What happens when great paintings become recipes? The Still Life Cookbook – Vegetarian Recipes Inspired by Great Paintings brings together vegetarian recipes inspired by still-life masterpieces, exploring the longstanding relationship between food, art and the natural world. The book brings together the visual language of still life with contemporary vegetarian cooking, making subjects that have fascinated artists from the mosaics of ancient Rome to the present day accessible through food.

Written by London-based food writer Paola Gavin, with a foreword by Twin art editor Francesca Gavin, the book considers the historical significance of food in art and the ways in which ingredients have come to represent abundance, beauty and the ephemeral.

From the luxury associated with exotic produce in the eighteenth century to the spatial experiments of the late nineteenth-century avant-garde, the paintings featured in the book reflect changing relationships with food and nature.

One of the recipes featured is Asparagus with Zabaglione Sauce, inspired by Adriaen Coorte’s 1696 Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants. Gavin reimagines the traditional Italian custard as a savoury Piedmontese version, combining whisked egg yolks, dry white wine and butter to create a frothy accompaniment for steamed asparagus.

The Still Life Cookbook explores the still life as a genre concerned with abundance, beauty, consumption and the passage of time, while offering recipes inspired by the works and culinary traditions represented within it.

The Still Life Cookbook – Vegetarian Recipes Inspired by Great Paintings
Author: Paola Gavin
Foreword: Francesca Gavin
Publisher: gestalten

Available at gestalten