Inside a 1970s guide to cooking for orgies.
Food and sex are frequent bedfellows. Consider the (in)famous peach of Call Me by Your Name, or the whipped cream bikini scene in Varsity Blues: these are the moments of erotic, edible desire, forever cemented in the zeitgeist, and made possible only by food.
And yet, these moments of indulgence – arguably powered more by aesthetic than appetite – are not the trick to feeding actual orgy guests. At least not according to Daud Alani and Jack S. Margolis, who once specified that one should serve meals, not snacks. Girl dinners need not apply.
In their now-legendary guidebook, Cooking for Orgies and Other Large Parties, the duo explain: “Because of the tremendous influence our sensory powers have on our sexual and amatory desires, there is no question that a well-prepared meal of subtly seasoned foods will greatly add to a heightening of those desires.”
Cooking for Orgies was published in 1972, when Alani and Margolis were already attending (and throwing) lavish parties for Hollywood actors and hippies alike. Frequently working with a tight budget, the two saw no contradiction between being economical and being absolutely, devastatingly glam. Their book repeated the sentiment: you didn’t need huge amounts of cash to feed a group; you simply needed ingenuity, preparation, and a strategy they coined the “Integrated Recipe System”, which directed would-be chefs on how to cook multiple dishes at once. Recipes like “Coffeed Zucchini” (which does indeed include instant coffee) and “Lovely Chicken Legs” did double duty: they were delicious, and they were relatively cheap.
So, Cooking for Orgies proved in one gleeful swoop that food and sex are about more than merely aphrodisiacs or fetish. If the kitchen is the heart of the home, they seemed to argue, then perhaps dinner should be at the heart of what happens inside the home (hint, hint) – or something like that. Put another way, feeding one’s community is undeniably sexy. Lean into it.
Cooking for Orgies walked so that, in 1998, the Lesbian Erotic Cookbook could run. At the turn of the century, the gay liberation movement had quieted to a whisper. Talk of legal rights and assimilation was in the air. In a move that was as radical as it was raunchy, Fiona Morgan published 218 pages of naked women, suggestive recipes, and queer poetry. The Lesbian Erotic Cookbook followed in its predecessor’s footsteps in its refusal to be polite. Instead, recipes like “Lusty Corn Bread” and “Simple Ass Pancake Mix” dared readers to indulge.
So, what should you cook up for your next sex party? Whether you’re partial to whipped cream, finger foods, or multi-step recipes, the options are seemingly endless. At the end of the day (or night), there’s no one hard and fast rule about how to host a successful orgy, except maybe this: don’t let your guests go hungry.
