“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon and my ambition has been growing steadily ever since,” Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí once said. It is only fitting then that in 1973 he published his own cookbook Les Dîners de Gala, inspired by the extravagant dinner parties he threw with his wife Gala.

This month German publishing house Taschen issued a reprint of the legendary cookbook, of which only 400 original copies are believed to exist. The book features Dalí’s complete list of 136 recipes accompanied by illustrations as rich and inventive as the meals themselves. Every page is a masterpiece – reminiscent of his “Lobster Telephone” – and next to the recipes, which are heavily influenced by French cuisine, are plenty of quirky quotes from the artist. Who knew that “the jaw is our best tool to grasp philosophical knowledge”?

Source: Monocle / Image: Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2016