: Re: What challenges are there in writing a fantasy cookbook? I ask mostly out of curiosity. Obviously, a proper cookbook would involve real ingredients and not fantasy creatures. There's such a cookbook

@Dunderdale623

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In essence, you've got two elements to balance: the fantasy, and the cooking. So let's look at them separately first.

Cooking:

The recipes need to work. Recipes that mean nothing can be a fun gimmick on the internet, but if you're selling a cookbook, it should be a cookbook, no matter how it's styled.
As @Wetcircuit mentions, people expect recipes to be relatively easy. At least part of your target audience is not people who do a lot of cooking at home, but relative amateurs who would want to have a bit of fun. Teenagers would find such a book particularly appealing (as would children, but they would need supervision in the kitchen anyway). Not all recipes need to be easy, but there needs to be a sufficient number of easy ones for complete amateurs to enjoy.
Similar to the point above, final product should not exclude a child's palate. In fact, the "fun" element in your book might encourage children who are picky eaters to try out new things.

Fantasy:

People are going to buy your book for the fantasy element. You've got to give them enough of that. You can tell the reader about where a dish fits into your fantasy world's culture. You can have the recipe written by a particular character, and in that character's particular tone. You can insert anecdotes about how the recipe was created, or about someone who ate it (within the setting, of course). Be creative!

Combining the two:

Consider presentation. If you write about dragon steak, suggest one can substitute beef, and from then on it's just a normal steak, you've done nothing. There is a restaurant not far from where I live, called "The Witch and the Milkman". Their mains are slow-cooked meats served in a cauldron. This is an example of presentation fitting the theme.
I personally find that lines like "if you can't find dragon, you can substitute beef" throw me out of the fantasy. If you must have substitutions, consider having them in-world: "after dragons in fantasyland went extinct due to an influx of knights, locals started preparing beef according to the following recipe, to approximate the taste."
You can stylise not only the presentation, but also the text of the recipe. "Stir three times diosil, then seven times widdershins". However, make sure that the instructions remain clear.

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