The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook

"The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book" is one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time. Written by writer Gertrude Stein's life partner, Alice B. Toklas wrote this book as a favor to Random House to make up for her unwillingness at the time to write her memoirs, in deference to Stein's 1933 book about her, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".

This work is as much of an autobiography as it is a cookbook, in that it contains as many personal recollections as does its recipes. The most famous culinary experiment contained therein is a concoction called Hashish Fudge. Made from spices, nuts, fruit, and Cannabis, Hashish Fudge quickly became a sensation in its own right. In the recipe, Alice described how it is called "the food of paradise" and goes on to "suggest" places where the cook might find the illegal ingredient named in its title. She stated that this was something that can liven up any gathering and is "easy to whip up on a rainy day." She cautions two pieces of it are quite enough and that one should be prepared for hysterical fits of laughter and wild floods of thoughts on "many simultaneous planes." Although later Toklas said that this recipe was given to her by a friend named Brion Gysin, her name is forever linked with marijuana brownies due to its raging success. In 1968, there was even a comedy film called "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas", starring Peter Sellers, in which references to the infamous brownies are abundant.

First published in 1954, "The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book" has not been out of print since.