What would you do if you and your sibling kept being kicked out of the house by your mean and starving mother and were left to find food on your own? What if you came across a house made of candy, gingerbread and sugar? You'd start eating it unless you were dumb. What if the house was owned by a witch who wanted to fatten you and your sibling up so she could eat you? Gross, right? What if the breadcrumbs you used to track your way home got eaten by some greedy birds? We are discussing the connection between food, horror and fairy tales this season and we really get into the weeds with Hansel and Gretel, so please join us!
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What would you do if you were a young woman running through the forest in a red cape, taking cake and wine to your dear grandmother, and were surprised by the big bad wolf? What if you found out that your grandmother was actually a wolf herself? What if the wolf turned out to be a man who could shapeshift? What if the wolf ate you and your grandmother for lunch? What if the wolf loved sausages and maggoty cheese? We are discussing these age-old questions and analyzing the connection between food in horror in the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, and several modern iterations of the story, so please join us!
Works mentioned
Little Red-cap by By Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm (1812)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2591/2591-h/2591-h.htm#link2H_4_0023
The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter (1979)
The Company of Wolves dir. Neil Jordan (1984)
Wolfland by Tanith Lee (1983)
https://www.sweetstudy.com/files/wolfland.pdf
Red Riding Hood dir. Catherine Hardwicke (2011)
Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (2015)
Mrs Fox by Sarah Hall (2019)
We are thrilled to introduce you to Season Five! We'll be analyzing the connections between food and horror in fairy tales, both literature and in film. After all, what is more frightening than being eaten by a wolf, getting lost in the woods because birds ate your breadcrumb trail, eating a poisoned apple, having your coach revert back into a pumpkin, or having a witch take away your pregnant wife's supply of rapunzel salad leaves? We will kick things off with an in-depth analysis of that classic Little Red Riding Hood, some literary retellings by Angela Carter and Tanith Lee, and the recent remake starring Amanda Seyfried, so please join us!
Serve It Forth: A Food History Festival
18 October 2025 – Online
We’re bringing together writers, historians, podcasters, and curious minds for a day of delicious discovery. Talks, conversations… all from the comfort of your own kitchen.
In this bonus episode, Allie (one dark half of Fear Feasts!) is joined by her friends and fellow food historians Thomas Ntinas, Sam Bilton, and Neil Buttery. Together they share how each of them first got drawn into food history, what continues to inspire them, and some of the surprises they've encountered along the way.
How do people find their way into food history? What myths surround the field? And do they sometimes meet with culinary catastrophes of our own?!
Allie's input will of course be tinged with spookiness and dread in the company of death historian and funerary expert Dr Dan O’Brien!
Their session, entitled: The River Remembers: A Journey Through London’s Lost Larder will take audiences on a dark voyage through food, death, and the forgotten histories of the Thames. From butchered whales washed ashore to bottles dredged from disaster sites, and from the feasting tables of the living to the memento mori traditions that remind us that bodies too become food. Allie and Dan will explore how the river bears witness to centuries of consumption and decay. Following the shifting shoreline, they'll trace fragments of lost lives and meals that once sustained the capital- an unsettling story of what (and who) London has eaten.
Important Links
What would you do if your mother lost her mind, cut off your dad's finger, went into a mental institution, came out and wanted to cook up a feast for Halloween? That's the premise of Guile Branco's darkly hilarious and horrific film A Halloween Feast, and the subject of our bonus episode today! We interviewed Branco on his latest film, the connection between food and horror (something we know a little about!), and what's next for this up-and-coming actor and director, so give it a listen!
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Allie and Vanessa sink their teeth into Salem’s Lot, exploring the hunger that haunts Stephen King’s classic novel, the eerie 1979 miniseries by Tobe Hooper, and Gary Dauberman’s 2024 film. From small-town suppers to vampiric cravings, this episode serves up a feast of unholy appetites…
What would you do if you were a gorgeous blond vampire who loved attention and fame but were constantly seeking new diversions? What if being immortal and unable to enjoy treats such as red wine, chocolate custard, pasta and steak was getting to be too much to bear? What if drinking blood and living perpetually at night had lost its charm? What if a strange man made you an offer of switching bodies so that you could experience the hellish joy of being human again? What if you made the switch, realized you'd been swindled by this body thief, and proceeded to guzzle wine, devour food, have sex with many women and decided you wanted your vampiric body back? We'll discuss these tastily terrifying questions as we analyze the connection between food and horror in Anne Rice's novel The Tale of the Body Thief, so please join us!
Contact us at: fearfeastswithvanessaandallie@gmail.com
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Follow Vanessa's blog at: https://foodinbooks.com
Follow Allie's other podcast at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-is-for-apple-an-encyclopaedia-of-food-drink/id1743840806
A devilishly delectable taste of next week's episode!
This very fun and special episode features our favorite guest, Jamieson Ridenhour, creator of the podcast Palimpsest, as we analyze Sheridan Le Fanu's masterpiece of vampirism.
