This Cookbook is Gross: Revolting recipes to freak out your friends

I love this book, I took it into school to help teach children how to write a set of instructions. They loved it!! Really helped to engage them.

The misuse of language is a modern disease. Too many times something is described as awesome or stupendous, but were you truly awed by it? Or stupefied? People just seem to pluck words out of the ether and pretend that they are the correct ones. Are the recipes in Susanna Tee and Santy Gutierrez’s ‘This Cookbook is Gross’ truly gross? For once the language is not overplayed. These recipes may taste nice, but in appearance they are absolutely vile.Halloween is upon us and a good way of celebrating it is offering people food that looks inedible. Gummy sweets or sandwiches shaped like fingers act as a trick and a treat, but they don’t go far enough. The recipes in this book are for those that want to make some truly gross looking food. Rancid eggs, brains, cat poo. The type of thing that no right minded person would think of cooking. Perfect then for the average 7-11 year old then!As someone with a strong stomach I was impressed how far Tee and Gutierrez push the recipes in this book. Tee is a recognised cookery book writer and has many standard cook books to her name. She takes her expertise in the subject and really tries to create some outstanding dishes. By using ingredients that actually taste nice, you can make a dish that looks disgusting. Jelly and chocolate crumble sounds nice, but shape them right, put them in a jar and suddenly you have worms in soil.Each recipes is given its own two page spread with easy to follow instructions, you also get some illustrations from Gutierrez that are fun and add to the silly nature of the book. However, the most important image is that of the finished product. The full colour photos give you an idea of what you are trying to make. They look great, but most amateur cooks will struggle to get to that level. Tee says at the start of the book to make sure you come clean and tell the diners what they are eating, but the chances are that anything you make will clearly be jelly and not worms.As well as recipes, the book also has some factoid pages. These are from the ‘‘Ripley’s Believe or Not’’ school of the extreme. You will get some information about truly gross stuff that people around the globe eat, but that never stops them.The issue with this book is that perhaps it is too good at being gross. The brains, intestines and cat poo in particular take things to the next level of distasteful. Yes they raise a titter from a cheeky child, but do you really want to be buying a new cat litter tray and lay down chocolate logs on broken biscuits into it? Gutierrez’s illustration of a cat’s bottom does not help matters. It is hard to knock a book for doing what it set out to, but when you buy something like this for a kid, do you really think it will be that gross? In this case it is and more so.

I've bought this book for my nephew's birthday and I think he's going to love it. The creations look truly disgusting, they aren't holding back that's for sure.The recipes are well written and seem achievable for a child, and the ingredients look easy to come by. I like that there's a mix of savory dishes and sweet items. It's got some great facts about unusual foods around the world too.