I've been thinking about food lately. Food can help define a culture, but can it help define a subculture? Are we simply reduced to "novelty cookbooks"? I'm still working on formulating something here, but I thought I'd bring it up for you deep thinkers. I'd love to hear your opinions and suggestions.
Color-Based Food
The first thing you're probably thinking is "black food", but I'd like to really point to black, rich purple, and dark red. Black as night; wonderous gloom of purple; blood red. It's the basic colors of the subculture.
Photos/Recipes: Black Sesame Soup, Squid Ink Pasta, Black Cocoa Bundt Cake, Black Hummus, Beet Ginger Coconut Soup, Whipped Ricotta Toast with Balsamic Cherries, Roasted Beets with Balsamic Glaze, Plum Galette, Blackberry Nice-Cream, Red Cabbage Steaks
Funeral Food
Death, death symbols, funerals, and cemeteries all play a role within the goth subculture. Do we consider it as part of the subculture's role in food? Also, anything with exposed bone is totally goth.
Photos/Recipes: Funeral Potatoes, Soul Cakes, Funeral Pie, Graveyard Veggie Pizza, Brimstone Bread, Lamb Shank Pot Pie
Historic Food
Historical food is an important reflection of the subculture's influences. It can range from 18th Century food to Victorian to the 1930s. These typically correspond to aesthetic preference, which is also reflected in goth fashion.
Photos/Recipes: Victorian Sugarplums, Medieval Chicken Pie, Victorian Mince Pies, 18th Century Pear Tart
Creepy Food
Creepy food is often found with Halloween food. We look for it because you can often find neat ideas like the pizza skulls featured below. I've seen the same thing but filled with broccoli and cheese, burrito filling, ham and cheese, and a chicken salad mixture. The creepy food can often be found with shapes that often go hand in hand with the goth subculture such as skulls, coffins, bats, spiders, tombstones, crosses, etc.
Photos/Recipes: Pumpkin Stuffed with Bacon-Leeks-Scallops, Eggs in Purgatory, Stuffed Pizza Skulls, Shrunken Potato Heads, Black Like My Soul Bread
Relevant Idols & Food
There are significant subculture idols, both real and fictional characters, that have food related to them. It's important to note this type of food because it directly relates to the subculture.
Photos/Recipes: Recipes based on 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', Vincent Price's Un-Wealthy Wellington, Aleister Crowley's Curried Rice, Robber Steaks from 'Dracula', Cooking with Elvira
Autumnal Food
Autumnal foods aren't always goth, but it tends to be our favorite season due to Halloween. It also means that we can harvest what is in our garden like black tomatoes and purple carrots.
Photos/Recipes: Baked Cinnamon Apple Chips, Beef Bourguignon, Blueberry Upside Down Cake, Butternut Apple Soup, Maple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls, Apple Pomegranate Harvest Salad, French Chestnut Soup, Cranberry Butter
Again, these are by no means goth food in particular. These are just facets that can influence whatever "goth food" may be. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you might consider "goth food" to be, what you think of my suggestions here, what should be expanded upon, etc.