By Jess Clark
I know, I know – 2023 is not the Summer of Dragons. Most of you have moved on from the battle for the Iron Throne, although maybe not the negroni…sbagliotos…with Prosecco in it. But some of us (ahem) are still catching up on last year’s slate of TV shows, and I’m sure I’m not the only one…right? For me, this means binge-watching House of the Dragon despite being a year late. The series, based on the novels of George R.R. Martin, offers a prequel to Game of Thrones, charting the early years—and dynastic politics—of the Targaryen family. While the fabulous slate of acting talent, not to mention the costumes, set design, and visual effects, garnered critical acclaim, everyone knows who are the real stars of the show: Syrax, Caraxes, Vermax, and other dragons who help secure Targaryen power. In the face of endless and often ruthless familial in-fighting, these giant beasts intimidate enemies, decide battles, and secure royal lineages.
The dragons’ centrality to HOTD invokes historical descriptions of dragons, including those in recipes, as explored by Madison Clyburn in her recent RP post. As Clyburn notes, dragons frequently appeared in western manuscripts and myths; they were also central to many Middle Eastern and South Asian texts and art. Yet, in contrast to the enormous, reptilian beasts dominating HOTD, historical depictions of dragons ranged in size, color, and shape. In her review of western manuscripts from the late fifteenth century, for example, Sarah J. Biggs charts creatures ranging from “a lizard-y animal with duck-like feet to a winged leonine creature and a demon.” Meanwhile, Kanishk Tharoor observes the global movement of dragon representations, including the ways that “[i]n Persian art, the form of the dragon looks very similar to traditional Chinese ones, with a snake-like body surrounded by wisps of fire.” Regardless of their appearance, dragons almost always conveyed important symbolic messages. In some instances, they were cast as opponents to “a saint or angel,” engaged in epic battles of good versus evil. In other cases, Dorothy Kim and others show how (real-life) aristocratic groups and families adopted the dragon in heraldic and artistic forms, as powerful symbols of prestige and standing.
They also functioned in recipes, as symbols of engineering, technology, and innovation. Clyburn’s post explores how, in the mid seventeenth century, writers across Italy, England, and Germany circulated recipes for “Flying Dragons.” These “mechanical dragons,” constructed out of paper, line, and cords, “demonstrate the role of recipes in producing technological entertainment.” Meanwhile, Samantha Sandassie mentions the inclusion of “dragon’s blood” in a late seventeenth-century recipe, “a plant-based resin, [which] was used as a wound coagulant historically but may have been added to…recipe[s] for aesthetic purposes.”
The widespread fascination with dragons, owing to their symbolic import, also connects to broader themes in histories of recipes, including the centrality of myth, magic, and conceptions of animal life. Over the years, RP authors have foregrounded the importance of exoticized animal ingredients, not to mention the power imbued in them, in a variety of times and locations. This includes:
- Katherine Allen, “‘Used with Constant Success’: Animal Ingredients in Eighteenth-Century Remedies, And Their Success in The Beauty Industry”
- Chelsea Clark, “The Wonders of Unicorn Horns: Preventions and Cures for Poisoning”
- Flint Dibble, “The Recipe for Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greece”
- Kathleen Kole de Peralta, “Gastronomic and Medicinal Traditions of The Andean Cuy in Peruvian Cuisine”
- Laura Mitchell, “Animal Charms in The Later Middle Ages”
- Lisa Smith, “The Puppy Water and Other Early Modern Canine Recipes”
While these posts primarily focus on “real” animals, guinea pigs and puppies nonetheless took on enhanced qualities in the imagination and hopes of recipe-writers who sought sustenance, relief, and health.
A broad range of animals may have been central to historical recipes, but let’s be clear – when it comes to HBO dramas, it’s the dragons that give HOTD its magic. Targaryens may come and go, but dragons will always reign supreme.
