Most of the research I had completed before my trip focused on his 1908 magickal retirement diary, which became known as The Paris Working—or, in print, John St. John. In it, he documented his every day, from waking to his meals, to the effects his rituals were having upon his person. It was during this very special period in his life that he celebrated his thirty-third birthday. In his introduction to the second edition (Red Wheel/Weiser, ©2006), James Wasserman writes: “The diary is the fundamental tool whereby the individual magician can keep a scientific record of his own perceptions of himself, the first matter of the Great Work.”

I’ve already discussed his love of the many citron pressés he consumed at Café du Dôme—two of them on the day before his birthday. The first was late in the afternoon at 4:55 p.m., after a lunch of rumpsteak aux pommes soufflé (rumpsteak with potatoes), poire (pear brandy), ½ Evian (a famous bottled water company, still in existence), and the three Cs (cigar, coffee, and cognac)” at the Panthéon restaurant, seemingly no longer in existence. Another came later, at 8:22 p.m., during his dinner at the Dôme: “Marennes (oysters), râble de lièvre (saddle of hare), citron pressé.” On this night before his birthday, the 12th of October, 1908, he writes: “It is well that thus should close this eleventh day of my Retirement, and the thirty-third year of my life. Thirty and three years was this temple in building…”

It seemed only reasonable that I should put myself in his place at that bastion of literary greatness. It was highest on my list of Crowley restaurants to visit. And here is where it gets sad: Café du Dôme, which opened in 1898 on Boulevard du Montparnasse—a renowned intellectual and artistic hub, especially in the interwar period, boasting the likes of Hemingway, Matisse, Mondrian, and Cartier-Bresson—is now an overpriced, pale shadow of its former self.

Walking through Montparnasse en route to the Dôme, every surrounding restaurant—including those along Rue Delambre and Boulevard Raspail—was packed with diners. Yet there sat the still-gorgeous Dôme, almost entirely empty save for a single couple conspicuously placed in the front window to give the appearance of activity. The reason? Perhaps, riding on its own historical coattails, the restaurant has forgotten to appease its guests with something affordable. The current menus are nearly double the prices of similar offerings nearby:

Crowley’s birthday entry is hopeful:
7:55. Awoke from long sweet dreamless sleep, like a young eagle that soars to greet the dawn. 9:20. After breakfast (no notation of what was eaten), have strolled on my way to the studio, through the garden of the Luxembourg to my favorite fountain. It is useless to attempt to write of the dew and the flowers in the clear October sunlight.

The Luxembourg Gardens are indeed a wonder, with their tree-lined walkways surrendering their leaves to autumn—the warm gold, sunny yellow, and fiery orange of the flowers invoking a sunset. The gardens have several fountains, the largest in the center where youngsters race model boats, but the most famous being the Medici Fountain, adorned with sculptures of Polyphemus Surprising Acis and Galatea.

Crowley’s birthday lunch (12:40 p.m.) was at Chez Lavenue, another historical restaurant still in operation, though I abstained (mediocre reviews and exorbitant prices). He seems wistful:

Certain practical considerations suggest themselves. One would have been much better off with a proper Magical Cabinet, a disciple to look after things, proper magical food ceremonially prepared, a private garden to walk in... and so on. But at least it is useful and important to know that things can be done at a pinch in a great city and small room.

He enjoyed a lunch of kidneys, which were “well cooked,” an excellent tarte aux fraises (strawberry tart), and a Burgundy that “came straight from the Vat of Bacchus,” finishing with “Coffee and Cognac [that] are beyond all praise [and] the cigar [being] the best Cabaña I ever smoked.”

At 11:15 in the evening he wrote:
And even there in the Café du Dôme was the glory within me, I therein; so that every time that I failed at a stroke and stood up and drank in the ambrosial air, I was nigh falling for that intense sweetness that dissolved away the soul. Even as a lover swoons with excess of pleasure at the first kiss of the beloved, even so was I, oh my Lord Adonai! Wherefore I am come hither to my chamber to enflame myself in praying at the Altar that I have set up. And I am ready, robed, armed, anointed... 11:35 Ardesco!... (I am enflamed).

Crowley’s Paris was a place of transformation; a city of fountains, cafés, oysters, and revelation. Though much of that Paris has faded into nostalgia and expense accounts, the echo of that magickal autumn in 1908 still lingers in the air around Montparnasse and in the gardens.

Perhaps it’s there, in the last sips of a citron pressé, that we still taste something of Adonai’s ambrosial air.

The John St. John diary begins meticulously, noting every meal and drink, though his attention wanes as the days pass. On the very first morning: “At eight o’clock, I rose from sleep and, putting on my Robe, began a little to meditate... I rose and went out to the Café du Dôme where I took coffee and a brioche, after buying an exercise book in which to write this record.” His choice of haunt was telling. Not knowing his exact address, I surmise from his frequent visits to Le Dôme for citron pressé, oysters, or a simple steak that he lodged in or around Montparnasse or the Latin Quarter. Later that very afternoon, he shopped for provisions: “two pears, half a pound of Garibaldi biscuits, and a packet of gaufrettes.” Despite his continental air, Crowley remained deeply British as only an Englishman in Paris would stock up on Garibaldi biscuits.

The Garibaldi was itself a Victorian invention, first baked in 1861 by Jonathan Dodgson Carr for Peek, Frean & Co. of London. Named for the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had been lionized during his 1854 visit to England, the biscuit combined celebrity marketing with industrial innovation. Several colorful legends arose to explain the name. One tale claimed Garibaldi improvised a field ration of bread soaked in berries and horse blood, inspiring the biscuit’s fruit filling. Another story linked it to a dark currant bun Garibaldi supposedly enjoyed in Sicily. In truth, the naming was likely a savvy marketing move—capitalizing on Garibaldi’s fame rather than any direct recipe from the man. (A popular myth even imagined Garibaldi accidentally sitting on a pair of biscuits during his visit, supposedly flattening them into this new form. However, there is no evidence that the general himself had anything to do with inventing the biscuit.) In essence, the Garibaldi biscuit’s development was a fusion of culinary innovation and celebrity tribute: a Victorian-era sweet created by an industrial baker and branded with the name of a contemporary hero to capture the public’s imagination.

Thin layers of dough sandwiched with currants quickly became known as “squashed fly biscuits,” a nickname beloved by generations of British schoolchildren. By the late 19th century, Garibaldis were exported across the Empire, copied in the United States as “Golden Fruit,” and folded into the everyday fabric of Victorian and Edwardian life. Though their popularity waned in the 20th century as richer biscuits took center stage, they never vanished. Today, Crawford’s continues to make them—a legacy of Peek Frean’s failure to trademark the name.

I confess to being an old fan of Garibaldis. My father ate them, and I inherited the taste. Yes, they are rather dry and chewy, but for tea or coffee I prefer a crisp biscuit—shortbread, pecan sandies, or Garibaldis—to anything too sweet. Living in California, they are hard to find; when not mail-ordering Crawford’s version, I have tried making them at home. My first attempt, with raisins instead of currants, was bland and uninspired. So I’ve adapted the recipe, adding citrus and spice to heighten their humble character. Currants usually appear around the holidays, when I’ll try again—but in the meantime, here is my spiced version, a nod both to Crowley’s Paris purchases and to a biscuit that has remained a British staple for over 150 years.

Recipe: Spiced Raisin Garibaldis

• 150 g / 1¼ cups currants (or raisins), roughly chopped

• 75 ml / ⅓ cup orange juice

• 75 ml / ⅓ cup Grand Marnier or Triple Sec

• 125 g / 1 cup self-rising flour

• Pinch of salt

• 75 g / ⅓ cup unsalted butter, cubed and chilled

• 25 g / 2 tbsp caster sugar

• Zest of 2 lemons (about 2 tbsp)

• 1 tbsp ground cardamom

• 1 large egg, separated

• 1 tbsp water

Method

1. Heat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F / Gas 4. Simmer raisins with juice and liqueur for 5 minutes; drain, pat dry, and flatten under cling film with a rolling pin.

2. Sift flour, salt, and cardamom into a bowl. Rub in butter until crumbly, add sugar, then mix in egg yolk and water to form a dough. Wrap and chill 20 minutes.

3. Roll out two 20 × 15 cm (8” × 6” in) rectangles. Brush one with egg white, layer with fruit, then top with the second sheet.

4. Roll gently into a 25 × 20 cm (10” × 8” in) rectangle. Trim edges, cut into 6–12 biscuits, prick with a fork, and brush with egg white.

5. Bake on parchment-lined sheet for 12–15 minutes, until golden. Cool briefly, then transfer to a wire rack.

Sidebar: Biscuits Abroad
Crowley’s purchase of Garibaldi biscuits in Paris fits a broader pattern among Britons abroad. From the 19th century onward, English travelers often sought out familiar foods — whether Huntley & Palmers tins, Bovril, or cups of strong black tea — as anchors of home in foreign cities. Imported biscuits in particular carried comfort and identity: to unwrap a packet of Garibaldis in Montparnasse was to reaffirm one’s Britishness even amid the cafés of Paris. For Crowley, ever the cosmopolitan yet rooted in English tastes, that half-pound of currant biscuits symbolized not just sustenance but continuity—proof that even in exile, the flavors of Britain could still be summoned at will.

• Robert Winthrop Chanler: In Memoriam. An American artist known for decorative screens, acclaimed for his work in the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York, and was a well-known socialite.

• Deirdre Patricia McAlpine: Hymn to Astarte. Mother of Aleister’s fifth(?)* child, Aleister Ataturk. *The jury is out as to whether Ataturk was of Crowley’s loins or not. Crowley believed he was the father, but actual parentage has never been proven and is often questioned.

• “Margot,” Happy Dust: This is oddly speculative there was a woman named “Marguerite Ferrier” occasionally mentioned and is noted in Martin Booth’s A Magick Life, but Crowley had a tendency to use “Margo” as a pseudonym for whichever woman with whom he was currently sleeping.

• Augustus Edwin John, The Moralist: To me, Augustus John is the most interesting of the bunch. A Welsh-born artist, he was considered a prodigy and was inspired by Post-Impressionism.

John was most famous as a portraitist; Virginia Woolf even praised him as the next John Singer Sargent. Artist extraordinaire aside, Augustus and Aleister were cut from the same Bohemian cloth. Both were charismatic and flamboyant, relished their unconventional lifestyles, appeared in ostentatious, colorful clothing, maintained multiple sexual relationships simultaneously, and sired numerous children, all from different mothers. They likely met around 1907 via mutual acquaintances in London’s art and literary circles, and I have no doubt that Crowley’s own attempts at portraiture were inspired by those done by John. Consider the multiple portraits of the Marchesa Casati:

Crowley’s attempts of some of his Scarlet Women:

Of course, John, being formally trained — first at the Tenby School of Art in Wales as a teenager, then later at the Slade School of Art, UCL, in London — was the more accomplished artist, with bold, assured brushstrokes and classic, composed frontal postures. John was known for presenting penetrating psychological insight with his portraits, something Crowley would undoubtedly aspire toward in spite of his naïveté. Both exude confidence by having their subjects peer directly at the viewer, while Crowley’s exaggerated stares present a more unsettling energy.

All that artsy stuff aside (this is about food, after all), let’s take a look at Crowley’s poem, “The Moralist,” written for Augustus John. Before the ten six-line stanzas written in iambic tetrameter, there is the dedication swiped from Baudelaire; in French, “Il faut être toujours saoul,” which translates to “One must always be drunk;” a philosophy of living to which both gentlemen frequently applied themselves, if not through alcohol, then some other libation. The poem in full:

Delaying to do the thing that's right
Is as bad as having a funk on;
Then why should we wait till Saturday night
To get all kinds of a drunk on?
With brandy a century old in sight,
Why should we wait till Saturday night?

If I haven't a house on the Grand Parade,
I'll build me a hut of wattle.
The corkscrew seems to have got mislaid?
Then smash the neck of the bottle!
Courage and will and a whack will aid,
Though the corkscrew seems to have got mislaid.

Anatomists say that a single wing
Isn't much for a bird to fly on.
There's not much ginger about the spring
Of the fiercest one-legged lion.
Another bottle's the obvious thing
To get the ginger into our spring.

Beloved brethren, listen to me!
If there's one truth of divinity
Clear, it's the virtue there is in Three,
And I myself was at Trinity.
The least we can do is to seek and see
The virtues hid in the Number Three.

If much be good, then better is more,
As any logician will prove you;
It's only a step from Three to Four;
May the argument's lever move you!
It's simply illogical not to explore
The little bit on from Three to Four.

On bread alone though a man can't thrive,
Saint Luke says nothing of brandy;
It may be the thing to keep us alive,
And I see there's a bottle handy.
Open it, Bill! That's only Five.
It may be the thing to keep us alive.

The Road of Excess, said William Blake,
To the Palace of Wisdom leads one;
Open a bottle for Wisdom's sake!
And I am the boy that needs one.
It's a long, long way, but it's good to take
Open a bottle for Mishter Blake!

At the door of Burgess' Fish Sauce Shop
She stood, oh, how does it go, boys?
Well, "truly rural" will do for the cop,
If you say it quiet and slow, boys.
Why the devil should anyone stop,
When "truly rural" will do for the cop?

I d'know 'f 't struck you, i' shtruck me
Th'was somethin' wrong with the pheasant.
Say, how would a little drink, maybe --
You'know, 'void an'thing 'npleasant?
Say, doctor, d'you preschribe it, shee?
W'd'y' think, lil drink, maybe?

'Fence o' th' Realm Act, I'm no fool,
All tha', Tha's ri', damnation!
'Member, 'n I wazza boy a' school,
A-Thanks, Ol' top, jus' trench ration
Zhero -- overra top'sh my rule
'Member, 'n I wazza boy a' school --

As for the poem itself, when read aloud, it is easy to hear a descent from spry aphorisms to the slurred speech of a drunkard—exactly what Augustus was known to be. Actual words degrade into tipsy gibberish, causing the reader to become inebriated by its very words, through its consumption. By beginning with the Baudelaire line, the emphasis on intoxication is almost a command more than an entreaty. Crowley also embodies the poem with contemporary erudition in references to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”), but also to the headquarters of a well-known food brand, “Burgess’ Fish Sauce Shop:”

At the door of the Burgess’ Fish Sauce Shop
She stood, oh, how does it go, boys?
Well, “truly rural” will do for the cop,
If you say it quiet and slow, boys.
Why the devil should anyone stop,
When “truly rural” will do for the cop?

In spite of the many brandy references and what must have been a much loved pheasant entrée within the poem, it is the Burgess mention which piqued my interest.

