Author George R. R. Martin Confesses His ‘Shameful Secret’

A Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin makes what he calls an “embarrassing confession” in the new cookbook based on his popular fantasy series: He can’t cook.

In his introduction to A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook, Martin explains that he has always been better at eating than he has at cooking. And he goes on to explain why he spends so much time writing about food:

My goal as a writer has always been to create an immersive vicarious experience for my readers…Sights, sounds, scents–those are the things that make a scene come alive. Battle, bedroom or banquet table, it makes no matter; the same techniques apply. That’s why I spend so much time and effort describing the food my characters eat; what it is, how it’s prepared, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it tastes like. It grounds the scenes, gives them texture, makes them vivid and visceral and memorable. Sense impressions reach us on much deeper and more primal levels than intellectual discourse can ever hope to.

The book’s authors, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer run the popular blog, Inn at the Crossroads, where they began cooking their way through Martin’s books. I talked to them last September when they were still working on the manuscript and had just finished frying a batch of honeyed locusts. How exciting to see the final project now, full of Medieval and modern recipes, and divided up by fictional kingdom. The book goes on sale May 29.