Kafka's Soup is a literary pastiche in the form of a cookbook

Cookbook

A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...

. It contains 14 recipes each written in the style of a famous author from history. As of 2007 it had been translated into 18 languages and published in 27 countries. Excerpts from the book have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Times. Theatrical performances of the recipes have taken place in France and Canada.

Recipes

Recipes include: tiramisu

Tiramisu

Tiramisu, , , literally "pick me up", is an Italian cake and dessert.It is made of ladyfingers dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone, and flavored with liquor and cocoa...

 as made by Proust, cheese on toast

Cheese on Toast

Cheese on toast is a snack made by placing cheese on slices of toasted bread and melting the cheese under a grill. It is a simple meal, popular in the United Kingdom.-Recipes:...

 by Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

, clafoutis grandmere by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

, chocolate cake

Chocolate cake

Chocolate cake is a cake flavored with melted chocolate or cocoa powder.-History:Chocolate cake is made with chocolate; it can be made with other ingredients, as well. These ingredients include fudge, vanilla creme, and other sweeteners. The history of chocolate cake goes back to 1764, when Dr...

 prepared by Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...

, lamb with dill sauce by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

, onion tart by Chaucer, fenkata (rabbit stew) by Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, boned stuffed poussins

Poussin (chicken)

In Commonwealth countries, poussin is a butcher's term for a young chicken, less than 28 days old at slaughter and usually weighing 400-450 grammes but not above 750g...

 by the Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...

, mushroom risotto

Risotto

Risotto is a class of Italian dishes of rice cooked in broth to a creamy consistency. The broth may be meat-, fish-, or vegetable-based; many kinds include Parmesan cheese, butter, and onion...

 by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...

, tarragon eggs by Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

, Vietnamese chicken by Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

 and Kafka's Miso soup

Miso soup

is a traditional Japanese soup consisting of a stock called "dashi" into which is mixed softened miso paste. Many ingredients are added depending on regional and seasonal recipes, and personal preference.-Miso paste:...

. Also included are recipes in the style of Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

 and Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

.

Among the recipes that did not make the original edition of the book was "plum pudding à la Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

" which was written but rejected by Mark Crick for being "too long-winded". It was, however, included in a subsequent paperback edition of the book along with two recipes, Rösti

Rösti

Rösti is a Swiss dish consisting mainly of potatoes. It was originally a common breakfast eaten by farmers in the canton of Bern, but today is eaten all over Switzerland and also in many restaurants in the Western World. Many Swiss people consider rösti a national dish...

 à la Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

 and moules marinieres à la Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...

, originally created for the German and Italian translations respectively.

Kafka's Soup is illustrated with paintings by the author in the style of a number of famous artists including Picasso, Matisse, Hogarth

William Hogarth

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...

, De Chirico, Henry Moore

Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

, Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...

 and Warhol.

Kafka's Soup is Mark Crick's first book. He has subsequently written two other books with similar themes; Sartre's Sink

Sartre's Sink

Sartre's Sink is a literary pastiche in the form of a DIY handbook. It contains advice about how to undertake 14 common household tasks each written in the style of a famous author from history. Sartre's Sink is the second book by photographer and author Mark Crick...

and Machiavelli's Lawn which are literary pastiches in the form of a DIY handbook and a gardening book respectively.

Writing Kafka's Soup

The idea for Kafka's Soup arose during a conversation between Crick and a publisher. Crick noted his dislike for cookbooks saying that he enjoyed looking at the pictures but found the accompanying text dull. When asked what would it take for him to read beyond the ingredients list he replied "if [the text] was written by the world's greatest authors." The publisher liked the idea and, in Crick's words, "she said that if I wrote it she'd publish it."

Most of the recipes in the book are Crick's own, although some, such as the chocolate cake, came from his friends. Crick notes the implausibility of some of his authors cooking their stated dishes (for example he states that John Steinbeck "would never have eaten [mushroom risotto]" and "I certainly accept any challenge that Kafka would not have eaten miso soup"). He says that he selected the recipes based on the ability of each dish to allow him to use the language he wished to use. Chocolate cake was selected for Irvine Welsh because "people become terribly selfish when there's chocolate cake around, just as they do with drugs. It's the closest many get to taking heroin."

Crick says that he found Virginia Woolf the most difficult of the authors to write while Raymond Chandler was the easiest.

Response

Kafka's Soup has become a cult hit. Andy Miller of the Telegraph called the recipes "note-perfect parodies of literary greats". Emily Stokes of the Observer called it an "illustrated masterpiece of pastiche" citing the lamb with dill sauce as "particularly good". C J Schüler wrote that Virginia Woolf's clafoutis grandmere is the "pièce de resistance" and called the collection "irresistibly moreish". He later called the book "a little gem of literary impersonation". Schüler believes that "part of the book's appeal lies in the fact that the recipes...actually work." The French writer and satirist Patrick Rambaud

Patrick Rambaud

Patrick Rambaud is a French writer.-Life:With Michel-Antoine Burnier, he wrote forty pastiches, .They wrote Le Journalisme sans peine ....

 has named Kafka's soup as one of his favourite parodies, noting the inclusion of parodies of continental European authors such as Proust and the Marquis de Sade in addition to English-speaking authors.

Translations

As of 2007 Kafka's Soup had been translated into 18 languages and published in 27 countries. The Croatian translation proved more popular than the Da Vinci Code, forcing it in to second place on the country's best seller list. Each recipe in the French version was translated by a separate translator specialising in the translation of the works of the parodied author.

Theatrical readings

In England, the recipes have reportedly been used as audition pieces by a small West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...

 theatre company. The Théâtre de l'Atelier

Théâtre de l'Atelier

The Théâtre de l'Atelier is a theater at 1, place Charles Dullin in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.-History:Opened on November 23, 1822 under the name Théâtre Montmartre this theater was one of the first built by Pierre-Jacques Seveste, who held the license to operate theaters outside the town...

 in Paris hosted a performance of the French translation of the book in 2007. The production included performances by Irène Jacob

Irène Jacob

Irène Marie Jacob is a French-born Swiss actress considered one of the preeminent French actresses of her generation. Jacob gained international recognition and acclaim through her work with Polish film director Krzysztof Kieślowski, who cast her in the lead role of The Double Life of Véronique...

, Isabelle Carré

Isabelle Carré

Isabelle Carré is a French actress, who has appeared in more than 40 films since 1989. She won a César Award for Best Actress for her role in Se souvenir des belles choses , and has been nominated a further six times, for Beau fixe , Le Hussard sur le toit , La Femme défendue , Les Sentiments ,...

 and Denis Podalydès

Denis Podalydès

Denis Podalydès is a French actor, director and scriptwriter of Greek descent. He is a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française....

, including a sung version of the recipe for onion tart. A live reading of the French translation of Kafka's Soup took place at the Montreal Festival International de la Littérature in 2007 with the author in attendance. The production received an additional performance run in the Terrebonne

Terrebonne, Quebec

Terrebonne is an off-island suburb of Montreal, in western Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shores of the Rivière des Mille-Îles and of the Rivière des Prairies, North of Montreal and Laval....

suburb of Montreal in 2009.