It has been nearly a year since my last update, but I assure you that The Culinary Crowley has not been abandoned. Quite the contrary. While things have been quiet here, a considerable amount of research has been taking place behind the scenes.
Over the past several weeks, I have made significant progress assembling a detailed chronology of Aleister Crowley’s life and travels, cross-referencing biographies, diaries, correspondence, and historical archives to reconstruct the gastronomic experiences that accompanied his decidedly unconventional existence.
The research has grown into something of an archival banquet. My working database now contains more than 430 individual evidence records, nearly 180 culinary references, 108 entries for historical places and establishments, and 83 transportation records tracing journeys by rail, steamship, and other means. Among the establishments under investigation are more than twenty hotels and two dozen restaurants and cafés. I’ve also begun documenting the friends, lovers, fellow travelers, and occasional adversaries with whom Crowley shared his adventures and, sometimes, his table.
From Parisian cafés and Himalayan expeditions to the communal kitchen of the Abbey of Thelema and his legendary London curries, a fascinating culinary portrait is emerging. Some of the most intriguing discoveries concern not grand banquets, but the ordinary pleasures, peculiar preferences, and surprisingly domestic habits of a man better remembered for his extraordinary notoriety.
I am now embarking on a focused, 90-day plan to transform this mountain of research into a structured book manuscript, while also developing the foundations of an interactive map tracing Crowley’s travels and gastronomic encounters.
In the coming months, I hope to share some particularly intriguing discoveries, forgotten establishments, culinary curiosities, and historical rabbit holes uncovered along the way.
Thank you for your patience and continued interest. The Beast is still at the table, and there is much more to be served.
This will prove to make an interesting volume. I eagerly look forward to it.