Introduced in 1775, Burgess’ Essence of Anchovies became the first sauce of any kind to enjoy a brand name and earn nationwide acclaim. Crafted from crushed anchovies and “secret” spices, the concoction was gently heated in water, strained, and bottled. Its fame was wide and varied; from being part of the necessary provisions aboard HMS Victory in 1805 (Lord Horatio Nelson’s ship), loved by both Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, the brand earned awards at the 1867 Paris Exhibition and 1873 London International Exhibition, and had the honor of being appointed Purveyor to King George V in 1911. Along with the sauce, the Burgess Fish Sauce Shop would have also sold containers of anchovy paste.

For most of you, if you look at the standard condiments in your pantry or refrigerator, you are likely to see mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Possibly soy sauce. Americans probably have a barbecue sauce bottle or two, some godawful Ranch dressing, A-1 steak sauce, while the Brits have HP Sauce, malt vinegar, and a chutney for the curries. From the late Georgian period and well into the Edwardian era, an anchovy essence was a must-have in middle- and upper-class kitchens. Both cookbook mavens Hannah Glasse and Mrs. Beeton used it frequently in recipes for gravies, meat sauces, and soups. When asked to describe its taste, it is often equated to the modern Thai fish sauce, nam pla (น้ำปลา), but I believe the British fish sauce to be a bit thicker and richer, similar to an ancient Roman garum, also a fermented fish sauce. Invoking the image of where Crowley had the earthy and probably pungent “she,” standing and heckling “truly rural,” these shots below are where the action would be taking place; in front of the Burgess store which existed on The Strand, where the fish sauce possibly relates to the earthy and pungent woman involved in the scene.

It is more than just a fish sauce; it is also an anchovy paste (pictured above on the right), also created by Burgess. Sold in ceramic pots, sometimes decanted into small lidded silver or glass dishes, often with a tiny serving spoon or butter knife, the paste, known as Gentleman’s Relish. was a morning staple at any formal breakfast, luncheon, or light supper, especially in gentlemen’s clubs, hotels, or during a country house weekend. Considered a breakfast delicacy, the gentleman would grasp a warm slice of toast that had been prepared for him by his manservant, first spread a thin layer of fresh butter, and then with a clean knife or spoon, smear a dollop of the paste—being careful not to overwhelm his fellow diners with too big a serving, as the aroma and flavors were both robust and salty. This would have been a staple of Crowley’s youth as well as for any strapping young gentleman of the Edwardian era.

What emerges from Temperance — A Tract for the Times is a vivid tableau of Edwardian eccentricity, filtered through Crowley’s singular wit and the larger-than-life characters who populated his orbit. Each poem is both an affectionate caricature and a subtle exposé, laying bare the artistic, sexual, and gustatory appetites that fueled this circle of artists, muses, and misfits. The mention of Burgess’ Fish Sauce Shop is more than a passing culinary reference; it is a portal into the era’s gustatory landscape, a reminder that even the most esoteric literary salons were shaped by the condiments and customs of their day. In celebrating intoxication, excess, and conviviality, be it through brandy, sex, or the humble anchovy paste, Crowley draws a line of continuity from the boozy salons of Paris to the well-provisioned London pantries. Ultimately, “The Moralist” is less a didactic tract than a riotous homage to the pleasures of the table, the brush, and the bottle—a fitting tribute to Augustus John, and to a vanished world where art and appetite were inseparable.

If you are British, you bloody well know that pudding is part of the culinary heritage of Albion. Now pudding is a catch-all term for the sweet bit at the end of a meal; be it cake or biscuit (cookies, for the Yanks), galette or pie. Historically however, pudding is very ancient. From the Latin word botellus (sausage), it segued into the French, boudin. Alternatively, the West Germanic pud (which means “to swell”), the Westphalian puddek (“lump”), or the Low German, puddle-wurst which is their version of black pudding (blood sausage). From Regula Ysewijn’s brilliant Pride and Pudding - The History of British Puddings, Savoury and Sweet, we learn essentially, pudding is the name of any mixture that is encased in animal skins (haggis or sausage), cloth, pastry, or a mould. A pudding is a form of homonym for being either the dessert at the end of a meal or pasty custard, an accompaniment — like Yorkshire pudding or a pop-over — or a pastry-encased stew; what Americans would call a pot-pie.

Located at 145 Fleet Street on Wine Office Court, the pub then known as “The Horn” had been situated at that location since 1538. Sadly, the Great Fire of 1666 decimated this neighborhood along with the other 80% of London, but a new establishment was quickly rebuilt in the same place, with some of the vaulted cellars believed to have come from a 13th century Carmelite monastery which also occupied the site. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (hereafter referred to as “The Cheese”). The entrance is down a narrow alley and once you step inside its smoke-laden, dark wood interior, it feels slightly oppressive, as the ceilings are low, the air is thick, and history can be felt in your bones as portraits of Dr. Samuel Johnson festoon the walls.

From Edward Spencer’s Cakes and Ale: a dissertation of banquets, interspersed with various recipes, more or less original, and anecdotes, mainly veracious (4th ed.; London, 1913)

A little way up a gloomy court on the north side of Fleet Street – a neighbourhood which reeks of printers' ink, bookmakers' "runners," tipsters, habitual borrowers of small pieces of silver, and that "warm" smell of burning paste and molten lead which indicates the "foundry" in a printing works - is situated this ancient hostelry. It is claimed for the "Cheese" that it was the tavern most frequented by Johnson, in his Fifty Years' Recollections Literary and Personal, published in 1858, says: "I often dined at the “Cheshire Cheese.”

[The pudding] which is served on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 1:30 and 6:00, is a formidable-looking object, and its savour reaches even into the uttermost parts of Great Grub Street. As large, more or less, as the dome of St. Paul's, that pudding is stuffed with steak, kidney, oysters, mushrooms, and larks. The irreverent call these last named sparrows, but we know better. This pudding takes (on dit) 17 ½ hours in the boiling, and the "bottom crust" would have delighted the hearts of Johnson, Boswell, and Co., in whose days the savoury dish was not. The writer once witnessed a catastrophe at the "Cheshire Cheese," compared to which the burning of Moscow or the bombardment of Alexandria were mere trifles. 1.30 on Saturday afternoon had arrived, and the oaken benches in the refectory were filled to repletion with expectant pudding-eaters. Burgesses of the City of London were there - good, "warm," round-bellied men, with ploughboys' appetites - and journalists, and advertising agents, and "resting " actors, and magistrates' clerks, and barristers from the Temple, and well-to-do tradesmen. Sherry and gin and bitters and other adventitious aids (?) to appetite had been done justice to, and the arrival of the "procession" - it takes three men and a boy to carry the pièce de resistance from the kitchen to the dining-room - was anxiously awaited. And then, of a sudden we heard a loud crash ! followed by a feminine shriek, and an unwhispered Saxon oath. "Tom" the waiter had slipped, released his hold, and the pudding had fallen downstairs! It was a sight ever to be remembered - steak, larks, oysters, "delicious gravy," running in a torrent into Wine Office Court. The expectant diners (many of them lunchers) stood up and gazed upon the wreck of their hopes, and then filed, silently and sadly, outside. Such a catastrophe had not been known in Brainland since the Great Fire.

This is important pudding, folks. Crowley, a product of classic British society norms, attending boarding school from the age of eight, where pudding was a regular feature of school life. Economical, relatively easy to make with ingredients of flour, suet, meat (for savory) or fruit (for sweet), pudding provided a familiar and comforting way to provide essential calories and hearkened to the security of home.

When planning my January research trip to London, I used Phil Baker’s City of the Beast – The London of Aleister Crowley book to schedule where I should have my meals to mirror Crowley’s hangouts, but I also always try to also dine at the oldest restaurants in a particular city, so this killed two birds with one stone. Of course I ordered the pudding, which I seriously doubt was historically served on lentils with a micro greens garnish:

In mid-October of 1928, Crowley was in the throes of negotiating funds from outside sources and relying on Gerald Yorke to manage accounts. From this transcript that Gerald typed from Crowley’s letter, we have our first mention of pudding: “To confirm my wire [money transfer] of 2 P.M. ‘come this Saturday Situation improved. Bring pudding.’ Pudding connotes Cheshire Cheese, but is to be extended to include my watch if it is ready.” This makes me believe that if there is leftover funds after the purchase of the pudding, a pocket watch – probably out for repairs – is ready to be retrieved.

To justify the expense: “The pudding may be regarded as a business investment. I am going to arrange a luncheon party for the lady of the well (Mrs. Fremman) to discuss the aforesaid pudding. I think her husband will be back by that time, so that any considerations of propriety will be met in a manner exquisitely satisfactory to our finer feelings.”

And the piece de resistance for yours truly as researcher? Discovered amongst the Aleister Crowley archive of personal papers at the Warburg Institute is the very page from Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, with instructions on home preparation:

Wait, why is this Substack entry Part I, you ask?

Because in a few days, I’ll be posting the recipe for the famous Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese rumpsteak, kidney, lark, and oyster pudding (in suet crust), that’s why! Stay tuned….

Those of you who have been following along on this adventure for some time may be getting pretty tired of waiting for something new to read. New folks who have just recently stumbled upon this investigation, may be wondering if the subject matter — or the authoress, for that matter — has gone dormant. Well, it hasn’t and I haven’t and it has been almost six months since I spent time in London, reading Crowley’s unpublished diaries, shopping lists, and accounts at The Warburg Institute, with barely three entries since that time (when you know I ate and visited a lot more restaurants than just these three). I wanted to share with you a little of what has been happening in the interim, and to assure you that there has been a delightful kick-start to the research which just fills me with glee.

When I came back from London in January, I was giddy with enthusiasm for all the information I found. In fact, I took over seven-hundred (700!) photographs of both hand-written and typed (by Yorke, no doubt) notes, journal entries, poems, and menus. To give you an idea, there are five catalogues of the Yorke holdings, and there is a catalogue of the catalogues that is almost 50 pages long, just trying to list what is there and where to find it. This photo was taken as I tried to document every photograph I took (the NS numbers are from the “New Series” of cataloguing, while the “OS” numbers are from the ‘Original Series” which has yet to be organized). Oh, and this photograph? They forgot to ask me to fill this out until my second or third day…

Back home with all these amazing images, I tried to start organizing them. This involved reading them, seeing where the topic might fall in a timeline, cross-reference with any food item mentioned or meal served, and with a proper name that may have been mentioned. Needless to say, 700-plus images proved to be a daunting task and each day, it was easier to take care of some other chore than decipher pixilated, hand-written copy. You did get to read three accounts of some of the historical restaurants frequented by Crowley during his time in London.

Just as February was waning into March, an unexpected email arrived in my in-basket: A referral from a pretty famous culinary historian, Ken Albala to The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, asking if I might be interested in putting together a lecture in conjunction with a featured exhibition of Gustave Caillebotte, ostensibly an Impressionist, but far more interesting. A few phone calls and brainstorming sessions later, it was decided I would not only create a discussion about Caillebotte, and his circle of friends, fellow painters, and noted authors all of whom shaped the artistic and literary landscape of late 1800s Paris, but I would collaborate with the Getty’s catering team to develop a menu that would be served to seventy or eighty people inspired from the artwork of the era.

All this revolved the food and drink, as both sustenance and subject matter for art, essays, and novels. After the talk, guests were invited to the luncheon I had curated, where we dined on scrumptious offerings of pâté, cheeses, roast duck, cod fritters, and delectable desserts, while sipping a bounty of libations all of which would have been part of the Belle Epoque in Paris (about the same time that Crowley would have arrived in 1897, at the age of 21). While straying ever-so-slightly away from my Crowley focus, it was undeniably valuable research that will be shared in the future.

While negotiating the Getty event and confirming presentation dates, I received a phone call from an old friend in Los Angeles who was yet another culinary historian, Richard Foss, who had attended one of my first art dinners way back in 1999; the cooking and serving of ten courses from Salvador Dalí’s Les Diners de Gala. Most recently, Foss had wandered into a newly-opened gallery in Torrance, saw they were getting ready for a Surrealist exhibition, and convinced the gallery owners they should stage a Salvador Dalí dinner event, with me at the helm. Gosh-by-golly, I was going to be in Los Angeles anyway for Mother’s Day weekend for the Getty and - sure! - I’d be happy to put together another event while I’m there…

On cloud nine and a bit overwhelmed at the fortuitous turn of events, I then read about a writer’s conference, the M.F.K. Women in Food & Storytelling Symposium sponsored by Les Dames d’Escoffier (of which I am a member — or “Dame,” as it were), being held the first weekend of April in Nashville. The gods were in agreement; it was time for me to up-my-game and start learning what was going to be needed to bring not only The Culinary Crowley to fruition, but several other books that in the back of my head. The three days I spent in Nashville taught me more about the publishing industry, agents, editing, and overcoming writer’s block than I knew possible, bringing a lightening bolt of energy and enthusiasm towards this work and more.

Hilariously, while in Nashville, I received an email from The Getty, informing me they cleared the budget hurdle for Absinthe to be a part in the tasting event, along with the three wines already part of the line up. The email included some bottle images of potential offerings, asking which one I might recommend. My personal favorite absinthe is Clandestine Le Bleu from Switzerland, and was not one The Getty could get. At the conference, several of us were deciding on dinner plans when the Absinthe email arrived, and I quickly googled “absinthe Nashville,” delighted to discover The Green Hour, a cocktail bar specializing in the very thing I needed to research. (l’Heure Verte was the phrase used in late 1800s Paris for that time at the end of day, when everyone would leave their homes, studios, and offices, socialize at their local café, and start the evening with an absinthe, before dinnertime).

April was Nashville and getting my creative spark re-lit and professionally directed. May was Los Angeles with its Impressionists and French cuisine at The Getty, as well as the Surrealists, Salvador Dalí, and lobsters at VEFA Gallery. June? June was another presentation, this time requested by someone who had heard about my Culinary Crowley research, a member of the Odd Fellows of Half Moon Bay who wanted a talk about Food as Ritual. Who was I to say no?

With the year half over, where does that leave us insofar as moving forward with the Culinary Crowley? Much better along than would be expected, for I made a groundbreaking (for me) discovery: Artificial Intelligence and how it can help in my research. One of the biggest time-sucks in all the world when preparing PowerPoint presentations (especially for an institution like The Getty, who requires the highest resolution images possible, and no copyright infringement), is the dreary internet searches of specific artwork. This is especially true when search engines like Google return results that are wholly and entirely veering you towards websites of commerce. Want that image of Claude Monet’s still life of Gallettes? Here it is as a tote bag, or a t-shirt, or as a framed poster. Oh, but its resolution is still only 300x400 dpi. Ask ChatGPT to find a high resolution, copyright free version, and suddenly you are scrolling through the website of some obscure, tiny museum in the South of France who happens to have the very painting you need, and provides creative commons links for anyone to access the artwork. Thrilling, huh? It is for me and this is why:

With the 700-plus photographs I took during my time in the Crowley archives, I can now have them transcribed and ask to have any food or dining words highlighted, as well as any proper names that are mentioned. My first attempt was a letter to Crowley from Auguste Rodin. Written in French, I not only got a transcription, but a translation. My brief foray into A.I. already produced some noticeable errors, so I know well not to trust the results 100%, but even being able to search for specific terms gastronomic terms like, say, “Champagne,” will lead me down a merry path I am happy to skip.

