Fear Feasts

12/02/2025

Allie has been experimenting with pomegranates in the kitchen lately, so she thought you FearFeasters would appreciate a Pomegranate Bloodlust Smoothie—perfectly inspired by The Radleys, a vampire tale where the struggle to abstain from blood is constant and temptation is never far away. This deep red smoothie embodies the novel’s themes of suppressed desires, hidden instincts, and indulgence in the things we crave most.

Bloodlust Pomegranate Smoothie

Serves: 2

Ingredients

250ml pomegranate juice
75g frozen cherries
75g frozen raspberries
1 frozen banana
120g Greek yogurt or coconut yogurt
1 tbsp (15ml) honey or maple syrup (optional)
½ tsp (2.5ml) vanilla extract
A squeeze of lemon juice
Ice cubes (optional)

Method

1. Blend all ingredients together until smooth.
2. Pour into glasses and serve immediately.
3. For a vampire-inspired effect, rim the glasses with crushed freeze-dried raspberries or drizzle pomegranate syrup down the sides for a “blood-streaked” look.

05/02/2025

New Fear Feasts Episode: The Radleys 🩸

Imagine growing up in an ordinary town, in an ordinary house, with an ordinary family—until one night, everything changes…

In this episode, we delve into Matt Haig’s The Radleys (2010) and its 2024 film adaptation, exploring the deliciously dark connections between food and horror. From fish and chips to forbidden cravings, we’ll be sinking our teeth into it all.

📅 Tune in now, wherever you get your podcasts!

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fear-feasts/id1672786626?i=1000688914541

22/01/2025

Vanessa, the non-academic half of Fear Feasts, finally popped her cherry and went to Summerisle last night. If you haven't seen The Wicker Man, it is a trip! Pagans and sacrifices and lots of food. And speaking of cherry-popping, there's t**s and ass galore. An excellent horror classic, and Christopher Lee has some awesome hair. We will definitely be covering this one when we do our podcast season on folk horror.

06/01/2025

If you haven't listened to our holiday episode yet, today is an excellent day to do that while enjoying Vanessa's culinary inspiration. Black Christmas is one of the best horror films ever, and although the sequels are most certainly NOT, the amount of food and drink in the 2006 remake were inspiring. The amount of red wine drunk and the marshmallows eaten by the Christmas tree inspired the creation of red wine marshmallows. They can be used to cram down the throat of any murderer coming down the chimney, too.

7 ounces good red wine
2 tablespoons powdered gelatin
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
Nonstick cooking spray, for greasing tin and knife
1/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Line an 8×8-inch square metal pan with parchment paper, and coat with oil. Set aside.

Pour half a cup of red wine into the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water, and set aside.

Combine sugar, corn syrup, remaining wine, and salt in a large saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil and let heat until it reaches 240° F on a candy thermometer.

Carefully pour the hot syrup into the gelatin mixture. Mix on high speed until thick, maybe 10-12 minutes.

Using an oiled spatula, scrape the mixture into the pan. Loosely tent with tinfoil and let set overnight.

In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar and potato starch.

Spread out a large parchment sheet and dust with the starch-sugar mixture.

Turn the marshmallow slab onto the dusted parchment and sift the top with more of the starch-sugar.

With a sharp, well-oiled knife, cut slab into squares and toss the cut marshmallows in more of the starch-sugar mixture. Eat with more red wine and pray that Billy doesn't come looking for one.

28/12/2024

Rest in peace, Olivia Hussey. Our favorite final girl.

26/12/2024

Our Christmas episode has dropped and it's a "black" one as we analyze the connections between food and horror in the 1974 classic holiday feel-good film Black Christmas (and it's less-than-stellar sequels in 2006 and 2019). What makes this episode extra-special is having our guest, Jamieson Ridenhour, creator of the horror podcast Palimpsest, join us to talk about what we all agree is our very favorite Christmas film of all time, so give it a whirl!

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 masterpiec...

21/12/2024

Recording our upcoming Christmas episode with the one and only ! Episode drops Christmas Day and we'll be analyzing the greatest Christmas horror film of all time, so stay tuned.

