Honoring Vincent Price: Campy Ghoul, Serious Gourmet

Vincent Price, the wicked voice of film horror for over half a century, once sprinkled Kermit the Frog with salt and threatened to gobble up his delicious legs. This might be a perfect example of the actor’s campy approach to the macabre, but few people realize that Price was actually a sophisticated gourmet and cookbook author.

Born in 1911, Price appeared in more than 100 movies from 1938 to 1993, the year he died. He was perhaps best known, and loved, for his elegantly villainous roles in 1950s fright films like House of Wax and The Fly; 1960s movie adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe classics like The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven; the voiceover on Alice Cooper’s song "Welcome to My Nightmare" and Michael Jackson’s "Thriller"; and his 1990 role as a maniacal inventor in Edward Scissorhands.

PHOTO: Vincent Price in The Bat, 1959. Image © John Springer Collection/CORBIS

"I don’t take myself seriously at all," he said in a 1986 interview with French television at his home in Malibu. "Maybe I should have, but I don’t, because I really think of life as a great expression of joy. If you take yourself seriously, you’re going to be defeated, I’m afraid."

On the Tonight show, Price once showed Johnny Carson how to poach a fish in a dishwasher, but haute cuisine was more his style. And he did take that seriously indeed. In the ’50s and ’60s he and his second wife, Mary, travelled the globe, dining at the most famous restaurants of the day and learning from their chefs.

The couple compiled their favorite recipes, complete with glossy full-page photos and original menus in a handsome, 465-page volume, “A Treasury of Great Recipes: Famous Specialties of the World’s Foremost Restaurants, Adapted for the American Kitchen.” (Ampersand Press, 1965)

With its gold-leaf title and padded leather cover, the book looks like it might be a prop from one of Price’s movies, full of the fiendish formulas of a mad scientist.

“The purpose of this book,” wrote the Prices, “is to invite you to dine, wine, break bread, partake with us of our favorite dishes gleaned from kitchens all over the world…Behind the scenes we’ve met the alchemists in tall, white hats who have initiated us into their mysteries.”

Now out of print after three editions, the cookbook is a hot collectible, with Amazon prices ranging from $50 to $350. Chef Francesco Palmieri, 41, of the Orange Squirrel in Bloomfield, purchased his copy several years ago for around $250.

At 7 pm on Halloween night—in honor of the season of haunts, hallows and horror—Palmieri will conjure a six-course dinner drawn from recipes in Price’s priceless volume.

The cost is $95 per person, $130 per person with wine pairings. theorangesquirrel.com

Of course, evil overtones are a must. From the Hotel Reserve in Beaulieu, France, or two, will come stuffed quail in Sauce Diable. From Philadelphia’s old original Bookbinders restaurant will come deviled crab with fiery sriracha aioli (the sriracha being a Palmieri update).

Other courses will include duck liver mousse from Luchow’s in New York City; blood red beet salad from Antoine’s in New Orleans; the Royal Danieli’s Italian spinach lasagna; lamb with onion sauce from Tour d’Argent in Paris; and a finale of pot de crème chocolate with brandy snaps—one of the couple’s personal recipes.

Palmieri has slightly tweaked the recipes. "I hate to say it, but the recipes are dated, but in a good way," he says. "We needed to see what would work in today’s setting and how we could give it a little bit of a modern twist. The recipes looked elaborate, but they were simple."

Palmieri was introduced to the horror genre by his wife Elaine, 35, who is a research and development artist at Revlon and a freelance consultant in film special effects.

“I’m a big fan of horror and sci-fi, especially the older style,” Palmieri says. “And my wife is an even bigger fan. She was the one who said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we did a Vincent Price dinner?’”

Palmieri graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2000 and found himself amidst a very real horror on the morning of September 11, 2001 as he was making his way to work at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center.

“I was on my way to work at 11,” he said with faltering voice. “Yeah…I was there.”

“Food keeps me going, and I didn’t want to stop.” Two days later, after visiting a trauma center for survivors, he headed uptown to 74th street to interview for a job as sous chef at Coco Pazzo. He was hired on the spot. That stint was followed by a job at Town, working for Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian. He opened the Orange Squirrel in 2009. In August, New Jersey Monthly named it one of the 25 Best Restaurants in the state.

The dinner will include movie screenings, music and discussion. Guests are welcome to come in costume.

“We dare you to enter the dark and hauntingly delicious world of the Prices,” Palmieri says, sounding a little like the lugubrious master.

In that French interview, Price summed up his joie de vivre this way: "The recipe of life is to be in on the joke."

 

SUZANNE ZIMMER LOWERY is a food writer, pastry chef and culinary instructor at a number of New Jersey cooking schools. Find out more about her at suzannelowery.com.

[justified_image_grid exclude="featured"]
Read more Soup to Nuts articles.

By submitting comments you grant permission for all or part of those comments to appear in the print edition of New Jersey Monthly.

Required
Required not shown
Required not shown