The mind boggles at the possibility, and if I were sitting on a boatload of money, I’d set up an endowment to have all of the entirety of the Yorke Collection digitized, transcribed, and available to the public. In the meantime, I will at least be able to move forward with my research much more quickly and expeditiously. Thank you all for your kind patience and understanding during what may have felt like a fallow period, but has proven remarkably productive.

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Carrie

Crowley took up residence in London multiple times during his lifespan; sometimes just staying a day or two while hopping between Paris and his home in Scotland, Boleskine House. Some of his longest stints in London seemed to be in the 1930s and 40s, leading up to and during World War II. From his diaries, he specifically cited dining at Bentleys almost a dozen times (which makes me believe he frequented it far more often than that). Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill is in the same Soho neighborhood as the Café Royal and Veeraswamy, both Crowley haunts. Opened in 1916, Bentley’s was one of the stalwarts where Crowley dined upon oysters, but Bentley’s was — and still is — more than just an oyster bar. From his December 1, 1941 entry he exclaims in his diaries, “posh tiffin at Bentley’s.” Posh being “upscale” or “upper crust,” and tiffin as derived from the English slang, “tiffing,” which originally meant to take a little drink, but evolved in South East Asia to mean a light meal. Later, the word tiffin was applied to specially-designed tiered lunchboxes, more commonly known and used in India. For me, this was not just a light meal, but the full blown experience, starting at the entrance by grasping heavy brass door handles.

Foregoing the seating area with booths and tables, I asked to sit at the Oyster Bar…

If you didn’t know this about me already, I wrote a book on oysters, so I take their consumption very, very seriously — as does Crowley. In his Confessions, he admits that he “ultimately learnt that [he] could make [himself] actually drunk on a half a dozen oysters chewed in the manner of the yogis.” What does that mean? It is more than emphasizing a sattvic diet of focusing on whole grains and fresh ingredients. It is to give whatever is being consumed your full attention; reserving part of your awareness towards the concentration of chewing and swallowing. Most people slurp oysters with barely chomp and allow them to slide down their throat, perhaps in fear of experiencing the variables in texture and taste that an oyster can provide. Oysters should be chewed to release their full range of flavors — from briny to cucumber, coppery to sweet, umami to buttery, creamy to nutty, etc.

Sitting at the bar, downstairs, I was extremely lucky to have two very amiable servers, Lilo and Frederico, who displayed an obvious and genuine camaraderie for each other, the food with which they worked, as well as joy in interacting with customers. When in Europe and England specifically, I always look for those oysters that are scarce in the United States, “Natives” which are Ostrea edulis; bigger, flatter, with more flavor (to me), than Crassostrea gigas — or the Pacific oyster — which is the most prevalent oyster world-wide. That evening, I had two from Loch Ryan, the Scottish lowlands, two Atlantic Edge from Pembrokesure, and another three various gigas from Ireland and Wales, paired with a refreshing Paul Dethune Ambonnay Grand Cru Champagne. In the pictures, you can see my oysters were served with a mignonette (light, red wine vinegar with chopped shallots), and nearby where the boys were shucking is a bottle of Tabasco® sauce. Being an absolute purist, I will always first taste an oyster unadorned, in its own liquor. Then, if I feel it would benefit from a slight alteration, a squeeze of lemon juice should suffice, but nothing more. I don’t understand those who drown their oysters in sauces (especially spicy ones!) and flavorings that mask the individual and distinctive flavors of the beloved bivalves.

To start the meal, was a beef tartare made with Irish Hereford beef, unctuous oyster cream, and crispy shallots. Reputedly having roots from Central Asia (particularly the nomadic Tartars, from which its name is derived), steak tartare — or beef tartare as it is commonly known — is finely chopped raw beef that is more closely associated with the French for the dish’s popularity grew in Parisian bistros of the 20th century. Across the channel, we have the French chefs to thank for their additions of capers, onions or shallots, Dijon mustard and raw egg to bind it all together with the raw beef. Serving the tartare with thin, toasted bread is simply a mechanism in order to aid the diner in lifting all that bold, savory concoction to one’s mouth, but also to provide a contrasting crunch to an otherwise mushy mouthfeel. While I am confident that Crowley would have dined on a tartare or two in his lifespan, I’m not sure he would have had one with an oyster-essenced cream alongside, but this proved a welcome and complementary addition.

For main course, I was thrilled to see their menu wasn’t entirely mired in twee 21st century concoctions and modernistic degustations, but still contained some classic, old school dishes from the early 20th century, like this Lobster Thermidor.

There is quite a bit of folklore and even more variations of recipes behind the Lobster Thermidor. To say it is decadent is an understatement. It is reputed to have been inspired by the 1891, Victorien Sardou-written play, Thermidor, with multiple French chefs (Escoffier and Mourier the leading contenders) supposedly the dish’s creator. Recipe-wise, the lobster is halved (yes, while still alive) and the tail meat removed. Placing the tail meat back into its shell, it is briefly baked for a few minutes to pre-cook the meat. In the meantime, a sauce is made and this is where the historical discrepancies begin to occur. Some recipes involve the creation of a béchamel with white wine and herbs. Others insist it be a Cognac-infused cheese sauce. There are those who add mushrooms and even others who cheat, using crème fraîche instead of a master sauce. I grew up with a Mother who was crazy about lobster, ordering it whenever possible on the rare occasions we dined at swanky restaurants. Being the 1970s, she could also suffice with the <gasp!> frozen T.V. dinner version made by Stouffer’s. (Rumor has it that it was quite tasty!)

But I digress…. My meal is about to close, but not without a memorable finish and there was a bit of guilt seeping in as I was enjoying such largesse while thinking about Crowley and the troubles he was having in 1942, when there were two pointed Bentley’s entries in his diaries. First, at the end of January of that year, he remarked that his “dear old waitress” at Bentley’s told him he “was looking like hell!” He was having black-outs, heavy snows were falling, there was no central heating, and all he could do was mostly sleep “with short intervals for eating” Later, in the middle of March, he was plagued by a “Miltonian” cough, diarrhea, and fevers, but finding warmth and sustenance at Bentley’s. Plus there were air raid warnings. Britain was at war and with it came rationing; not just food, but all material goods. Each person was allotted 66 coupons a year with which they could buy clothing, shoes, and handkerchiefs.

For many — and possibly Crowley (although I have yet to have confirmation) — succor was to be found at “Community Feeding Centres,” later renamed by Winston Churchill as “British Restaurants.” Set up by the Ministry of Food, these communal kitchens were established in 1940 to help feed people who had been bombed out of their homes or who had run out of ration coupons. So popular were they that by 1943, more than 2,000 British Restaurants served upwards of 600,000 meals a day. However Crowley continued to find warmth and sustenance at places like his beloved eateries for, surprisingly, ordinary restaurants were not subjected to rationing. Feeding people well was thought to keep morale up, but there were restrictions: No meals more than three courses, and the price could be no higher than five shillings (about £20 in 2025). Needless to say, I know of no restaurants serving three-course meals for £20 these days, so feel free to question my calculations on that accord.

Ah yes, on to my memorable finish. Sticking with old school options and the fact that it is prepared table side (or in my case, counter side), Frederico deftly assembled and flamed Crêpes Suzette and thus my first full day in London endeth:

My other objective was to eat at as many restaurants as possible that may have been frequented by Crowley. Initially, the historian in me worked at creating a listing of the oldest extant London eating establishments from the late Victorian era through World War II. One of the great joys of the United Kingdom in general is the fact that there are pubs – or public houses, as they were known – still operating from the 900s. (The Porch House in Stow-on-the-Wold, located in Gloucestershire, is reputed to have been founded by the Saxon Duke of Cornwall, Athelmar, in 947 A.D., and was subsequently run by the Knights Hospitallers.) Then I stumbled upon Phil Baker’s excellent book, City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley which proved invaluable to me in confirming many of the eateries that I planned to visit, but also providing new intel for me to explore.

Initially, for my eight days, the plan was to have a very minimal breakfast – tea and a piece of toast, or bit of fruit, at the most – to save myself for lunch and dinner. I reasoned that on the day of my arrival, at 11:00 in the morning on a Saturday after twelve-plus hours of traveling, I could start with a quick stop at a pub for lunch, a little wandering and exploration, and rebuild my appetite), and be ready for another meal come dinnertime. While airline food is almost always forgettable, there is an exception with Virgin Airlines and their boxed cream tea offering; complete with finger sandwiches, warm scone with jam and clotted cream, and tart. As this was served an hour before landing, destroying my plan for a pub lunch as I was quite full to the extent that after landing and checking into the favored old Tavistock Hotel (where many OTO brethren have stayed, and which is barely a block-and-a-half away from the University of London where the Warburg Institute is housed), I just wasn’t hungry enough to risk ruining my evening meal.

Not knowing if any of the desired restaurants were difficult to get into or not, I had worked hard the week before the trip to secure reservations at as many places as possible. Within those first twenty-four hours in London after a single meal, I realized I longer had the eating stamina or capacity of my youth (or of a certain, beloved Norseman many of us know whose gargantuan dining adventures are the stuff of legends), and the week unfolded with me sufficing on a single meal a day. Sometimes not even that much.

Besides its tremendous affordability, the Tavistock Hotel also has the advantage of its proximity to Crowley’s personal neighborhoods, that of Piccadilly and Soho. Using a mapping software, I placed virtual pins in the restaurants and pubs talked about in the Baker book and soon realized that the bulk of them were less than a mile’s walk from where I was situated. Even with a charged-up Oyster card in hand, I relied very little on the tube and walked most everywhere for the next eight days.

My first night’s dinner reservation was at Bentley’s in Piccadilly (the next entry), and as I was nearing its location with still an hour to kill, I spied on Regent Street another important establishment, The Café Royal. In 1865, French wine merchant Daniel Nicholas Thévenon (who shortened his name to just Daniel Nicols) and his wife, Célestine opened the restaurant, which quickly thrived, becoming one of the most prominent establishments “to see and be seen.”

During this Belle Époque, Café Royal’s wine cellar was one of the greatest in the world. The interior was the epitome of opulence, with ceiling murals surrounded by gilded Rococo frames, mirrors that reflect golden faux pillars on the walls, and rich leather seats and banquettes for literati like Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Virginia Woolf who would sit and whisper amongst themselves. It was known that this is where Wilde first met the love of his life, Lord Alfred Douglas; his “Bosie.”

Crowley was a known habitué of Café Royal and my deepest regret is that the restaurant as it once stood was closed in 2008, only to be renovated and reopened in 2012 as The Hotel Café Royal. There is still a restaurant within the hotel, headed up by two Michelin-starred chef, Alex Dilling, but the food now served is what one would find at most trendy, modern, eatery “that creatively highlights seasonal, local ingredients.” (i.e., boring.) I’m here not only to dine at the historic restaurants, but to eat the same types of dishes and offerings as afforded any late Victorian/early Edwardian gentleman. Wanting just a glimpse of what once was, I stepped inside the large, glass doors and situated just off the lobby of this elegantly appointed, mostly black-and-chrome interior, was delighted to find The Green Bar, a cocktail establishment devoted to absinthe and its mystical qualities.

Aleister Crowley was a great imbiber of the magical liquor, and while visiting the also historic and famed New Orleans Old Absinthe House in Louisiana, drafted the following poem, published in The International in October of 1917.

La Legende de l'Absinthe
Apollon, qui pleurait le trepas d’Hyacinthe,
Ne voulait pas ceder la victoire a la mort.
Il fallait que son ame, adepte de l’essor,
Trouvat pour la beaute une alchemie plus sainte.
Donc de sa main celeste il epuise, il ereinte
Les dons les plus subtils de la divine Flore.
Leurs corps brises souspirent une exhalaison d’or
Dont il nous recueillait la goutte de — l’Absinthe!
Aux cavernes blotties, aux palis petillants,
Par un, par deux, buvez ce breuvage d’aimant!
Car c’est un sortilege, un propos de dictame,
Ce vin d’opale pale avortit la misere,
Ouvre de la beaute l’intime sanctuaire
—Ensorcelle mon coeur, extasie mort ame!

Translated: The Legend of Absinthe

Apollo, who mourned at Hyacinthe’s demise,
Refused to concede this victory to Death.
Much better that the soul, adept in transformation,
Had to find a holy alchemy for beauty.
Thus with his celestial hand he drained and crushed
The subtlest harvest of the garden goddess,
The broken bodies of the herbs yielding a golden essence
From which we measure out our first drop — of Absinthe!
In lowly hovels and in glittery courts,
Alone, in pairs, drink up this potion of desire!
For it is sorcery — as one might say —
When the pale opal wine ends all misery,
Opens beauty’s most intimate sanctuary —
— Bewitches my heart, and exalts my soul in ecstasy!

He then wrote a love letter of sorts; an essay both extolling the virtues of this elegant drink while admonishing the looming rise of prohibitionism, Absinthe: The Green Goddess, for February 1918 edition of The International, including the original poem. Never published there, it is reported that the entire issue of the magazine was withdrawn due to World War I sedition laws as the publisher, George Sylvester Viereck, was a devout sympathizer for Germany since the war’s onset in 1914. Crowley even took over of editorial management of the magazine for several months, before an entirely new editorial team assumed control. Crowley ultimately self-published

And so I found myself in a metaphorical temple devoted to the famed beverage, and glancing over the wide selection of absinthes offered in this elegantly cozy bar, I spied Devil’s Botany London-made absinthe. Never ignoring a sign, I commenced my grand Crowley-themed London adventure by partaking in the ritual of absinthe preparation, known as the French drip method. The bartender poured the appropriate amount of absinthe in the glass, laid the flat, perforated spoon squarely atop the glass, crowning it with the compressed square of white sugar. Filling the reproduction Art Deco fountain with ice and water, it was placed squarely in line with the glass, so that I could personally dispense the desired amount of water; slightly melting the sugar and diluting the beverage, just so, as the clear liquid turned ever-so-slightly cloudy. Dipping the pointed spoon into willing receptacle, a gently stirred so the sugar would dissolve a bit more, and took my first sip…

Arriving Saturday, January 11th, I will spend the week at the British Library, Bishopsgate Institute, and — of course — The Warburg Institute at the University of London which houses the unpublished books and papers belonging to Crowley, gifted to the library by one of Crowley's closest associates, Gerald Yorke (1903-1981).

While I am anticipating most mornings and afternoons will be spent sequestered in reading rooms (but really won’t know until I start), I will also be seeking out and dining in the many restaurants and pubs still standing that Crowley frequented. To keep expenses down, I may try for lunch at the higher-priced establishments. If you are in London and would care to join me, I would love to have dining companions for many of the eateries I have researched and hope to be visiting:

• L’Escargot — Open since 1896, this is the oldest French restaurant in London and their Sunday prix fixe lunch is a screaming deal with three courses being offered for only £45 (but will there be room for a Sunday roast dinner, pray tell?)

• Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill — Shucking oysters since 1916, this will be my pilgrimage to find natives, if they are to be had. You can read about the rarity of the Ostrea edulis oyster which is so prized in my oyster book. This restaurant’s menu also boasts the Lobster Thermidor, which is a classic dish reputed to date back to 1894.

• Veeraswamy’s — I’m a little on the fence about this one. Crowley was known for his curries and love of “exotic” cuisines and in Phil Baker’s City of the Beast book, despite the fame and notoriety of this almost-hundred-year-old dining establishment, Crowley stated in 1941, that he had “tried it again after a seven-year absence and found it coarse and bad as ever.”

• Wilton’s — I have some fact-checking to do, for Rules has claimed to be the oldest restaurant in London, as it was established by Thomas Rule in 1798. Wilton’s, however, claims to have been open since 1742. And while I have not yet confirmed that Crowley dined here, I am working under the assumption that a restaurant with the superlative reputation for its table side carving trolley and Aleister’s gourmandise, this must have been on his radar.

• Claridge’s or Langham’s for tea? — One tea is probably sufficient for this trip, but which one? Or another I don’t know of yet?

• Speaking of Langham’s, they also have The Wigmore, high-end pub food, and The Artesian, a truly stunning looking cocktail bar.

• Swan — A 150-year-old pub might be the beginning of a pub crawl, as Hop Poles is a short walk away and both public houses have been mentioned by Crowley.

• I’m going to be staying near the British Museum and University of London, so the pubs Crowley is known to have frequented in the Bloomsbury district that are still open include The French House, Dog and Duck, and Fitzroy Tavern.

• In the Blackfriars district sits the well known 17th century public house, Old Cheshire Cheese, which, besides Crowley, hosted other notables including William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, and Pablo Picasso. They are also reputed to have one of the best steak and kidney suet puddings around.

This is the tip of the iceberg in my research, and if any of you know of restaurants or public houses which I should seek out, please drop me a line. To reiterate, if you are in London the week of January 11 (arrive in the morning) to January 19th (departure day), and would like to join me on any of these dining adventures, I’d love to hear from you. It would be especially nice if you were the type of person who likes to share bites, so we can all taste a wider selection!

Email Carrie

Historically, fermented beverages have been around since probably 10,000 BCE. The Chinese had been fermenting a concoction of rice, honey, and fruit since 7,000 BCE. There is evidence of wine grapes in what is now modern-day Iran that date to the mid-5000s BCE, and King Tut’s tomb (1323 BCE) boasted wine jars meticulously labeled with their year and vintner. Historians believe the modern day cocktail was born out of the British punch; a blend of spirits (or not, for teetotalers), fruit juice, and spices, and was served at social events such as hunting parties, balls, or garden parties. Such was the elegance of a punch, that specialty ladles were made for their serving. This one in my collection has a handle of twisted whale baleen and a Georgian-era coin set in the bottom. Relatively small, it only pours about one-and-a-half ounces.

The Golden Age of Cocktails occurred during the fifty-year span between the end of the American Civil War — 1865 — and the beginning of World War I, in 1914. The Industrial Revolution, as well as a fundamental shift in society in the late 1800s, became a time of innovation such as the invention of the electric light, passenger trains, flight, and the moving vehicle. Oxford University was the birthplace of the first known book about mixed drinks in 1827, entitled Oxford Night Caps by Richard Cook. Thirty-five years later, Jerry Thomas’ book, The Bartenders’ Guide — a complete cyclopedia of plain and fancy drinks, was written exclusively for bartenders, showing just how much the concept of a mixed drink proliferated. San Francisco’s own William T. Boothby wrote The World’s Drinks and How to Mix Them in 1891, in which the Sazerac cocktail appeared for the first time in print.

In San Francisco today, there still exists seven cocktail bars that were open during Crowley’s 1901 visit: The Old Ship Saloon (1851), Elixir (1858), Northstar Cafe (1882) Shotwell’s (1891), The Little Shamrock (1893), and Bus Stop Saloon (1900). This doesn’t take into account the beautiful bar located inside the Palace Hotel, or the myriad of others long since lost to time, including one that will become quite important to our investigation, The Bank Exchange.

Why all this hullabaloo about cocktails, might you ask? As it happens, the cocktail culture — specifically Pisco — was already part of the wild and wooly days of early San Francisco, thanks to Peruvians. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? I owe thanks to Camper English, a San Francisco-based cocktail historian, for this story he shared with me that made me think Crowley must have explored California’s signature cocktail of the age: The Pisco Punch.

Briefly, Spanish conquistadors planted grapevines in Peru in the 1500s where Catholic clergy missionaries thought it better to make their own sacramental wine instead of importing it from Spain. By the 1600s, this wine was being distilled into a brandy; then called aguardiente de uva, which meant “grape firewater.” As ships headed to California for the 1849 Gold Rush, they would stop at the port of Pisco to load up on the local brandy, hence the name-change of this heady spirit. By 1850, it was all the rage throughout San Francisco saloons, most notably at The Bank Exchange, quite a fancy establishment where Mark Twain was known to frequent.

The important thing about the Bank Exchange Saloon was its bartender, Duncan Nicol (1852-1926) who made famous the Pisco Punch (not invented by him, as it pre-dates him at the bar). Like the Black Russian from the Hotel Metropole in Brussels, Belgium, the French 75 from Harry’s in Paris, France or the Negroni from Caffè Casoni in Florence, Italy, one did not come to San Francisco and not try the famous Pisco Punch at the Bank Exchange.

From Camper English’s book Doctors and Distillers:

The drink’s recipe was a secret that Nicol took to his grave when he died during Prohibition. The punch was widely reported to “make a gnat fight an elephant,” . . . [but] also produced a buzz “in the region of bliss of hasheesh and absinthe,” as a 1912 promotional pamphlet declared.

Bartenders have settled on [the ingredients being] pisco, pineapple syrup thickened with gum Arabic sap, and citrus. But that doesn’t explain the reported impact of the drink. Pisco scholar Guillermo Toro-Lira, as quoted in Gregory Dicum’s The Pisco Book, thinks he figured out the missing ingredient.

“It had to be cocaine,” said Toro-Lira. The theoretical cocaine could have been purified or come in the form of Peruvian cocoa leaves infused into Pisco. Cocaine had been a wonder drug and a frequent ingredient in patent medicines. Toro-Lira said, “That’s why it was a secret recipe — he (Nicol) didn’t want it exposed. I don’t know what form of cocaine he used, but I am 99.9% sure he used cocaine.”

So there we have it. There is no doubt in my mind that being the experimenter of all types of drugs, this was something that Aleister Crowley would have reveled in during his San Francisco stay.

Fortunately for me, San Francisco still being a cocktail-centric town, it was not difficult to find the ostensibly rare ingredient of pineapple gum syrup. I confess that before I bothered to look for it premade, I researched methods of making my own pineapple gum syrup (and even ordered the powdered gum Arabic). Finding those instructions a bit too daunting, I googled “pineapple gum syrup” and discovered several manufacturers, thrilled to acquire some from Liber & Co. If curious, the difference between using just pineapple juice and pineapple gum syrup is mouthfeel. There is a bit of unctuousness to the cocktail with this addition.

Here are the proportions, if you care to try this at home — and I heartily suggest you do (sans cocaine) — as it is quite a tasty.

• 2 ounces (60 ml) pisco (buy the best brand you can afford; this is something you do not want to skimp on).

• .75 oz (20 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice

• .75 oz (20 ml) pineapple gum Arabic syrup

Add all the ingredients to an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously for 20 to 30 seconds at least, and strain into a well-chilled cocktail glass.

Please report back what you think, if you try this cocktail! I am certainly a fan.

It [San Francisco] was a glorified El Paso, a madhouse of frenzied money-making and frenzied pleasure-seeking, with none of the corners chipped off. It is beautifully situated and the air reminds one curiously of Edinburgh. At the time it possessed a real interest and glory — its Chinatown. During the week I was there, I spent most of my time in that quarter. It was the first time I had come into contact with the Chinese spirit in bulk; and, though these exiles were naturally the least attractive specimens of the race, I realized instantly their spiritual superiority to the Anglo-Saxon, and my own deep-seated affinity to their point of view. The Chinaman is not obsessed by the delusion that the profits and pleasures of life are really valuable. He gets all the more out of them because he knows their worthlessness, and is consequently immune from the disappointment which inevitably embitters those who seek to lay up treasure on earth.

He goes on the say, “California got on my nerves. Life in all its forms grew rank and gross, without a touch of subtlety.” Be that as it may, these were written twenty-five years later; even his second visit in 1915, so these jaded thoughts may have had something to do with the latter excursion, or simply the passage of time had dulled the memory. During this 1901 trip, he talks about spending considerably time in Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America and still one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside of Asia. This is a period map showing that Chinatown (circled) is less than a 15-minute walk from Crowley’s hotel, so an easy jaunt for him during his stay.

Chinese began arriving in San Francisco with the Gold Rush of 1849, however many prospered more opening shops instead of becoming gold prospectors themselves. Upon seeing their hard-working ethic, the builders of the Transcontinental Railroad employed the Chinese in 1863 for the Central Pacific Railroad, with estimations that more than 20,000 Chinese laborers made up the majority of the workforce. Sadly, these men earned a half to two-thirds of their Euro-American counterparts and their contribution has literally been white-washed from many historical records. As seen in the images below, the famed completion image — commonly known as “The Champagne Photo” — by photographer Andrew J. Russell contains nary a Chinese worker as part of the workforce.

When the railroad was completed in 1869, some of the Chinese continued to move eastward and establish new Chinatowns in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Many went back to San Francisco where Chinatown essentially became its own domain within the city. Corrupt associations known as tongs were established by the Chinatown residents, with their own criminal enforcement, banks, and legal centers independent of San Francisco proper. These criminal gangs fought for dominance in the streets of Chinatown, with various massacres that would rival any scene from The Godfather movie. With thousands of impoverished immigrants packed into unsanitary tenements, the gangs took advantage of the destitution in the establishment of vices; namely, gambling parlors, brothels, and opium dens.

Since the tongs had their own form of “police” in Chinatown, the San Francisco law enforcement mostly ignored the opium den trade. As one British journalist attested in the 1880s, “Occasionally, when the police are short of funds, they make a descent on some of the dens but, as a rule, the proprietors are left unmolested.” Around this same time, the San Francisco Call (the newspaper of the era) estimated there were approximately 300 opium dens in the city with signs above their doors reading — in Chinese calligraphy — PIPES AND LAMPS ALWAYS CONVENIENT.

It comes as no surprise then, that Aleister Crowley would frequent his first Chinatown so often, knowing how readily available opium was at this time. However, this is not an investigation into his drug usage; simply an analysis of where he went and why, coupled with what he may have dined upon during those travels. The first Chinese restaurant in America, Macao & Woosung, was opened during the Gold Rush on the corner of Kearny and Commercial streets, in the heart of Chinatown. At the time, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet for $1.00. Urban legend states that a group of drunken miners stumbled into the restaurant when it was about to close. Making a ruckus about being hungry, the owner of the restaurant, Norman Asing, didn’t want to cook anything from scratch, so he mixed up scraps of leftovers from his Chinese customers, quickly tossed them in a wok with a bit of soy sauce and broth, and thus the miners were sated and thrilled.

The Cantonese dish tsap seui ( 杂碎, “miscellaneous leftovers”) was born and translated as “chop suey.” Another origin story comes from 1896’s New York City where Li Hongzhang, a visiting diplomat, was hosting some American guests for dinner. Unsure about serving authentic Chinese food, Hongzhang requested his personal chef prepare a dish that would appeal to both Chinese and American palates, with chop suey being the result. Both of these origin stories are suspect, according to Andrew Coe’s book, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. In it, he states:

… there’s little doubt that this dish — in its manifestation as a stir-fried organ meat and vegetable medley — originated in the Sze Yap area around Toishan. A distinguished Hong Kong surgeon named Li Shu-Fan reminisced about a childhood visit to Toishan, which was his ancestral home:
“I first tasted chop suey in a restaurant in Toishan in 1894, but the preparation has been familiar in that city long before my time. The recipe was probably taken to America by the Toishan people, who, as I have said, are great travelers. Chinese from places as near to Toishan as Canton and Hong Kong are unaware that chop suey is truly a Chinese dish, and not an American adaptation.”

Regardless of its origin, Americans began a “chop suey craze” as they discovered Chinese food and I have no doubt it would have been one of many meals Crowley would have feasted on before or after his visits to the notorious opium dens.

Wanting to share recipes with you, I dug into the oldest English-written Chinese cookbooks I could find for historical chop suey recipes. From 1911’s Chinese Cookery in the Home Kitchen edited by Jessie Louise Nolton:

This, as well as a 1917 Chinese cookbook’s version, were ever-so-slightly “Americanized” in their omission of offal. Per Andrew Coe’s research cited above, authentic Chop Suey would include organ meats so in my attempt, I used duck gizzards.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. lean pork, sliced in long, thin strips

• 1/2 lb. chicken or duck gizzards, sliced thin

• 1 cup celery, sliced crosswise

• 4 or 5 “Chinese potatoes” aka water chestnuts, sliced

• 1 Spanish onion, sliced thin

• 1 cup mushrooms (Note: not canned! Dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms are excellent and the soaking broth can be used in this dish, or fresh shiitake, wood ear, or enoki, or a combination thereof)

• 1 cup fresh bean sprouts

• 1 tsp. cornstarch, dissolved in:

• 1/2 cup chicken broth or the mushroom water from reconstituting dried mushrooms

• 1 tbsp. light soy sauce

• 1 tbsp. dark soy sauce

• peanut or sesame oil for cooking

Cook in a wok, if possible, over very high heat and cook quickly.

With a tablespoon of oil in the hot pan, fry the pork and gizzards until half done. Add the onions, cooking a few minutes longer, then add the vegetables, tossing quickly for a minute or so. Very carefully add half the broth around the edges of the pan and cover to the steam the ingredients for two or three minutes. Add a bit more broth and continue to toss everything together, finishing up with the soy sauces.

Continue reducing the broth until a silky sauce coats the ingredients. Add the soy sauce and toss until well-coated.

Serve atop some steamed white rice and enjoy!

After a mountain climbing expedition in Mexico earlier in the year, Crowley decided to head north-west through Texas. Boarding the Southern Pacific Railroad in El Paso on April 24, 1901, the two-day journey that would bring him into California, and up the coast a bit where he might have first felt the cool, coastal offshore clouds the area is so well known for as the train just skirted the Monterey peninsula.

