For most of us, the name Salvador Dali conjures up images of melting clocks, abstract, long-legged figures in a desert backdrop, or maybe his perilously long mustache. You may not think of him as a cookbook author, but he was (sort of), and the cookbook he kind of authored is as absolutely surreal and over the top as you would expect.

Reading it is also a reminder of Dali himself as a problematic figure: Something I knew, but didn’t know the extent of, as I embarked on this particular culinary journey. I touch more on this later, but I decided to stick with this subject because it asks us to look at a book through the lens of cookbook history and book history writ large, considering how performance and excess can appear within culinary works. But, it also asks us to consider the cookbook as marketing and as part of an individual’s brand: This book was all part of Dali’s efforts to cultivate a ‘larger than life’ persona, and is as much about cultivating that image as it is about food.