INTRODUCTION TO JOYOUS COOKING, 200TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

by Heather Lindsley

Heather Lindsley moved from Seattle to London about three years ago, but she says this story is her first directly influenced by living in the United Kingdom. Those influences are the culinary lunacy of Heston Blumenthal’s television series Feasts, some excellent conversations at Eastercon (the British National Science Fiction Convention), and, of course, room temperature beer. She recommends all three highly.

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When the widow Edna T. Leidecker wrote the first slim volume of Joyous Cooking in 1932, she could not have guessed that her self-published effort to transcend personal tragedy and the First Great Depression would still be invaluable to home cooks two hundred years later. In retrospect, however, its enduring success is no surprise. By offering advice for managing food rations in the 1944 edition, recommending decontamination techniques in 2056, and illustrating the best way to skin a squirrel (1932-1987, 2022-2075, and the current edition), Joyous Cooking has evolved to meet the needs of its readers and so has become a fixture in homes, hearts, and minds. With over seventy million subscriptions accessed via mPlant and nearly one hundred fifty million copies sold in more archaic formats, Joyous Cooking has remained the cook’s first—and sometimes only—guide for generations. The history of cooking reflects the history of human culture, and in a world where so much cultural continuity has been lost, Joyous Cooking stands as a proud exception.

Like culture, cooking has never been without controversy, whether in matters of seasoning or the use of endangered ingredients. While the bloody actions of the short-lived extremist group Taste First! in 2015 briefly raised both the profile and consequences of indiscriminate salting, the longest-running controversy in the history of Joyous Cooking concerns Turtle Soup. Green Sea Turtle Soup, which first appeared in the 1952 edition, remained in the 1977 edition, the same year its main ingredient was added to the endangered species list. The recipe was removed from the 1996 edition after protest, but returned in 2005 using non-threatened freshwater species, only to be challenged in subsequent editions as one after another turtle species was consumed to extinction. The soup’s controversy did not end with the turtles, and the 2022 edition’s popular Soy-Lentil Green™ Mock Turtle Soup recipe raises troubling ethical questions even now.

These days, of course, a drop in the population, lab-regenerated plant and animal species, and the conversion of sports stadia to terraced garden allotments make it easier to find fresh ingredients. While most of the pill- and paste-based recipes of the mid twenty-first century were removed in the 2082 edition, they were replaced by a hodge-podge gleaned from the remnants of the Third Wiki War. These reflected decades of stagnant culinary activity and offered difficult-to-follow recipes like Chicken-Fried —Steak— —Chicken— —Squirrel— —Steak— Chicken. Thus, we’ve restored many of the recipes from earlier editions, including Apple Pie, Tabbouleh, Chile Relleno, Zong Zi, and even a variant on Turtle Soup featuring green algae and an early twenty-first century formula for industrial-strength artificial turtle flavoring.

With this edition, Joyous Cooking extends the boundaries of its time-honored commitment to global cuisine and introduces a few favorites from our new neighbors, the Gak-Glorians. Mouth- and proboscis-watering dishes like Ca’ow, Sha’ep, and Ma’an are accompanied by helpful notes about Gak-Glorian culture (Ma’an, for example, is traditionally served only on holidays). These recipes have been translated into local ingredients: if you can find pears and beef jerky, you can cook Gak-Glorian. We’ve also added a special appendix listing all known Gak-Glorian biochemical and psychosexual responses to various Earth foods, an obvious necessity for anyone planning an interspecies dinner party.

This edition also recognizes diversity with an expanded section on regional cooking, acknowledging that several members of the global community can now achieve delicious slow roasts simply by leaving food outside. Space station dwellers will find the addition of home vacuum packing and absolute zero freezing techniques particularly useful when the hydroponics bay produces the inevitable bumper crop of zucchini.

And while we have tried to avoid exotic ingredients and gadget-intensive recipes, we’ve continued the Joyous Cooking custom of embracing beneficial developments in technology. With this edition, the countertop teleporter joins the pressure cooker, microwave, and nanoblender as a standard appliance in the home kitchen. We’ve accommodated this exciting newcomer by updating the preparation of classics like Stuffed Peppers, Deviled Eggs, and Turducken, while also introducing dramatic variations like Amalgamated Nachos and Pineapple Inside-out Cake.

Nevertheless, the full and lasting impact of commercial teleportation on cuisine and culture must be left to future editions of Joyous Cooking. The military-inspired haute cuisine craze for teleporting food directly into the stomach is already passing out of vogue, as the novelty has proven to be no match for even the virtual sensory experience of fine dining, let alone the real thing. Whether the fledgling “faster food” industry faces a similar fate remains uncertain, especially while the range of equipment available to civilians limits home delivery to a one-mile radius. We have noted the appetizer recipes that best accommodate main course targeting pellets for cooks interested in the technique, though we doubt it will become commonplace in the home. It can never truly replace the joy of eating.

—Gwen Leidecker Tilman Alvarez Pax & Kal XI Gak-Glor

Editors, Joyous Cooking, 200th Anniversary Edition

October 7th, 2132