The Witcher Cookbook Authors Discuss Lore-Based Recipes, Growing Up with Geralt, and More [IGN]
And now we have a cookbook from the world of The Witcher. It’s another fascinating take on the game-to-cooking crossover, but there’s also a unique charm to settling in with some recipes straight out of Kaer Morhen and beyond. The authors of the book, Anita Sarna and Karolina Krupecka, have kindly agreed to discuss with IGN how they went about creating over 80 unique and engaging recipes ripped straight from the world of The Witcher, perfectly blending fantasy and real-world cuisines.
For those interested, The Witcher Official Cookbook: Provisions, Fare, and Culinary Tales from Travels Across the Continent is now available to buy for $34.99 MSRP (See Here).
IGN: Were there any specific guidelines or preferences from The Witcher team that influenced your work on the cookbook?
Anita Sarna and Karolina Krupecka: We aimed to be faithful to the world of The Witcher and its existing axis, but also to create something new instead of just simply repeating the very same content that fans are already familiar with. We had to be very careful to adjust our cookbook narrator’s character and new stories to the existing lore of The Witcher world; we had to look up all these little details that are not so visible at first glance, but play a big role in creating the solid base for the “reality” of the Continent.
We decided that our narrator’s story would take place some time after the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, so that readers can still find some familiar traces of stories they know from the games. But we also have a few sentimental mentions from the timeline of the “Blood of Elves” book, regarding the witchers that we were allowed to bring into the narrative of our cookbook.
Karolina is a huge fan of folklore patterns, European fairy tales, and regional superstitions and beliefs
IGN: The Witcher universe is rich with cultural references. How did you incorporate these elements into the cookbook beyond just the recipes themselves?
Anita Sarna and Karolina Krupecka: We incorporated these elements through many different means, including ornaments, stylized photos with selected props, and culinary stories. Karolina is a huge fan of folklore patterns, European fairy tales, and regional superstitions and beliefs — so it was a great occasion for her to implement all these little elements connected with our culture into the design of the book, and also into stories we made together with the CDPR loremaster.
We implemented ornaments that refer to motifs taken from European patterns (for example in Skellige) and, especially close to our roots, Polish folklore motifs with some Slavic accents (in White Orchard or Velen). We gathered a library of symbols and patterns that are used in clothes and embroidery, furniture, architecture (wall paintings), or everyday items — we dove into ethnographic books and visited many museums, and then transferred this knowledge to the photographed scenes and props.
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The Witcher Official Cookbook: Provisions, Fare, and Culinary Tales from Travels Across the Continent