Hellbent For Cooking: The Very Metal Companion to All Those Damn Metal Cooking Shows

Bazillion Points

EYEHATEGOD's "bloody" beans and rice.

In May, we wrote about metal cooking shows, noting that playing metal required precision and well-seasoned chops, much like cooking. Today, we're examining the metal-kitchen pipeline further, sorting through a 2009 cookbook we just received from Bazillion Points Books in Brooklyn, New York: Hellbent For Cooking, a carefully curated collection of 101 recipes offered by metal bands from 32 countries.

While well-known heroes like Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, and Sepultura headline the affair, many hail from lands as far-flung as the Philippines, Israel, and Cyprus and sing in languages the others could not begin to decipher. Yet whether major or minor, sludgy or speedy, domestic or imported, vegan or carnivorous, what these bands have in common is metal -- an art form, an attitude, a lifestyle. It's not just a gimmick in the cookbook context; it comes screaming through the recipes.

Surprisingly, we'd eat most of what we read about in this book. Gwar shares a recipe for candied veal sweetbreads on a bed of seared beef heart that we'd probably pass on -- though only for the double-meat overkill. In addition to the heart, the sweetbreads meet a maple-tinged sauce and a pastry heart in what rhythm guitarist Balsac the Jaws of Death calls "a romantic appetizer for the gastronomically sadistic." EYEHATEGOD's Mike IX Williams includes a fifth of vodka and a blood-themed playlist in his recipe for "New Orleans blood" red beans and rice, recommending that the cook drink the vodka after setting the beans aside to soak and listen to specific tracks at different intervals throughout the process.

The extremely black metal band Mayhem contributes Fårikål, a traditional Norwegian lamb dish made with "fist-sized" chunks of lamb. Whether mildly ambitious or willfully low-brow, good, metal-centric humor reigns supreme. In what may be the most vile-sounding concoction, Countess mainstay Count Orlok's "Macaroni Against Monotheism" consists of "cheap macaroni," ground pork, ground beef of "the lowest possible quality," and powdered pasta sauce. The least surprising inclusions? Recipes for "soul brownies" and "space cake."