Disembarking at the San Francisco station at Townsend and 3rd Streets, a short, one-mile carriage ride would take him to the only hotel in town that a self-respecting gentleman would reside, The Palace Hotel, on the corner of New Montgomery and Market Streets. Constructed in 1875, wealthy financier William Chapman Ralston built what he hoped would be the grandest hotel west of the Mississippi. Towering seven stories and dominating the San Francisco skyline, it boasted 14-foot-high ceilings and elegant rooms of white and gold in an era when dark red and emerald green flocked velvet wallpaper was the norm for Victorian interiors. Every single guest-room offered some of the most innovative amenities of the day, including electronic call buttons that would beckon a concierge to one’s bidding, and full en suite bathrooms. Crowley’s arrival in San Francisco and to The Palace Hotel corresponded with President McKinley, just a few days later, and the whole town was abuzz with excitement and activity.

McKinley had just been inaugurated a month prior, and had started off on what was going to be a grand, six-week tour of the Northwest and the entirety of the Pacific Coast. William McKinley’s wife, Ida, took ill and was on death’s door when they arrived in San Francisco. Their official touring party of 43 — cabinet members, executive staff, friends, servants and newspapermen — holed up in the Palace Hotel for more than a week, before cutting their trip short and heading back to Washington. Sadly, McKinley would be assassinated less than four months later, on September 14, 1901.

Perhaps the most stunning aspect architect John P. Gaynor created was a huge central courtyard known as the “Grand Court;” a marble-tiled promenade, and a tropical garden filled with exotic plants, statuary and fountains. Topped with a gorgeous skylight, the space extended the full length of the entire building. Each of the seven floors above, was supported with white, double columns ascending towards the heavens. Guests would walk the outer hallways behind these pillars and white railing, looking down on arriving guests as the Grand Court was large enough accept the horse-drawn carriages that would being driven into the hotel’s interior. To give some context as to its size, the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago covered 58,145 square feet compared to the Palace Hotel’s 96,250 square feet. And while the Grand Hotel in Paris had only 720 rooms, San Francisco’s Palace Hotel boasted 755 rooms, all above ground.

Other amenities of the hotel include a billiards room, several private parlors rooms for ladies to privately adjust their corsets or take in a cigarette (something one would never do in public), a grand gilt bar with the choicest liquors, wines, and concoctions for imbibing, and an “office” space for gentlemen.

The Men’s Grille shown above, was a great room with an arching ceiling of strictly Gothic style for gentlemen who needed to conduct business or wanted the privacy away from the ladies, plus an exclusive Ladies’ Grille which was not quite so opulent, for those women traveling alone or who may want to gossip with other ladies in the hotel. The American Dining Room, capable of seating 600 guests, was incandescently lit with small electric lights giving perfect elegance to the soft tones of gray and gold. Some guests preferred to dine privately, à la carte (now known as “room service” when a meal is served in one’s room), but for those couples who wished to see or be seen, this resplendent eating establishment provided the opportunity.

What might Aleister have eaten while in San Francisco? Well, I’ll be making separate entries for the Chinese cuisine available as well a notorious San Francisco-based cocktail, and possibly a first excursion for him into Japanese food. But the closest menu I could find for 1901 was this 1907 offering. Interestingly, it is offered in both French and English. Why French, might you ask? It goes back to the British monarchy and a nod to the historical use of French as the language of the royal court. This tradition dates back to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, when French became the language of the ruling class. Even though English eventually became the primary language of the country, French continued to be used in official and ceremonial contexts, including royal banquets and menus. This tradition has persisted over the centuries, and today, the use of French in the royal family's banquet menu is a reflection of this historical legacy.

I regret that Substack’s infrastructure doesn’t allow me to post the entirety of these very vertical images. The full catalogue of offerings reads:

• Clams

  • Little Neck, Eastern, California, or Clam Cocktail

• Oysters

  • Blue Points, Toke Points, or Oyster Cocktail

• Soups

  • Consommé Sévigne, Gumbo of Oysters Pontchartrain, Tomato with Stars, Mock Turtle with Madeira, Petite Marmitte, Julienne, Chicken Consommé in Cup, Cream of Artichoke Chatelaine, or Chicken St. George

• Side Dishes

  • Special Imported Astrakan Caviar, Celery, Olives, Stuffed Olives with Anchovies, Pim Olas (olive stuffed with Spanish pepper), California Ripe Olives, Major Grey Chutney, Stuffed Mangoes, Salted Almonds, Salted Pecans, Thon Mariné in Glass (marinated tuna), or Lyon Sausage

• Fish

  • Sand Dabs, Salmon Chambord, Boned Smelts Ostendaise, Whitney Striped Bass, Miller Style Fresh Codfish, Cold Salmon Figaro, Finnan Haddie Miller Style, Half Cold Lobster, Maryland Terrapin, Terrapin Special, Pascaline Flounder, Half Deviled Lobster, Frogs Under Glass, Fillets of Niçoise Sole

• Joints

  • Virginia Ham with Champagne Sauce, Leg of Southdown Mutton Pimentade

• Entrées

  • Chicken Liver Patties Financier, Gastronome Spring Lamb Pot-Pie, Larded Fillet of Beef with Braised Celery, Country Fashion Chicken Sauté, Kirkpatrick Oysters, Banana Fritters with Cream of Orange

• Roasts To Order

  • Milk-fed Chicken (whole or half), Spring Lamb (whole or half), Young Turkey with Cranberries, Ribs of Beef, Squab Chicken, Squab, Rack of Spring Lamb

• Cold

  • Assorted Cold Meats, Boned Capon, Ribs of Beef (whole or half), Todd’s Virginia Ham, Ham (whole or half), Young Turkey (whole or half), Pâté of Strasbourg Goose Liver, Smoked Beef Tongue (whole or half)

• Vegetables

  • New Asparagus Mousseline, New Peas, Cauliflower with or without Hollandaise, French String Beans, French Peas, Flageolet Beans, American Beans, Canned Asparagus, Baked Macaroni, Boiled Rice, Brussels Sprouts, Stewed Tomatoes

• Potatoes

  • Baked, Boiled, Fried, Saratoga, Mashed, Parisian, Hashed and Browned, Hashed with Cream, Sautéed, Lyonnaise, Croquettes, Sarah, Souffléed

  • Sweet Potatoes: Baked, Fried, Southern

• Salads

  • Palace Grill, Riverside, Waldorf, Chicken, Sweetbread, Cucumber, Celery, Macedoine, Lettuce with Grape Fruit, Lettuce, Romain, Chicory, Escarole, Watercress, Crab, Fatticus, Combination, Lobster, Tomato

• Dessert

  • Rice and Apple Pudding with Brandy Sauce, Swiss Meringue Cake, Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Plum Pie, Lemon Custard Pie, Savarin with Maraschino, Assorted French Pastry, Charlotte Russo, Madeira Jelly, Apple Condé, German Apple Cake, Babas with Rum, Assorted Fancy Cakes, Glacéd Chestnuts

• Ice Cream

  • Vanilla, Coffee, Chocolate, Strawberry, Pistachio

• Water Ice

  • Orange, Lemon

• Fancy Ice Cream

  • Peach Melba, Cup d’Ahrenberg, Omelette Alaska, Parfait Coffee, Meringue Glacé, Neapolitan, Tutti-Frutti

• Sorbets

  • Roman, Kirsch, Curacao, Maraschino, Cream de Menthe, Lalla Rookh

• Fruits in Season

  • Compote of Fruits, Preserves

• Cheese

  • Brew, Camembert, Sierra, Roquefort, Oregon Cream, Edam, Gruyère, American, Neufchatal, Port Salut

• Tea, Coffee

  • Demi-Tasse, Turkish Coffee, Special Black Coffee

Sadly, I have not come across any specific notes as to what Crowley’s menu choices were (yet). But the menu above is a fairly standard offering to a well-bred Victorian who would start their meal with clams or oysters, move on to a soup before three starters; usually a fish, a fowl, and a meat, all accompanied with appropriate vegetables and potatoes. Of course all these would be served with appropriate wine pairings. Salads were served after the heavy meal as it was thought to aid in digestion, and then a dessert and/or cheese course would finish out the event, often with coffee and brandy.

On Friday, May 3rd, 1901, at the Port of San Francisco, Aleister boarded the Nippon Maru steamship, bound for Honolulu and destinations further East. Just five years after his first visit, on April 18, 1906, the earthquake would destroy more than 80% of San Francisco, its destruction being caused more by the subsequent fires than the quake itself. Many of the first were started by the San Francisco Fire Department when they attempted to create firebreaks, demolished buildings with dynamite without proper training with that deadly explosive. In total the fires burned for four days and nights and The Palace Hotel did not escape unscathed:

The city began a massive reconstruction effort and much was completed by the time Aleister revisited in 1915, just in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. The Palace Hotel was rebuilt with many significant changes; namely that the Grand Court where the carriages once brought anxious guests was closed off and turned into an even more beautiful dining room as seen below, during a recent visit I took for research. The front doors recall the grandeur of the Gilded Age, and of note, I offer a small cream pitcher, pilfered from the hotel by my Grandmother in the mid-1940s (who knew that 80 years later, I’d be writing about this famous hotel?)

Like The Ritz in Paris, The Grand Hotel Royal in Budapest, or San Francisco’s Palace Hotel (which will be discussed at length in a later post), The Shepheard was one of the most illustrious and prestigious hotels in the world. Known for its elegant Beaux Art styling, the hotel was not only the place to stay for the well-to-do, but was an unofficial military base for British officers and their families. When it was built in 1845, the originally named Hotel des Anglais (English Hotel), attracted the famous such as Richard Burton (the explorer and author, not Elizabeth Taylor’s twice-wed husband) with its opulent interiors that included granite pillars invoking Egyptian temples, stained glass windows, Persian carpets, and lavish gardens. With nightly dances for uniformed officers and beautiful women in evening gowns and jewels, I am confident Aleister would want to show Rose off to his fellow travelers as much as he would want to show off The Shepheard to Rose.

While off by only a few years, I was able to find a sample menu from The Shepheard, circa 1901. This is a slightly truncated classic offering of a Victorian-era French meal that would start with oysters (huîtres), move into fish, roast, and fowl accompanied by vegetables, sorbets, and desserts. I indicate truncated, as a full course French classical menu can include five to a dozen courses, but has proven to have upwards of 25 courses.

Knowing that many of the descriptors are affectations by the hotel, to the best of my knowledge are these are the translations and explanations, with some assumptions on the ingredients. Also, a handful of sauces are mentioned. I will give brief descriptions now, but promise to provide recipes at a later date:

• Oxtail soup — A classic starter of a rich, beef-based soup made with beef tails. It can be broth, but the meat shreds and is scented with red wine and herbs.

• Huitres de Suez à la Villeroy — “Huîtres” are oysters and “de Suez” indicates these are from oyster beds that exist(ed) in the Gulf of Suez. Further investigation on my part will be needed to determine if there are still viable aquaculture in Egypt, as so many historical oyster beds have long since been decimated by disease or modern over-farming. Back to gastronomy however, “à la Villeroy” refers to a complicated sauce made with ham, mushrooms, egg yolks, mignonette, cream, and fine herbs, that is used to coat cold meats. I will have to experiment to determine if this sauce tastes better with freshly-shucked, raw oysters, or with some that have been poached. I promise; I’ll report back my findings.

• Petites truites de Rivière à la Meunière — Miniature trout with the hotel’s version of a sauce Meunière; a butter-based sauce with lemon and parsley.

• Pommes Nouvelles en serviette — “en serviette” means “in a napkin” so these would be young, fresh apples served in a napkin. I am assuming they were well-trimmed, pared, and possibly raw. What the heck was I thinking? OF COURSE “pommes” is potatoes. New potatoes at that. Undoubtedly boiled and still served in an artistically-folded napkin, to keep them warm at the table. (Thanks to Frater Abu for this oversight).

• Châteaubriand Shepheards Hôtel — Châteaubriand is the center cut of a beef tenderloin, usually served with shallot and wine sauce.

• Garniture Végétale — Some form of vegetable garnish. One can only assume…

• Suprême de Poularde à la Victoria - “Poularde” is chicken, but more than that. In a chef’s kitchen, a poularde assumes it is a “pullet” or young chicken; one that has not started laying eggs. Victoria sauce is made by sautéing chopped shallots in a bit of lemon juice to which is added chopped mushrooms, a bit of meat drippings, and mounted with butter. Just before service, soy sauce, tarragon and parsley, a some chopped pickles are added. (I’m anxious to test this one!)

• *Sorbet au Clipuot [sic] — I believe this to be sorbet made with Veuve Clicquot Champagne, with the “Clipuot” a misspelling.

• Faisans flanqués de Bartarelles — Pheasant breasts. It is anyone’s guess what “de Bartarelles” preparation might have been.

• Ginger confit — For the French, “confit” is a method of preservation. For proteins like duck, it is to cook it slowly in its own fat and then stored in a cool place. With a method like this, a meat can be prepared in the autumn and last throughout winter. As ginger has none of its own fat, the process of making a confit of ginger is more akin to making candied citrus; not too sweet and more palatable than sugar-coated ginger coins. Like the sorbet above, this would be served as a palate cleanser.

• Salade muscovite — Russian salad. Unlike our modern form of meal presentation, the salad is often served near the end of the meal. It was thought to aid digestion; that the roughage would assist the previously-served meats to <ahem> move through your system more successfully. A Russian salad is quite ornate, containing potatoes, artichoke hearts, string beans, several roasted meats including beef, chicken, ham and tongue, truffles, beets, anchovies, capers, and lettuce hearts. I think I may have to write an entry on this salad alone.

• Artichauts sce. hollandaise — Artichokes with hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise is one of the classic French sauces that has survived the Gilded Age and is still made and served today (usually on eggs Benedict). It is a relatively simple mixture of egg yolks, lemon juice, and melted butter, lightly seasoned of course, with a bit of salt and white pepper (one wouldn’t want the ignominy of black pepper to be-speckle a beautifully golden sauce), and perhaps a sprinkle of cayenne.

• Paniers de fruits glacés Diplomats — “Paniers” is basket. Knowing the diplomats that frequented The Shepheard, this sobriquet is probably an homage to the hotel’s distinguished clientele. “Fruits glacé” are simply candied fruits; probably various form of citrus, but also stone fruits (apricots, peaches, or cherries) or pears, which are dried, placed on a grate, and repetitively covered in layers of syrup until completely encased.

• Soufflé au chester — The traditional ending of an extensive French meal as this would be a cheese course. Here, the cheese is a very well known British offering made in the west county of Chestershire. Cheshire is one of Britain’s oldest known cheeses, having been mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Instead of serving an offering of fresh cheese, the hotel cooked it up in an airy, light soufflé that would have been easier to digest in the warm, Egyptian climate.

