Must-read: 10 artist cookbooks

It was Frida Kahlo’s stepdaughter Guadalupe Rivera who collected over 100 recipes by this fantastic artist. Aside from Mexican classics like mole, tamale and enchiladas, the book also includes recipes of her own creation and extensive menus that make this cookbook so special. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera regularly invited friends to so-called “Días de los manteles largos” (literally: “days of the long tablecloths”) at their Casa Azul and celebrated public holidays like Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) with pumpkin in syrup, chicken in Pipián sauce and refreshing strawberry atole. A wonderful collection of recipes for everyone who really wants to bring variety into their repertoire of everyday dishes.

In the middle of Springs, far away from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock led the kind of life that readers of Country Life dream about today. Sowing seeds, planting and harvesting – the artists’ close connection with nature is also reflected in their recipes. And all the more so in their dinner parties! Hence this cookbook not only features Krasner’s and Pollock’s hand-written recipes but also a colorful medley of favorite dishes from their closest friends, like Frank Stella’s famous potato pancakes, Elaine de Kooning’s fruit salad or Perle Fine’s bouillabaisse. Leafing through the nostalgic photos and personal anecdotes from the artist couple’s life, you immediately feel as if you are sitting around the dining table with them until the early hours.

You might call this a kind of contemporary continuation of the MoMA cookbook. And yet it is totally different. The second edition of “Artists’ recipes” casts a glance at the art and cuisine of 81 no less famous artists such as Alicja Kwade, Tobias Rehberger, Marina Abramović and Jan de Cock. It is not only a collection of recipes but also combines the cuisine with their art. Collages, paintings and photographs transform this simple, clothbound publication into a work of art in its own right, where even the recipes are written by hand. And with delicacies like super-yogibread, banana sandwich and prawn curry, it could hardly be more contemporary.

Rirkrit Tiravanija: a name that cannot be ignored when it comes to art and food. Since the 1990s the Thai concept artist has integrated cooking into his “relational” art, which aims at interaction with visitors. In 2019 the artist teamed up with Antto Melasniemi, a gastronome with a passion for Finnish cuisine and an expert in pop-up-restaurants and food events, to publish the “Bastard Cookbook”. Nordic salmon soup, tom kha gai soup, galangal chicken and makaronilaatikko (Finnish macaroni casserole) are all part of their repertoire, which concludes with “Bastard Bouillabaisse”. And why bastard? Because they cook everything they feel like cooking. Nor are they concerned about authenticity or purism – even if many of the dishes are surprisingly classic.

Only vegetarian recipes are to be found in the cookbook of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. “What else is new?”, you might say. After all, for years the market has been flooded with cookbooks on vegan and vegetarian food. But Eliasson offers more. Day in, day out in his studio kitchen he gets together with a group of artists, employees and guests around a long wooden table to cook a communal lunch and exchange creative ideas. And both at the table and in his cookbook, there’s more to it than simply nourishment. It is about food as an element that can shape meaning: And so “The Kitchen” not only provides insights into the daily studio kitchen but is also a philosophical, scientific, almost poetic observation of food as a store of light and energy.

A pile of lobsters and toffees with pinecones accompanied by other-worldly collages, baroque-style platters of meatand cookies-and-casserole headgear: This new edition of Salvador Dalí’s cookbook, originally published in 1973, is more than just wild experimentation. Indeed, there are often great gourmets behind what at first sight might seem like absurd recipes.

For example, the opulent “roast side of beef and vegetables” stems from Le buffet de la Gare de Lyon, built in 1900 and later renamed Le train bleu. This luxurious restaurant with lavish gilded stucco and ostentatious murals is located in Lyon train station and still a must for epicureans today. Apart from Dalí, you could also encounter guests like Coco Chanel and Brigitte Bardot here. And who would have thought that the crab tower comes from the no less famous Parisian restaurant La Tour d’Argent, which in Dalí’s lifetime still boasted three Michelin stars.

In the summer of 1929 American artist Georgia O’Keefe went to New Mexico, and for many years afterwards she lived either at Ghost Ranch or in Abiquiú. It was here in the rocky, spacious desert landscape that she would produce her paintings in bright shades of orange, red and yellow. Inspired by the local culture, this cookbook contains O’Keefe’s favorite recipes together with hand-written notes. As in “Dinner with Jackson Pollock” which was published two years earlier, most of the dishes are easy to prepare and often contain ingredients typical for the region. They include “Farmhouse” rye bread or fried eggs seasoned with coriander and lime juice, but also recipes that are less typical for New Mexico like borscht. And those who would like to gain a second interpretation of Georgia O’Keefe’s culinary skills can consult her older cookbook, A Painter’s Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O’Keeffe.