yes, though the writing can be annoying and the measurements can drive you crazy, the recipes are great and offers someone interested in edibles more options than just pot brownies. However, if you're uncomfortable with having to convert measurements or lack a kitchen scale, you might want to reconsider this cookbook.