The inside of The Shepheard dining room, circa 1905. This is what Rose and Aleister might have experienced during an evening meal. In celebration of the writing of The Book of the Law, I offer a simple Champagne Sorbet recipe. I recommend Veuve Clicquot yellow label. The quality of your sorbet is entirely due to the quality of your Champagne, so don’t skimp.

*Veuve Clicquot Sorbet

• 4 cups water

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 bottle brut Champagne (demi-sec is slightly sweet and with the added sugar, would be too sweet for this recipe)

• 1 tablespoon grated orange rind, from 1 orange

Bring the water and sugar to a boil and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add the Champagne. This little amount of heat will help burn off just a bit of the alcohol. Stir in the orange rind and allow the mixture to cool, or refrigerate overnight. If you have an ice cream or sorbet machine, follow its instructions until sorbet is softly frozen and not too hard. Without a machine, pour the mixture into as large of a cookie sheet you can fit in your freezer (you may have to do this in batches). Place in freezer and every 15 minutes or so, run a fork through the mixture as it freezes. Once it has reached the desired consistency, serve. “Sweet wines, and wines that foam.”

This shouldn’t be too surprising for our modern era, but during Crowley’s late 1880s Victorian childhood in the United Kingdom, the turkey had firmly established itself as the centerpiece of a holiday menu. Liturgical history aside (was it Jesus’s birth? Zoroaster? Horus?), much of the pomp and circumstance and rituals of Christmas we know today with its trees, presents, Christmas cards, carols, etcetera, come via Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert. Before 1840, Christmas and its festivities were barely mentioned in the national British press, but the 1848 the Illustrated London News, documenting the Queen and her family’s celebration saw a sudden uptick with the middle classes emulating the royals. Christmas cards were being sent, trees started coming into homes, and elaborate, celebratory meals brought families together.

Turkey, a North American bird by origin, had been brought to England in the 1550s by William Strickland, and the first artistic depiction of turkey in Europe is “a turkey-cock in his pride proper” which Strickland added to his coat-of-arms.

It is no surprise that the bird began to be included in Catholic feast days throughout early Tudor England (yes, we all mentally see Henry VIII holding a turkey leg, don’t we?), but those feasts also included boars, swans, peacocks, and beef. The sixteenth century saw a rise in turkey popularity as eastern England and Norfolk was recognized as prime real estate for their cultivation, with the Norfolk Black considered the oldest breed in the United Kingdom.

To dissuade your mental image of the classically roasted bird with its shimmering, golden skin, Georgian era cookbooks — namely, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple by Hannah Glasse — provides one of the earliest examples of Turducken, which Ms. Glasse referred to as “Christmas Pye.” First you put a pigeon in a partridge, then the partridge in a chicken, the chicken in a goose, and then the goose in a turkey. All of that would be encased in a pie crust with the addition of meats from rabbits and “any wild-fowl you can get” (woodcock, thrush, moor fowl, etc.).

So was it Queen Victoria and Albert who made turkey so popular in Victorian Britain? Maybe a little bit, but it was really Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol who nailed the fact that turkey was an extravagance, even for the well-to-do, and that most families sufficed with goose as Bob Crachit extolls:

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet everyone had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!

As I learned from the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading, “both turkey and geese incurred significant costs for consumers. Before the development and improvement of the railways, most birds sold for consumption in cities had to be walked from farm to town. The birds’ feet would be wrapped in rags or covered in a painless solution of tar that acted as a little shoe to protect their feet. These journeys would have taken days and required accommodation, a team of human companions, and food, which all significantly added to cost.” Scrooge gifting the Cratchits a turkey was really a very generous offer.

What does Aleister Crowley have to say about turkey? Early in Confessions (p. 42 of the 1979 Penguin paperback), he delves into the ubiquitous Christmas turkey dinner, sometime around his 10th birthday, give-or-take:

Readers of Father and Son will remember the incident of the Christmas turkey, secretly brought by Mr. Gosse’s servants and thrown into the dustbin by him in the spirit of Moses destroying the golden calf. For the Brethren rightly held Christmas to be a pagan festival. They sent no Christmas cards and destroyed any that might be sent to them by thoughtless or blaspheming ‘goats’. Not to disappoint Alick, who liked turkey, the family had that bird for lunch on the 24th and 26th of December. The idea was to ‘avoid even the appearance of evil’; there was nothing actually wrong in eating turkey on Christmas Day; for pagan idols are merely wood and stone — the work of men’s hands. But one must not let others suppose that one is complying with heathen customs.

Crowley seems to be justifying his appreciation for turkey and including a religious reference to its consumption with the anecdote taken from Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. This book was an autobiographical account of Gosse’s tumultuous relationship with his own father, Philip, both of whom belonged to and were active in the Plymouth Brethren sect to which Crowley’s family also belonged. Curious about “the [turkey] incident” which Crowley assumes his readers “will remember,” I sought out the original text, hoping to gain insight into Crowley’s frame of reference, for at some point in his own life — presumably as an adult — Crowley did research into the very cult which he later rejected. Interestingly, what Crowley remembers and refers to from Gosse’s account doesn’t involve a turkey whatsoever, but a pudding:

On Christmas Day of this year 1857 our villa saw a very unusual sight. My Father had given strictest charge that no difference whatever was to be made in our meals on that day; the dinner was to be neither more copious than usual nor less so. He was obeyed, but the servants, secretly rebellious, made a small plum-pudding for themselves. (I discovered afterwards, with pain, that Miss Marks received a slice of it in her boudoir.) Early in the afternoon, the maids,— of whom we were now advanced to keeping two,—kindly remarked that 'the poor dear child ought to have a bit, anyhow', and wheedled me into the kitchen, where I ate a slice of plum-pudding. Shortly I began to feel that pain inside which in my frail state was inevitable, and my conscience smote me violently. At length I could bear my spiritual anguish no longer, and bursting into the study I called out: 'Oh! Papa, Papa, I have eaten of flesh offered to idols!' It took some time, between my sobs, to explain what had happened. Then my Father sternly said: 'Where is the accursed thing?' I explained that as much as was left of it was still on the kitchen table. He took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran until we reached the dust-heap, when he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to the middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The suddenness, the violence, the velocity of this extraordinary act made an impression on my memory which nothing will ever efface.

One can only wonder why Crowley felt the need to reach into the zealotry of his childhood’s religious upbringing and embellish it (or alter the story), just to validate his fondness of turkey. There is no doubt in my mind that Crowley would have read Dickens’ novella, and within it digested the distinct depiction of Victorian societal hierarchy, as portrayed in four, specific food scenes:

• Ghost of Christmas Past - Scrooge witnesses his life as an apprentice and experiences the unpretentious celebration offered by Old Fezziwig.

• Ghost of Christmas Present - A mighty Oak King of a figure, sitting atop a throne of gourmet largesse; from feathered game, to a barrel of oysters, Twelfth Night cakes and pies, and imported oranges (quite a luxury!)

• Bob Cachet’s Meagre Dinner - A gaunt goose with mashed potatoes, applesauce (remember, that had to be “eked out”), and a flaming plum pudding that Mrs. Crachit almost doesn’t get to taste her self.

• The Final, Unwritten Meal - Scrooge’s turkey has arrived at the Crachit house, so readers are left to imagine how this newly-created sumptuous feast would have been presented (I will presume it involved frogs and pigs, along with the turkey).

The collective mindset of Victorian Britain, therefore, creates an ideal Christmas feast involving a turkey. Whether or not young Alick recognizes that fact, I’m confident that in spite of the religious dogma in which he was raised, his upper-middle class family had the means to prepare and serve a luxurious meal. Perhaps he recollects enjoying it that much more due to the symbolism of the turkey as it was steeped in “pagan idolatry” and “heathen customs” and that he actually wasn’t allowed to consume it on Christmas Day proper.

Happy Holidays to you, from me. God bless us, everyone.

It stands 7.5” tall and is made of sterling silver, ebony wood, and jasper. For those familiar with the correspondences, the chalice shape was chosen as the female symbol used in many religions for its ability to hold water, the woman being a vessel, or also the womb as a sacred vessel. The ebony stem corresponds to the Queens Scale, that black has the faculty to absorb all colors, and the black of the night alludes to sleep and understanding. The red jasper complements the Kings Scale color in that the crimson red represents menstrual blood (Egyptian Book of the Dead, chapter 156: “You have your blood, O Isis; you have your power, O Isis, you have your magic, O Isis — to be said over a knot amulet of red jasper…”)

But the whole time I was working on that project, I really wanted to go to cooking school, which I enrolled in a week or after obtaining my degree. That is where I dug into researching food history and experimenting with vintage recipes. Several years later is when the two passions — that of culinary history and art — truly collided; I started making food-themed artwork and jewelry. I wrote a book on food as an art form, A Feast for the Eyes: Edible Art from Apples to Zucchini. And I started collecting and researching the history of cutlery and odd Victorian-era food implements. I will be sharing several of them in future posts as I have stumbled on some oddities that would have been the type of now-defunct kitchen gadget Crowley would have owned and used.

Where all this leads to — and I am terribly sorry for the late notice — is that on Sunday, November 19th at 3:00 p.m. PST (tomorrow!), I am giving a free*, live Zoom presentation on <clickety> How Innovations in British Silversmithing Shaped our Modern Dining Tables. This research stems from a paper I gave at the Oxford Food Symposium in 2020 and the title belies how fascinating the subject matter truly is (at least I try to make it so!)

The Zoom link is via EventBrite, just so I know how many folks will be attending. Join me for an exciting online event as I delve into the fascinating world of British silversmithing and its impact on our dining tables. Discover the rich history and ingenious innovations that have shaped the way we dine today. From intricate designs to functional utensils, this event will explore the artistry and craftsmanship behind British silverware. Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn about the legacy of silversmithing and its influence on our dining experiences. This is just part of my collection, to give you an idea how bizarre and beguiling vintage utensils can be!

* I will have a link to a tip-jar, for those who care to favor me with a cup of tea or mug of joe.

• Confessions was not Crowley’s personal journals, and while I erroneously stated Confessions include extensive commentary upon culinary offerings, et al, I maintain that it has proven to be a source of great gastronomic tidbits which are rabbit holes I invariably fall into.

• “In 1899, when he was just 22 years old,” is just plain bad math on my part. As he was born in 1875, he would have been between 23 or 24 in 1899, depending on the time of year.

• I stated that he brought a handful of acolytes to Boleskin in 1918, and have been advised that Crowley was in America at this point. This just shows me that I have to get back to the project of databasing all of the pertinent dates of where he was, and with whom.

Now on to Rumpelmayer’s and The Book of Lies. I am grateful to another old friend, Frater CCM, who pointed me Chapter 68, Manna:

At four o’clock there is hardly anybody in Rumpelmayer’s.
I have my choice of place and service; the babble of the apes will begin soon enough.
”Pioneers, O Pioneers!”
Sat no Elijah under the Juniper-tree, and wept?
Was not Mohammed forsaken in Mecca, and Jesus in Gethsemane?
These prophets were sad at heart; but the chocolate at Rumplemayer’s is great, and the Mousse Noix is like Nypthys for perfection.
Also, there are little meringues with cream and chestnut-pulp, very velvety seductions.
Sail I not towards LAYLAH within seven days?
Be not sad at heart, O prophet; the babble of the apes will presently begin.
Nay, rejoice exceedingly; for after all the babble of the apes the Silence of the Night.

And the COMMENTARY:

Manna was a heavenly cake which, in the legend, fed the Children of Israel in the Wilderness. The author laments the failure of his mission to mankind, but comforts himself with the following reflections:

1. He enjoys the advantages of solitude.

2. Previous prophets encountered similar difficulties in convincing their hearers.

3. Their food was not equal to that obtainable at Rumpelmayer’s.

4. In a few days I am going to rejoin Laylah.

5. My mission will succeed soon enough.

6. Death will remove the nuisance of success.

I was initially tempted to dive into the analysis of manna, and offer a basic recipe, as that is the title of this chapter. Perhaps I will at a later date, but there is so much more gastronomically speaking in this chapter than some bread that has fallen from the sky. Gastronomically, this chapter is all about Rumpelmayer’s (pronounced Room-pel-may-AIRE) with its decadent Mousse Noix and meringues with chestnut purée and whipped cream.

Anton (or Antoine, depending on who you speak with) Rumpelmayer (1832-1914) was an important Austrian confectioner. How important? Well, he held the k.u.k. Hoflieferant distinction, meaning he was enlisted as a “Purveyor to the Royal and Imperial Court,” when discovered by the Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary. In 1896, she received him at the Vienna Court to award him the honor of Hofzuckerbäcker (“Confectioner to the Court”). First Anton’s business endeavors were purely sweet ones. He owned a factory in Dresden that produced chocolate candies, fruit preserves, and sweet pastries, with shops in Baden-Baden, Bad Nauheim, Berlin, and Frankfurt. The picture above is from the Baden-Baden store which is still open to this day.

In 1913 Anton opened his shop at 226 Rue de Rivoli in Paris with his son, René (a renowned soldier and balloonist!), and expanded beyond a mere confectionery shop to being an upscale teahouse and meeting place of Parisian beau monde. Known as the Angelina tea-house — after René’s wife who was widowed in 1915, during WWI. This is where fame grew and soon franchises were sold and more cafés opened, notably on St. James’ Street in London, and by the early 1930s, in the Hotel St. Moritz at Central Park in New York City (the latter more known for its garish pink décor, stuffed teddy bears, and gourmet ice cream). Becoming more than just a sweet shop or teahouse, the expanded Rumpelmayer cafés offered more extensive menus.

A notable eatery, ostensibly known amongst the well-traveled and well-to-do of fin de siècle sophisticates who have experienced it, perhaps, in Baden-Baden or Monte Carlo, Nice or London, Paris or New York City, this is very likely what Crowley would have seen entering a circa 1912 Rumpelmayer’s, be it in Paris or London:

Rumpelmayer’s may also be ringing a literary bell if you have read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway who utilized the London café’s catering: Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning — fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

As Crowley waxes poetic about Rumpelmayer’s and not Angelina, it is easy to make an educated assumption that the Book of Lies reference is for the London establishment, although I am confident he frequented both if his adoration for the Mousse Noix is any indication. The oldest full menu I could find is from the 1935 New York café and doesn’t list either a Mousse Noix or meringues. However, since the Bavarian Strawberry Pudding is a seasonal addition to this menu, it is safe to say this is a late spring or summer menu, while chestnuts would typically be a fall flavor. It may also be likely that many take-away pastries and sweets wouldn’t be on a menu at all, but in a display case. It is interesting that this New York version has a very international-leaning Americanized menu, with its South Indian Mulligatawny soup, Frenchified potatoes (pommel), Chinese Chow Mein, and a Spring Lamb with Java Beans Stamboul (Turkish). Any self-respecting British menu would have had that Spring Lamb served with mint jelly and is unlikely to include Chinese offerings during the Edwardian era.

