Every week several cookbooks cross my desk. Sometimes I wonder who, if anyone, will buy them.
So I wasn't surprised at some of the titles listed on The World's Top 10 Weirdest Cookbooks, compiled through a poll by AbeBooks.com, an online marketplace for new, used, rare and out-of-print books.
I recognized some of the books on the list. I've met Robin Davis, author of "Star Wars Cookbook: Wookiee Cookies and Other Galactic Recipes." She's now the food editor at the Columbus Dispatch in Columbus, Ohio. And she's actually pretty normal — at least for being a food editor. So I don't know if her book deserved true weirdness status.
One book that somehow got ignored is "Gross-Out Cakes: The Kitty Litter Cake and Other Classics," by Britney Schetselaar of Provo and Kathleen Barlow of Bountiful (Silverleaf, $12.95). In my opinion, any book with recipes such as Boogery Bundt or Toenail Torte with Toejam Filling should be somewhere on a "weird" list.
Here's the list:
1. "Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine," by Chris Maynard & Bill Scheller (Villard Books, 1989, out of print). Meals on wheels, anyone? Utah's Dian Thomas has also given directions for cooking under the hood of an automobile in some of her "Roughing It Easy" books. But given the price of gasoline nowadays, it's probably cheaper to just use your stove.
2. "The Original Road Kill Cookbook," by Buck Peterson (Ten Speed Press, 1987, $6.95). This one has spawned sequels such as "The International Roadkill Cookbook" and "The Totalled Roadkill Cookbook." Yum.
3. "Eat-A-Bug Cookbook: 33 Ways to Cook Grasshoppers, Ants, Water Bugs, Spiders, Centipedes, and Their Kin," by David George Gordon (Ten Speed Press, 1998, $16.95). Don't complain about the fly in your soup.
4. "Special Effects Cookbook," by Michael E. Samonek (MES/FX Publishing, 1992, $9.90). Sounds like you can use this one for your kids' science experiments.
5. "Cooking in the Nude: Playful Gourmets, the Fun and Lusty Approach to Gourmet Dining for Two," by Stephen Cornwell & Debbie Cornwell (Primavera, 1988, $3.89). I would be very, very careful around the stove!
6. "Cooking to Kill: The Poison Cook Book," by Ebenezer Murgatroyd & Herb Roth (Peter Pauper Press, 1951, $15). This slapstick book boasts recipes to use on spoiled brats, business rivals and strayed lovers that will "make your friends die laughing."
7. "Wookiee Cookies: A Star Wars Cookbook," by Robin Davis (Chronicle Books, 1998, $1695). Recipes include Yoda Soda and Princess Leia's Danish Do's (modeled after Leia's famous hairdo).
8. "The Mini Ketchup Cookbook," by Cameron Pearl (Running Press Books, 2006, $4.95). What, no fry sauce?
9. "Cooking for Cats: The Best Recipes for Felix, Orlando and the Rest," by Elisabeth Meyer Zu Stieghorst-Kastrup (Dumonte, 2002, $6.88). Actually, it's not that weird to cook for your pet, considering the recent tainted pet-food scare.
10. "Strange Foods: Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies; An Epicurean Adventure Around the World," by Jerry Hopkins & Michael Freeman (Periplus Editions, 1999, $5.99) This one gives new meaning to the term "global cuisine."
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com