When I was first approached about reviewing the new HALO: The Official Cookbook I thought it would be the perfect chance to cover two of my favorite things in life, gaming and food. During the pandemic when all of my favorite eating establishments were closed, I started to get pretty good in the kitchen using recipes obtained from Facebook or random web searches like “how long do you boil corn on the cob?” or “best way to prepare pork loin”. I was anxious to see what recipes the HALO universe would inspire.
The book was conceived and written by Victoria Rosenthal who got her start blogging about food and games in 2012 and has since authored numerous game-inspired cookbooks based on games like Fallout, Destiny, Street Fighter, and even Final Fantasy. I had no idea how you could spin any of these games into a culinary guide, at least until I opened up the massive hardback HALO cookbook and started turning the pages. That’s when I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew, literally and figuratively.
First, let me say that this is an amazing, high-quality hardback with nearly 200 thick, almost poster-like pages with amazing photography that will have you drooling long before you head out to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients you’ll need to try these recipes. There is a surprising commitment to infusing the HALO lore into what would otherwise be a very fancy cookbook, but I have to wonder how many people who love to cook play HALO and how many HALO fans are prepared to spend hours in the kitchen instead of their Xbox or PC.
The book starts off with a 3-page ingredients list. I’ve been cooking for over 40 years, and I only recognized three ingredients listed (condensed milk, evaporated milk, and Wasabi). Asking for items like Nori, Mirin, or Thai basil got me a lot of blank stares from my supermarket staff, and I ended up having to go to smaller wholefood-type stores to find what I needed. I was also impressed that the book also has a page dedicated to allergies and food restrictions for vegetarian, gluten-free, and lactose-free diets offering info on substitutions and food prep.
The book is divided into 12 HALO-themed sections, each with numerous recipes to fit the theme such as World Cuisine, Thai Game, Full Moon, and Jim Dandy. Each section is prefaced with what I like to call HALO Food Fiction, where the author creates a bit of HALO ambience with some creative backstory to introduce the recipes that follow. The actual recipes also get a sprinkling of this HALO content.
Most books that I review merely require me to read the book and comment on it, but for this project I was actually going to have to cook, eat, and review my own work as well. First up was a Patty Melt, one of my favorite sandwiches and also the first recipe in the book. I’ve been making patty melts all my life, so when I looked at the ingredients and prep time, I was a bit shocked. A 30-minute prep and one hour cook time meant 90 minutes in the kitchen for essentially a “hamburger”. I have a great pub ten minutes away that makes a great patty melt. And this leads to my only main complaint, not with this cookbook but cooking in general. I hate spending more time making food than eating it, unless I am cooking for multiple people. Every recipe in this book has some pretty lengthy cook and prep times, and some even have rest times up to 12 hours, so you might need to prep some food a day before you want to eat it.
But back to my patty melt. I replaced the 1lb turkey with some lean ground sirloin and bought my first loaf of sourdough bread in my life. The caramelized onions were the highlight of this recipe, and I have since lifted those steps from this recipe to make more for other dishes. The patty melts came out perfect, and of all the recipes I tried for this review, this was the only one that resembled the picture in the book.
I’ve tried nearly a dozen recipes so far with various degrees of success. Most of my failures were my own fault, trying to substitute or omit ingredients I didn’t have or deviating from the instructions on the page. I had great success with the Hainanese Chicken, Garlic Stir-Fry, and Turkey Dinner before moving on to simpler items like Moa Caesar Salad, Full-Stack Ground Pounder, and even a mug of UNSC-approved Hot Chocolate. While all of these turned out tasty and fantastic there was always the element of time lingering in my head. After all, 25 minutes to make hot chocolate versus a minute to nuke some water and splash in some Swiss Miss (with marshmallows) is hard to reconcile.
For those with a love of cooking who are willing to spend the time obtaining these “rare” ingredients, prepping the food, cooking the food, and plating it to match the incredible photography in this book, there is a lot of tasty potential lurking within the pages of this gourmet hardback. Not every recipe is for everyone. I’m not a fish or sushi fan so that ruled out several recipes, and I had no interest in trying the special dietary items. I’m all about real meat and real gluten.
While I wouldn’t call any of my attempts at using this cookbook a “failure” I was met with various degrees of success, but I am still looking forward to trying many more recipes and enjoying the fun HALO stories sprinkled throughout the book. The quality of the cookbook, from the page stock, durable cover, and the incredible photography definitely make this something any HALO fan, food fan, or just someone looking for a cool HALO collectible worth considering. Hopefully, Victoria has a HALO Workout Guide coming soon, so I can start shedding some of the pounds I put on reviewing this.
Head on over to Insight Editions to check out this and many other gaming-related cookbooks. The HALO: The Official Cookbook is available in a 192-page hardbound copy for $39.99. (Ingredients not included)
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