Philosophically, there is ardor in Crowley’s spiritual exaltation of Rumpelmayer’s. He is thrilled that he has arrived early enough to escape the crowds that are due to descend. He can choose his preferred seat and possibly a favored waitress. Then there is deep-felt lamentation that other prophets were disdained by or still lacked followers, but even more dispiriting to his predecessors, that their victuals couldn't compare with the fact that he can experience a transfiguration through the consumption of Rumpelmayer’s chocolate (this was probably a cup of hot chocolate, for which they were well known, but Crowley may have been referring to covered bonbons and the couverture used in other sweet creations). Sexuality is implied, both in a Mousse Noix and in a meringue that is a “very velvety seduction.” On the mouth, mousses, meringues, and whipped creams are very seductive and sensual feeling foods. With a well-made meringue, specifically, one experiences a sense of contradiction in the slight crunch of the exterior of the meringue before it gives way to an ethereally light interior that dissipates almost immediately upon the tongue.

Let’s take the Mousse Noix first, and Crowley’s similitude towards Nepthys, the protective Egyptian sister of Isis and Osiris, who symbolizes the experience of death; a recurring theme in initiatory literature. Mousse is one of the grandest desserts because it is made with great care with shockingly few ingredients, but is adaptable and changeable into many different flavors, all of which are transcendently light and incredibly rich. I am very grateful to Sarah Wassberg’s blog which covers the history of mousse, as I was succumbing to multitudes of contradictory recipe information: eggs or no eggs? Some 19th century recipes include eggs, either whipped egg whites or a richer version that includes a whole egg or egg yolk for a custardy richness. By the 20th century, there is an addition of gelatin which is a total short-cut/cop-out to get stabilization of the ingredients once they are whipped up into volume. All my 19th century cookbooks list mousses in their chapters on “Ices” as the basic instruction is to whip cream until stiff, slowly add in powdered sugar and flavor (be it melted chocolate, puréed fruit or nuts, or a floral hint like rose water), fill a mould, and then freeze until service. I haven’t been able to discern how Rumpelmayer’s mousse might have been made; with eggs or sans, but know that it is “is like Nypthys for perfection.” That Crowley invokes a deity of transition (death), to me insinuates that the mousse he is consuming is transformative and is able to take him to a separate realm of consciousness. In short, as Frater CCM reminded me, the “Mousse Noix is literally to die-for.”

But it isn’t just Rumpelmayer’s mousse that is so revelatory, there also “are little meringues with cream and chestnut-pulp, very velvety seductions.” This is easier to research, thankfully. There is a classic, layered dessert known as Mont Blanc in which chestnut purée is lightened with a bit of sugar and water, so it can be piped atop a meringue and finished with a heaping dollop of whipped cream. It looks something like this:

From my reading, I believe Rumpelmayer “deconstructed” the classic Mont Blanc plated dessert into something smaller, that could be eaten in a bite or two with tea. It would be very simple to create the meringue in a smaller, more manageable bite — either as a “kiss” as you see on the left, or as a “nest” on the right — which then would have whipped cream and puréed chestnut as its complement.

I can see that as this investigation expands, I am going to have to do a considerably amount of recipe testing for you all, and present workable recipes to recreate these wonders in your own home. Please share your feedback if this is something you would enjoy, or if just reading about them is sufficient. I know now I am really craving a meringue with whipped chestnut and cream.

As always, thank you for your continued support!

I feel a little guilty in that I had/have every intention on sending you a new entry at least once a week. But my last two weeks have been focused on preparing an article on my research for Atlas Obscura’s food-themed subset, Gastro Obscura. The artwork for the article is brilliant and was created by Joy Velasco. I had tremendous assistance from Lon DuQuette and Richard Kaczynski to whom I am eternally grateful. So please forgive me if I reproduce the article here, and I promise new content is coming very soon as so many new and interesting tidbits have been discovered!

Controversial and colorful British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was a man of many epithets, known variously as “The Wickedest Man in the World,” “The King of Depravity,” and even “The Beast 666.” He was praised as an accomplished mountaineer, poet, novelist, painter, chess master, and philosopher. He was also maligned as a drug addict, hedonist, and sex fiend. But another apt descriptor, though rarely mentioned, greatly shaped much of his life and writings: He was the ultimate gourmand.

Since he was a man of passion with Rabelaisian appetites about all manner of experiences, it should come as no surprise that Crowley embraced fine food and drink. But he paired excess with connoisseurship: Peppered throughout his personal diaries are hand-written recipes, detailed notes on wines, critiques of restaurants, and analyses of the varieties of foods to consume or not consume before certain “magickal” rituals.

Over the course of his life, Crowley traveled to Egypt, Mexico, China, Burma, Nepal, Germany, Algeria, Portugal, France, Japan, Scotland, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), among others. Throughout all these voyages, his personal journals—later published as Confessions—include extensive commentary upon the culinary offerings of the local cuisines, as well as restaurants and grand hotels in which he resided, such as London’s Savoy Hotel and its famed Savoy Grill, which boasted celebrity chef Auguste Escoffier at its helm.

In 1899, when he was just 22 years old, Crowley purchased Boleskine House on the southeast side of Loch Ness in Scotland. The home offered a bounty of salmon, deer, and game birds, all for the acquisition with fishing rod or hunting rifle. Richard Kaczynski, the author of Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, says that Crowley’s love for salmon was a common theme in his writings and that “ready access to freshly-caught salmon may explain his disdain for tinned salmon, which he uses as a comparison for people or places he disliked.”

During his extended travels in the Far East and North Africa, Crowley developed a taste for spicy foods—a preference he honed on his mountaineering expeditions. On one of his earliest climbs, to Zermatt in Switzerland at the age of 21, Crowley perfected his fiery curry-making skills:

The weather made it impossible to do any serious climbing; but I learnt a great deal about the work of a camp at high altitudes, from the management of transport to cooking; in fact, my chief claim to fame is, perhaps, my “glacier curry.” It was very amusing to see the strong men, inured to every danger and hardship, dash out of the tent after one mouthful and wallow in the snow, snapping at it like mad dogs. They admitted, however, that it was very good as curry and I should endeavour to introduce it into London restaurants if there were only a glacier. Perhaps, some day, after a heavy snowfall—

Crowley’s treks proved him a prodigious and often trailblazing mountaineer. He took part in the first climbing attempt up the famed Chogori (K2) in 1902 and led a challenge on Kanchenjunga in 1905. It would be another 50 years before either of these great peaks would be successfully summited so these early attempts are quite noteworthy. Crowley’s provisioning lists for these mountaineering treks include voluminous tins of Danish butter and cases of Champagne, all to be hauled by his loyal and long-suffering sherpas.

Never a fan of canned food, Crowley’s diet of tinned food on expedition proved detrimental when gluttony overtook him during a trip through Baltistan in Pakistan. He wrote:

I made rather a beast of myself. I had been starving on canned food for nearly two months, and that half-warm, half-cooked fresh mutton made me practically insane. But never in my whole life have I tasted anything like that mutton. I gorged myself to the gullet, was violently sick, and ordered a fresh dinner.

A specific aspect of Crowley’s ritual use of food was for “magickal retirements,” meditative retreats he conducted prior to religious initiation ceremonies. According to Lon DuQuette, author of more than a dozen books analyzing and exploring the rituals of Aleister Crowley, a magickal retirement is a process of divesting. It is getting away from the distraction of the rest of the world, but documenting and tracking everything; moods, weather, sleep, sex, and—yes—foods eaten, and how these external forces affect you.”

Crowley’s two most well-documented magickal retirements occurred in Paris in October 1908, wherein he penned Liber DCCCLX (otherwise known as John St. John) and in 1916, when he stayed in a house owned by Evangeline Adams in Hebron, New Hampshire.

In Paris, during his first documented magickal retirement, he took an apartment that was a few minutes’ walk to the famed Le Dôme Café, the renowned gathering place for Belle Époque literati Ernest Hemingway, W. Somerset Maugham, and Anaïs Nin as well as artists Pablo Picasso, Vasily Kandinsky, Amedeo Modigliani, and Leonora Carrington. At Le Dôme, oysters were a favorite offering, which Crowley would “eat … in a Yogin and ceremonial manner,” chewing extremely slowly and deliberately, spiritually invoking their symbolic sexual power at the restaurant. As he described in his diary later:

O oysters! Be ye unto me strength that I formulate the 12 rays of the Crown of HVA! I conjure ye, and very potently command. Even by Him who ruleth Life from the Throne of Tahuti unto the Abyss of Amennti, even by Ptah the swathed one, that unwrappeth the mortal from the immortal, even by Amoun the giver of Life, and by Khem the mighty, whose Phallus is like the Pillar in Karnak! Even by myself and my male power do I conjure ye. Amen.

Crowley hired a personal chef when his funds would allow, but also prided himself on developing and cooking his own recipes. He was renowned for his curries and wrote a three-page explanation just for the preparation of rice to accompany them. In 1918, he brought a handful of acolytes to Boleskine, where he wrote an instruction manual entitled “Simple Cooking for Summer Campers,” declaring that “the following dishes and beverages have all been converted specifically to meet the needs of those who have gone back to Nature from the conflicts of life in great cities.” His Mixed Grill à la Boleskine is a testament to his gourmet tastes, complete with a diagram for each plate’s very specific placement upon the table:

• 2 devilled kidneys (Sauce Béarnaise)

• 2 Cambridge Sausages with 4 anchovies criss-cross over each

• 2 small rounds of caviar on toast

• 2 small rounds of soft roe on toast

• 2 large Mushrooms

• 2 half Egg stuffed with foie gras

• 2 Devils on horseback
  Veg: Truffles stewed in Champagne.Gastro Obscura article

Lest anyone take his gastronomic largesse too seriously, a page from his diaries displays two recipes quite at opposite ends of a culinary spectrum. One is a relatively simple guide to the preparation of Oeufs Vanity Fair which is nothing more than a classic soft-boiled egg, the necessary breakfast for any self-respecting Edwardian. The other, to Haggis Mère du Ciel (Mother of Heaven Haggis), is an entirely fantastical concoction stemming from Crowley’s sardonic wit:

Take Shark’s fin, Kangaroo tails, Bêche de Mer (sea cucumber), and Wombat kidneys with—if possible—Ornithorhynchus (platypus) livers. Mince finely and add Chinese Birds’ nests. Boil in Shark’s belly. Serve as a haggis, but with Chinese, Hawaiian or—better still—Maori music.

Kaczynski says that Crowley’s diaries’ lack of explicit instructions—“just listing the ingredients but not saying much about quantities or preparation”—reveals an experienced chef.“It really struck me how he was really into the cooking,” he says.

In his later years, Crowley seemed to truly flourish as a chef. His diaries describe May Day in 1938 as “a day of great social and gastronomical success” wherein he prepared a Sunday lunch of iced curry and chili con carne, Tournedos Gabriel(traditionally, grilled veal set on rounds of fried bread topped with a poached egg and crossed anchovies), surrounded by mushrooms chopped and tossed in butter with cayenne and birds’ eye (Thai) chili. However, Crowley noted that due to a lack of eggs, he had to tweak the recipe and make do with mustard and cream sauce. For 1939’s May Day offering—less than eight years before he would pass away—a 64-year-old Crowley served an upbeat luncheon for more than a dozen compatriots. Crowley prepared a chilled Gelée Cherbourg (prawns poached in fish fumet with soy sauce, cayenne, and cream).

Perhaps the king of depravity could have pursued the life of a chef de cuisine, instead of founding a religion, for this particular luncheon came with the chef’s verdict: “A great success this lunch, in some strange way; only explanation seems to be that I wasn’t there: just cooked and let them talk.”

In the end, Crowley’s culinary habits seemed largely focused on sharing a good meal with close friends. “ When he was flush with money from his inheritance, he would treat his friends to lavish dinners out,” Kaczynski says. “In later years, when he was broke, he seemed to expect others to do the same for him, even if those people were new to his circle. It was just what one did with friends.”

As much as I adore Pepys and seventeenth century London, I must catapult you the early Edwardian era; 1909 to be exact. I am extremely grateful to the reader who pointed me towards Phil Baker’s City of the Beast - The London of Aleister Crowley, for Mr. Baker has done an immense amount of legwork for me in an extremely well laid-out book of all of Crowley’s haunts; from his apartments, to lodge locations, and any spot in between. In Baker’s introduction (pg. 18) he quotes Crowley’s lack of navigation in the London district of Peckham, circa 1909:

Suppose I were to start from Scott’s [restaurant] and walk… to Haggerston Town Hall (wherever Haggerston may be; but say it’s N.E.), thence to Maida Vale. From Maida Vale I could take a true line for Piccadilly again and not go five minutes’ walk out of my way, bar blind alleys, etc., and I should know when I got close to Scott’s again before I recognised any of the surroundings.

It is an easy assumption that Scott’s was a frequented eatery for our 34-year-old mage and I can hope that further notes on his dining here present themselves. Opened in on Coventry Street in the Haymarket district in the 1850s as “Scott’s oyster rooms,” it would adopt a more substantial moniker of “Scott’s Oyster and Supper Rooms” in 1891. It still exists, by the way, but is now located at 20 Mount Street in Mayfair. From the Way Back Machine, this is how it looked during the turn of the last century:

Scott’s is described by Nathaniel Newnham-Davis in his 1914 Gourmet’s Guide to London as “the hub of the West End of London.” I am still looking for a full, period menu, but their reputation was seafood and “fish to die for,” so this is a clue as to some of their offerings from this partial menu:

Phil Baker continues — and this was the rabbit hole down which I fell:

The Piccadilly area is a definite nexus in Crowley’s London. Just south of Scott’s is Haymarket, where he stayed in Yeoman House at number 31-32 in the late Twenties, obtained tobacco from Fribourg and Treyer at 34, and heroin from Heppell’s chemist next door at 35. At the top of the north-south sloping road was the long-gone Haymarket Stores (25, 26, 29 Coventry Street) where he shopped on account.

In a fabulous coffee-table book entitled Lost London 1870-1945 by Philip Davies, many never-before-seen, stunning black-and-white photographs of Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian buildings are captured just before their are destroyed. While my research is endeavoring to limit Crowley’s consumables to legal food and drink (i.e., I have no intention of commenting upon the number of illicit drugs he habituated), I had to take pause as the images of Crowley’s tobacconist, Fribourg and Treyer, are not limited to simply external, building views:

From Lost London: “Purveyors of snuff and tobacco, F&T began trading in 1751, but closed in 1977. The delightful bow-fronted shopfront, the oldest in London, with its separate side entrance to the upper floors and wrought iron grilles, still survives as a gift shop, but it has lost much of its original character.” These pictures were taken in December of 1908, so these internal images of the shop would be exactly as Crowley would have seen it, 115 years ago with its delicate Adam period screen which divided the rear part of the shop from the front. Behind the counters sits large urns of finely blended tobacco, and in the cases one can spy various offerings of pipes.