Jamieson Ridenhour
https://www.jamiesonridenhourwriter.com/
Carmilla (1871-72)
J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Edited by Jamieson Ridenhour (2009)
Available at: https://www.valancourtbooks.com/carmilla-1871-72.html
Carmilla
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (author), Carmen Maria Machado (editor)
Annotated edition (2020)
Re: Dracula (Audio Drama)
https://redracula.live/#carmilla
The Phantom World by Augustin Calmet (1850)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29412/29412-h/29412-h.htm
Vampires, Burial, and Death by Paul Barber (1988)
https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300164817/vampires-burial-and-death/
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (2009)
https://lighthousebookshop.com/book/9780330458153
Hungerstone by Kat Dunn (2025)
Highgate Wood (Teaser)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6N8v9WBfFDZLrNa3MhYjzC
Viola’s Room (Immersive Experience)
A horrifyingly hungry taste of next week's episode!
What would you do if you were a bored Southern housewife in a book club that focused on true crime, horror and murder, in addition to drinking wine and eating lots of snacks? What would you do if your boring doctor husband and bratty, dysfunctional kids befriended the strange new guy who moved in just next door? What would you do if the strange new guy started showing up at your house around dinnertime and was always invited in for fried chicken, roast potatoes, chocolate cake and ice cream? What if his strange behavior around young women, and toward you, made you suddenly suspect he was a vampire? What if you tried to tell your family and book club friends about his bloodthirsty proclivities and were reviled and called a liar? You'd be pretty pissed off and would want to stop cooking things like cheese straws, frozen salads, casseroles and Swedish meatballs, and would probably want to find a way to slay this bloodsucking bastard, right? We're discussing these tastily terrifying questions and analyzing the connection between food and horror in Grady Hendrix's 2020 darkly humorous novel The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, so please join us!
A tastily terrifying tidbit of next week's episode!
What would you do if you were an angst-ridden teenager with a secret crush on the new boy in the neighborhood and a taste for fish and chips? What would you do if your vomiting vegan sister was chased through the woods, nearly attacked then turned around and killed her would-be assaulter by sinking her teeth into him? What would you do if your seemingly normal mother, who loved to bake bread, make cakes, and cook blood sausages and pancakes for breakfast, and your seemingly normal father who loved cocktails and the taste of his own blood, told you one day that you were vampires? What would you do if your super cool uncle showed up one day to help hide the murder of the attacker kid, demonstrated his love for chocolate chip cookies and mesmerism, and showed you the fun aspects of drinking blood? We'll be discussing these scarily scrumptious issues and analyzing the connection between food and horror in the 2024 film The Radleys, so please join us.
A scrumptiously scary taste of our upcoming episode!
What would you do if you were working as a waitress for a catering company, trying hard to make ends meet and serving bloody beef carpaccio at every event? What if you took a DNA test and received an invitation to an elegant wedding from a your long-lost cousin in England that you barely knew? What if, when you got to the estate where the wedding was being held, you met the estate owner and fell in love with him? What if he proposed marriage to you and forced you to marry him over a bacchanalian feast of roast pig, rotted fruit, stuffed fish and......blood? What if he turned out to be not just a vampire, but the big bad granddad of vampires himself, Dracula? It might turn you off your food for awhile, right? We're discussing these horrifyingly hungry questions and analyzing the connection between food and horror in the craptacular 2022 horror film The Invitation, so please join us!
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A diabolically delicious taste of our upcoming episode!
We are hosting our annual Christmas episode with a very special guest! The talented and witty Jamieson Ridenhour, creator of the podcast Palimpsest and author of many works of horror, joins us as we discuss horror, feminism, cheap brandy, snickerdoodles and obscene phone calls in the 1974 masterpiece Black Christmas, and its less-than-stellar remakes from 2006 and 2019, so please join us!
Learn more about Jamieson at: https://www.jamiesonridenhourwriter.com/
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Contact us at: fearfeastswithvanessaandallie@gmail.com
What would you do if you were a young girl in the 1970s with a diplomat father, a vanished mother, an addiction to sweet desserts, and a possible family secret involving a famous Transylvanian count whose family symbol was a dragon? What would you do if one day your father disappeared to search for your mother and you were left to go after him, traveling through various cities and eating bread and cheese and bars of chocolate? What if your father left you a series of letters that detailed how he met your mother, his graduate studies with a professor who had found proof that Dracula was still alive and wreaking havoc, and luscious meals in Istanbul, Bulgaria, Romania and London? You'd probably start drooling at mentions of cheese, red peppers, roast lamb, chocolate torta, cheese pastry, coffee, eggplant, yogurt, chicken paprikash and pastries mounded with whipped cream, right? What if your ultimate search for your parents and Dracula led you to the knowledge that you were descended from Vlad Dracula himself? We are discussing these beguilingly bloodthirsty questions and analyzing the connection between food and horror in Elizabeth Kostova's marvelous novel The Historian, so please join us.
A deliciously diabolical taste of our upcoming episode!
What would you do if you were a 12-year old boy living next door to a really weird girl who could solve your Rubik's Cube, could apparently fly, and who vomited up the candy you gave her as a token of your love? What would you do if you were being bullied by some really awful kids at your school and the weird girl took care of them in the local swimming pool in a really spectacular fashion? What if this weird girl next door supposedly lived with her father who was weirder than her and who loved drinking milk with his spaghetti before he went out seeking blood? What if you fell in love with the weird girl next door and started craving a bit of blood before mealtime? We're discussing these freakily famishing questions and analyzing the connection between food and horror in the 2008 vampire film Let The Right One In and the book of the same name, so please join us!
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