THE CALL (FOR TAKEOUT) OF CTHULHU -- I've just come across the funniest thing (at least funny if you're weird like me). H.P. Lovecraft, the greatest horror author of the 20th century already, wrote a voluminous amount of letters in his lifetime and in them he revealed his favourite foods. This is just the cutest thing!

In a letter to Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian's daddy) on November 7, 1932, HPL wrote "I’m not, however, a heavy eater—take only 2 meals per day, since my digestion raises hell if I try to eat oftener than once in 7 hours. In winter, when it’s too cold for me to go out much, I subsist largely on canned stuff. I always get my own breakfasts, anyway—doughnuts and cheese. I have financial economy in eating worked out to a fine art, and know the self-service lunch rooms where I can get the best bargains. I never spend more than $3.00 per week on food, and often not even nearly that." But for someone who hardly ate (especially in his near-poverty New York years), HPL sure had a lot of opinions on food. In a letter to Mrs. Fritz Leiber (Dec. 20, 1936), HPL revealed his preference for spicy foods: "On the contrary, my tastes call for the most blisteringly high-seasoned materials conceivable, and for desserts as close to 100% C12H22O11 as possible. Indeed, of this latter commodity I never employ less than four teaspoons in an average cup of coffee. Favourite dinners—Italian spaghetti, chili con carne, Hungarian goulash (save when I can get white meat of turkey with highly-seasoned dressing)."

The old master was a definite carnivore. In a letter to Robert E. Howard Nov. 7, 1932 he wrote: "Of meats, I fancy I rather prefer beef for all-around consumption, but like most others pretty well. Fond of sausage—especially the old fashioned baked or fried sort. Like fowl—but white meat only. Can’t bear dark meat. My really favourite meal is the regular old New England turkey dinner, with highly seasoned dressing, cranberry sauce, onions, etc., and mince pie for dessert." In the same letter, HPL also writes: "Like Italian cooking very much—especially spaghetti with meat-and-tomato sauce, utterly engulfed in a snowbank of grated Parmesan cheese." Ole HPL even deftly turned a phrase in his correspondence as well as his stories. But he had no time for people (like Finkmaster Flash) who disliked cheese! In the same Oct. 30th letter to Vernon Shea, HPL lays down the law!: "How can anybody dislike cheese? And yet Little Belknap (fellow author Frank Belknap Long) hates it as badly as you do! I don’t suppose you would like spaghetti if you don’t like cheese, for the two rather go together." (to J. Vernon Shea, 30 October 1931).

In a letter to J. Vernon Shea (Dec. 9, 1931), HPL reveals his love of Hershey bars (!): "Hershey's sweet chocolate is one of my favourite nibbles." He seems to be a bit of a chocoholic as, in a letter to Robert E. Howard (Nov. 7, 1932) he states he loves chocolate "...in nearly any form -- cake, frosting, sweet milk chocolate, etc." Lovecraft munched on french fries, too: "I, too, am an enthusiastic potato-ite’—& guess I like the fried form best of all." (Oct. 30, 1931 letter). HPL's opinions on ice cream flavours? To Vernon Shea (Nov. 10, 1931) he wrote: "But I more often take ice cream, of which my favourite flavours are vanilla & coffee (the latter hard to get outside New England) & my least relished common flavour is strawberry." And it appears that H. P. Lovecraft was a sucker for Smuckers! "But as for jam or jelly—I am your utter opposite, for I like it so well that I pile on amounts thicker than the bread which sustains them!" (to J. Vernon Shea, 10 November 1931) "Pie is my favourite dessert," HPL wrote Robert E Howard on Nov. 7, 1932, "and blueberry (for summer) and mince (for winter) are my preferred kinds—with apple as a good all-year-round third. Like to take vanilla ice cream with apple and blueberry pie." I am, though, quite alarmed that we don't seem to have Lovecraft's opinion on puddin'. I'm sure he liked it, though. How could he not? Even Yog-Sothoth sucked down a puddin' or two. At least in my mind, he did. However, HPL had some definite opinions on veggies, in his Oct. 30, 1932 letter to Vernon Shea which stated, as only Lovecraft could: "Of other vegetables I like peas & onions, can tolerate cabbage & turnips, am neutral toward cauliflower, have no deep enmity toward carrots, prefer to dodge parsnips & asparagus, shun string beans & brussel sprouts & abominate spinach. I like rhubarb—& am also really fond of baked beans prepared in the ancient New England way..."

It never really occurred to me to wonder what foods H.P. Lovecraft (or any other author) enjoyed but it was kinda fun to get a little window glimpse into what made the old boy tick. Besides Cthulhu who lies sleeping. After all, we ALL know what The Great Cthulhu liked to eat. It's that stuff they make soylent green outta!