Continuing, as Baker describes: “At the top of the north-south sloping road was the long-gone Haymarket Stores (25, 26, 29 Coventry Street) where [Crowley] shopped on account.”

St. James Market was built in 1663-66 to serve the newly-planned quarter around St. James’ Square. Rebuilt by Nash in 1817-18, the modest brick dwellings were leveled in 1916. The passageway in the distance led into the Haymarket. The image on the left is the south side of the market. These images were taken on 6 November, 1908; and just like the tobacconist’s images, this is exactly how it would have appeared to Crowley, which I personally find thrilling.

So I apologize I don’t have a juicy recipe for you to try, but finding these images was too good not to share, and I’m sure more will come from this era and locale in the future. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Turbot (tur-but) is a fish. But not just any fish. It is the king of culinary fishes and is considered very grand, expensive, and was a favorite of Queen Victoria. It is a very large, left-eyed flatfish that is farmed in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Baltic and Black Seas. The Roman poet, Juvenal, from the late 1st or early 2nd century, wrote a satirical poem, The Emperor’s Fish which suggests it was a delicacy during the Roman empire. Turbot is diamond-shaped and to serve it properly is to serve it whole which requires a specially-shaped pan in which to cook it.

This is a turbot steamer or poacher, inside of which is a perforated liner with upright handles on either end which enable the cook to lift out the whole cooked fish with ease. I’m ashamed to admit that I swiped this screenshot from the fabulous YouTube English Heritage page which demonstrates tons of accurately portrayed Victorian recipes:

These specialty cookers are not cheap; I’ve priced them in the $400 range which is quite a bit of money to spend on something that has one single use. Well, except they are also good for steaming small puddings, so there is two uses.

Analyzing Crowley’s course title, Turbot Avignon, I can surmise he is invoking the flavors of Provence, France, as Avignon is the capital of Provence, encased within old city walls, dating back to the 14th century. Because of its close proximity to the Mediterranean, the region is known for opulent, fresh seafood offerings and the warm climate produces superior vegetables, such as asparagus. To create this dish at home, one could substitute flounder, cod, striped bass, fluke, or haddock. You want a firm, flat fish.

Crowley’s recipe is one of utmost simplicity, but that is part of what makes it lovely and easy to replicate. Fumet is simply a white stock from fish bones and aromatic vegetables. First the vegetables are lightly sautéed; cooked until soft, but not taking on any color. It becomes more full-flavored with a bit of reducing and that flavor will transfer to the fish and also enrichen it. This is one of those recipes that can be easily tweaked depending on your desired flavors; chopped garlic or fennel (and their fronds) with some crushed tomatoes and crumbled saffron for a more Mediterranean style, or lemongrass, fresh ginger, and a star anise or two for Asian-styled fumet.

Makes about two quarts:

• 2 pounds fish bones or heads (do not use salmon; it is too oily)

• 2 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil (canola or sunflower) or butter

• 1 celery stalk, cut into chunks

• 1 large leek — white and green parts included — cut into half-moons

• 3 or 4 mushrooms, coarsely chopped

• 1 garlic clove

• 1 bay leaf

• 2 to 3 sprigs fresh thyme

• 5 whole peppercorns

• 1 cup or more dry white wine

• salt to taste

METHOD

1. Wash and chop the vegetables, known as mirepoix.

2. Briefly sauté the fresh vegetables in butter or oil (I always use butter, as it makes everything taste a little richer).

3. Add in the fish bones to the mirepoix and cover with cool water. Heat to boiling and skim off scum that appears.

4. Add wine and salt to taste. Simmer for at least 30 minutes and strain (simmer for an hour for a more concentrated flavor).

This is the basic recipe for a fish stock like Crowley would have made. The rest of his instructions are fairly straight forward, noting that his white wine of choice to add to his fumet is a Chablis, a crisp, acidic white wine from the Burgundy region of France, with a bit of minerality and “flintiness.” Poaching as a cooking technique has lost some of its glamor, which is a shame for it is a lovely way to prepare whole fish easily for guests as its presentation can be quite striking, takes very little time, and is practically fool-proof. Try it once with a whole fish before tackling fillets, which will have the tendency to fall apart unless it be a very firm fish. It is relatively quick as well; once the poaching liquid is at a gentle simmer (not a full, rolling boil), slide the fish in and maintain a heat that doesn’t quite boil, but is just above simmering. Ideally, you want to keep the liquid from going above 160°, but if it does, just turn the heat down a bit.

The length of time obviously depends on the temperature of the poaching liquid and the thickness of the fish, but could be done as quickly as 7 minutes and usually not much longer than 15. You can use a thermometer to check as most fish are cooked to approximately 135°; nudge with a utensil as the flesh should be very soft and just starting to flake apart. Remove the fish and keep warm while raising the heat to the reduce the poaching liquid to a scant 1/2 cup and pour in a splash — 1/4 cup, give-or-take — of cream.

Crowley then pours this over the fish and some new potatoes. It is a common mistake to believe that any small potato is “new,” but new potatoes have been freshly dug and brought to the market without curing. Most grocery store potatoes have been stored for several weeks to set the peel and heal nicks or cuts so they last longer. You can tell a new potato by rubbing its skin a little with thumb and it should scrape fairly clean down to the flesh, which is slightly moister and sweeter. If you have a farmer’s market nearby, see if any sellers are offering new potatoes versus buying any from a grocery store.

Lastly there is the chopped parsley. Don’t discount how much freshly chopped Italian parsley adds to the flavor of a dish. It is more than a garnish and can elevate even simple dishes like a salad with its bright, clean flavor. I’d advise against using curly parsley, which is more bitter and discordant with the richness of this seafood offering.

I have been struggling with how best to broach the topic of frog legs. It is controversial, both from the standpoint of Crowley’s actions — which I will delve into momentarily — and also from the gastronomic aspect as many have a visceral, negative reaction towards eating amphibians. The French have been pejoratively known as “frogs” since the 18^th century due to the existence of frog legs on menus, which has been a staple in their cuisine since the medieval era. And it isn’t as though other countries don’t consume frogs; they do, but mainly in southeast Asia and China. Frog legs grew in popularity in Europe during the 12^th century thanks to the Catholic church who classified the frog as a fish, thereby adding it as an additional tasty ingredient to the otherwise sparse gastronomic offerings eaten during the Lent, when meat was verboten. French peasants soon followed the examples made by monks and frog leg consumption grew.

With the rise of the French monarchy into the 17^th century, frogs legs became a delicacy amongst the nobles and aristocracy as cuisses en persillade or cuisses au beurre (cuisses being thighs). Alexandre Dumas, in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, wrote of an enterprising Auvergnat who became rich on the breeding of frogs for the country’s best restaurants. Larousse Gastronomique cites that frog legs “generally fill the British with disgust,” but a change of heart came about when the famous French chef, Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), became the Chef de Cuisine at London’s famed Savoy hotel in 1890. For a dinner held in honor of the Prince of Wales — later Edward VII — knowing full well the course might be rejected, Escoffier slowly braised the frogs legs in herbed court-bouillon and served them with an unctuous sauce topped with a thickened chicken jelly as an hors d’œuvre. By titling the dish Les Cuisses de Nymphe à l’Aurore — or thighs of the dawn nymphs — Escoffier is daring libidinous gentlemen such as the likes of the playboy prince or hedonist Aleister Crowley to pique their appetite with enticingly suggestive descriptions.

While not at this particular dinner for the Prince, Crowley was known to have met and dined with Mary Dempsey-Sturges at the Savoy in October of 1911. Of course we can’t know for certain that what Crowley ordered while dining at The Savoy, but that he was there at the same time as Escoffier attests to Crowley certainly benefitting from Escoffier’s masterful culinary efforts firsthand. From Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire:

For various reasons, I thought it best, in the past, to substitute the mythological name “Nymphs” for the more vulgar term “Frogs” on menus, and the former has been universally adopted, more particularly in reference to the following “Chaud-froid à l’Aurore”:

Poach the frogs’ legs in an excellent white-wine court-bouillon. When cooled, trim them properly, dry them thoroughly in a piece of fine linen, and steep them, one after the other, in a chaud-froid sauce of fish with paprika, the tint of which should be golden. This done, arrange the treated legs on a layer of champagne jelly, which should have set beforehand on the bottom of a square, silver dish or crystal bowl. Now lay some chervil pluches [fried] and tarragon leaves between the legs in imitation of water-grasses, and cover the whole with champagne jelly to counterfeit the effect of water.

Send the dish to the table, set in a block of ice, fashioned as fancy may suggest.

Why frog legs? For those well-versed in Crowley lore, many will know that his 1916 magickal retirement in New Hampshire produced Liber LXX, aka “the Cross of the Frog” which to the lay-person, involves a particularly gruesome-sounding sacrifice, preparation, and consumption of a frog. The ritual began at 2:00 a.m. with the Mystery of Conception then the Mystery of Birth around 6:00 a.m. This follows with the Mystery of Worship, the Mystery of Trial, and culminating with the Mystery of Resurrection and Ascension the following evening:

       Presently thou shalt take down the frog from the cross and divide it into two parts; the legs shalt thou cook and eat as a sacrament to confirm thy compact with the frog; and the rest shalt thou burn utterly with fire, to consume finally the aeon of the accursed one.

            So mote it be!

By stating the basic, “Crowley sacrificed a frog and ate it,” one’s mind jumps to mental imagery of Francisco Goya’s painting of Saturn Devouring His Son. In Crowley’s own words, he provides the instruction to cook the legs, as any self-respecting gourmand would do. Many a hunter have felled a dear, done their own butchery, and reveled in the product of their effort. Is the consumption of the frog seemingly more vile than that of a country housewife beheading and plucking a chicken for a family meal? Crowley’s frog meal is simply preceded with a rather extensive ritual and mystical endowment of the creature to be eaten the same way the Catholic priest empowers the wafer host and wine before communion. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is that part of the Mass in which the Communion Rite takes place; the communal sacrament of the worshiper receiving the Body and Blood of Christ to become one with the Divine Being. For Crowley to be able to solemnify a magickal act with a ritual sacrifice, there is much to be said for having the chosen object of his sacrifice being a mere frog which is more easily caught, kept captive, and dispatched before becoming the meal.

Learning Crowley’s tastes and gastronomic standards, while the rush and adrenaline of the ritual may have precluded him from partaking in a more complicated recipe for frogs legs, I offer a fairly basic one that any self-respecting Edwardian might have eaten, in Paris or at The Savoy:

Cuisses de grenouilles à la persillade

-        ½ to 2 lbs frog legs

-        1 tbsp salt

-        1 tbsp pepper

-        1 cup milk

-        1 cup flour

-        3 to 4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

-        2 to 3 tbsp lemon juice

-        10 tablespoons butter, divided

-        2 to 3 tbsp fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

1.     Soak the frogs legs in milk for at least an hour in the refrigerator. This helps tenderize and moisten the meat.

2.     In a separate bowl, combine the salt, pepper, and flour.

3.     In a large enough frying pan to accommodate all the frogs legs, melt 5 tablespoons of butter.

4.     Take the legs from the milk, briefly dredge in flour mixture, shaking off the excess flour, and fry on medium-heat for 3 to 4 minutes per side, until golden brown.

5.     Remove from heat and place legs on a warming plate while you finish the sauce.

6.     Wipe the pan clean with a paper towel and return to stove, melting the remaining 5 tablespoons butter.

7.     When just melted, sauté the garlic for just a minute or so, to flavor the butter. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and parsley.

8.     Pour the sauce over the frogs legs and serve.

I recommend a creamy white wine with this dish; a Rhône varietal like Viognier or Roussanne that will complement the hint of lemon in the sauce and not overpower the delicate taste of the frogs legs. A buttery Chardonnay would fight with the butter and a crisp Riesling risks heightening the astringency of the citrus.

It seems there was an assumption that this would be nothing but a recreation of Crowley’s known recipes, the Riz Aleister Crowley (basmati rice to be served with a curry), or possibly the most infamous and oft-misinterpreted eucharistic Cakes of Light. Yes, it is likely I will touch upon both of those at some point. However investigating Aleister Crowley from the perspective of a culinary history is a much more involved endeavor as it is far reaching beyond just those recipes he may have cooked for himself or wanted to share for posterity. It is the fact that during all his travels, he kept diaries mentioning hotels and restaurants, with whom he dined and what they dined upon. Describing an October 1930 dinner at the Muenchner Hofbrau in Leipzig with Aldous Huxley and a colleague of Albert Einstein’s, J.W.N. Sullivan, Crowley drily observed that Sullivan “was gloomy drunk on iced beer, & sick after a vast goulash, & more iced beer. Huxley improves on acquaintance." This is what fascinates me! The historian in me wants to find a 1930s menu of the Muenchner Hofbrau; what might Crowley have ordered? And Huxley?

The fact that Crowley even wrote down recipes is a novelty for an Edwardian man who wasn’t in the profession of being a cook, but is not so innovative for those who define themselves as gourmands. As an erudite bon vivant, he crossed paths with — and we can safely assume dined with — luminaries such August Rodin, W. Somerset Maugham, and William Butler Yeats. Each decade of his life was also an era of tremendous change in gastronomic and sociological circles. Do you know why the British are so crazy about curries? Crowley talked about eating Japanese food, but not in Japan, so when did Japanese restaurants begin to appear in other countries? What were his provisions for his Chogo-Ri expedition? British boarding schools have reputations for horrific cafeteria offerings and did that contribute to his sickly childhood? Sailing to America on the RMS Lusitania in October of 1914, he very well would have been presented a menu very similar to this and I may stumbled upon the very meal he ordered:

My work as a culinary historian is more than transcribing Crowley’s own words and recipes. It is delving deep into his travels to see if a menu exists from a hotel where he lodged. It is also analyzing what ingredients were available then versus what we have now, or how they have changed. I will explain how menus and dining habits have changed from the late 1800s to the middle of the twentieth-century, how Crowley’s Rabelaisian appetite for life translated into comedic culinary concoctions, and how something as modern and commonplace as sushi is now is, was once exotic and peculiar. And we know he tried it.

The research is grueling. By starting with excellent biographies by Richard Kaczynski, Phil Baker, and Tobias Churton, I am building an elaborate spreadsheet of Crowley’s life and locations. All the while, reading and underlining foodie bits in Confessions, The Equinox, and the rest of his massive oeuvre. With locations and dates, I can follow the trails of what restaurants or hotels existed in what neighborhoods or what cafés he may have frequented. I will be able to paint a gastronomic picture of a young dandy on his first Grand Tour eating Marennes oysters, or the aspiring mountain-climber surviving on tinned Danish butter and Champagne, or the plans of a potential Cefalù-based restaurant. This coming December, I will be spending a week myself in London, following his footsteps and engrossing myself in Warburg Institute for all those spicy bites which have yet be tasted.

So thank you for joining me on this journey as we feast together on the fruits of my labor and Crowley’s words.