The Alchemist's Guide to Good Eating

"Are you serious, Alistair? You're making more recipes out of that book?" Phanae gave the magus a look.
"It's not the book, it's the damned ingredients." Alistair sprinkled a thin red powder into the soup. "I thought magecraft was supposed to make stuff taste *better*."
She rolled her eyes. "There wasn't anything wrong with normal cooking, you know. And the ingredients are cheaper."
"Well, that's why I'm a magus, isn't it?" Alistair pinched a bit of sugar and concentrated for a moment; the sugar turned a golden color between his fingers as he dropped it into the broth. "You should be happy you can try out new recipes. Here, it's ready."
Phanae dipped a spoon into the broth and tasted it, then immediately spat. "Is it supposed to taste like cotton candy?"
Alistair groaned. "Is this a joke book? Who would want cotton candy flavored soup?"
"How should I know?"
"Ugh."

Purpose

The Alchemist's Guide to Good Eating is a cookbook produced and greenlit by the Wizard's Association of Etoile. Ostensibly, the cookbook is intended to help communicate with the population at large about the real world applications of the new magical power, as every recipe in the book involves a magic-infused reagent of some sort, but the cookbook is so poorly written that recipes tend to go south. In addition, the variant nature of magic means that recipes could taste completely different depending on the magus involved.

Document Structure

Clauses

The Alchemist's Guide to Good Eating is broken into sections organized by the principal binding alchemical agent involved in each recipe. As this method of organization is useless for actually planning a meal course, for all intents and purposes the cookbook is arranged randomly.

Publication Status

The Alchemist's Guide is widely available as a state sponsored publication at most bookstores and scribes. Demand is low, however, and the printworks finished their last production run of the cookbook some time ago.

Historical Details

Background

The discovery of magic roughly a decade ago and the founding of the Wizard's Guild prompted widespread uncertainty about how magic and magical talent would fit into modern society. After a brainstorming session, it was agreed by the Guild Headmaster and the Principality Guild Liaison that a cookbook would be a relatable way to introduce magic to the masses as something that would improve lives in a low-impact, casual way.

Public Reaction

Attempts to serve the dishes made using the Alchemist's Guide have resulted in fodder for comedy routines and laughter over drinks, and by and large the cookbook is met with derision. That being said, the argument for its continued circulation was that the public reaction to magic overall was actually desired - with comedy cooking being the first widely publicized use of magic, magecraft became 'just another thing' instead of subject to mystery and fear.

Type

Manual, Culinary

Medium

Paper