17/12/2024

NEW PODCAST EPISODE!
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 discuss these beguilingly bloodthirsty questions and analyze the connection between food and horror in Elizabeth Kostova's marvelous novel The Historian, so give it a listen at:

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....

14/12/2024

Happy birthday to the late, great queen of Gothic horror herself!

13/12/2024

A perfect food in horror depiction. 🦷🧛‍♂️

10/12/2024

Haven't listened to our episode on Let The Right One In yet? Today is a good day to do just that while enjoying Vanessa's culinary take on the chicken pot pie that Oskar eats in the book whilst talking to his mother, so give it a whirl! Episode available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts or at: anchor.fm/fearfeastspodcast. Recipe for chicken pot pie with puff pastry is below!

INGREDIENTS
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, poached and shredded
1 and 1/2 cups mixed frozen vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans and pearl onions
1 tablespoon garlic paste
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup full-fat milk
1 sheet of store-bought puff pastry, thawed
1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water for the egg wash

METHOD
Preheat your oven to 415 F.

In a large, oven-safe pot over medium heat, melt your butter. Add in the frozen vegetables, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder, and mix together. Sauté for about 5 minutes.

Add in the fresh thyme from each sprig and stir again.

A tablespoon at a time, add the flour to the vegetables and stir so they are well coated.

Add the chicken stock to the mixture, stir and allow the stock to absorb the flour and start thickening. Add the milk, stir again and let simmer until you have a nice, thick roux.

Put in the shredded chicken, stir again to fully combine everything, and let simmer another couple of minutes while you roll out your puff pastry into a rough circle.

Pour the chicken mixture into a glass pie pan and cover with the puff pastry. Cut a couple of slits in the pastry, then glaze with the egg wash.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden and you can see the chicken mixture bubbling out of the top. Serve warm, preferably while cuddling up to your vampire girlfriend. Don't worry, she won't eat any.

05/12/2024

Allie's Let the Right Dessert In: A Grape Treat for Snowy Nights

As the nights grow longer and snow begins to blanket the world in eerie silence, there’s no better time to curl up with one of the most haunting stories ever told: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, first published in 2009. This harrowing tale—and its equally chilling film adaptations—unfolds against the backdrop of icy, snow-covered landscapes that heighten the story’s eerie beauty and stark brutality.

Twelve-year-old Oskar, a lonely boy captivated by a series of gruesome murders in his neighbourhood, befriends the peculiar new girl next door, Eli (or Abby in the U.S. remake Let Me In).

Their snowy surroundings mirror the isolation and cold truths of the narrative, where moments of warmth are fleeting and often bittersweet. One such moment in the U.S. adaptation involves Owen offering Abby his favourite grape-flavoured candy. Although she initially resists, her curiosity (or longing for normalcy) wins out. Tragically, her vampiric nature cannot handle the sugary treat, leading to a horrifyingly tender moment punctuated by…well, vomit.

Inspired by this bittersweet exchange, and taking a nod from the traditional Scandinavian dessert Swedish Krem, this grape-infused treat is both simple and delicious. Perfect for evoking the icy atmosphere of the story without the risk of supernatural digestion issues.

Grape and Cinnamon Krem

Ingredients

* 500 ml grape juice
* 40 g sugar
* 20 g cornflour
* Ground cinnamon, for sprinkling

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar and cornflour with about 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of water until smooth and lump-free.
2. In a saucepan, gently heat the grape juice until it just begins to boil.
3. Slowly pour in the cornflour mixture, stirring constantly to avoid clumps.
4. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring, for 2–3 minutes until the mixture thickens into a glossy, velvety custard.
5. Divide the krem between 4 individual dessert dishes and allow to cool to room temperature.
6. Sprinkle each serving with a dusting of ground cinnamon.
7. Refrigerate until fully chilled, then serve.

Catch up with our latest episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4oFQbDlKdXhSFbmBfawHlE?si=7a8dd6b572e041a7

29/11/2024

Happy Thanksgiving from the spooky gals at Fear Feasts podcast! Don't forget the corn. 😁🌽