Salvador Dalí cookbook will make your supper surreal

When was the last time you chowed down on veal cutlets stuffed with snails or impressed your dinner guests with a bush of crayfish in Viking herbs?

With a little help from the late surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, those dishes and other equally unusual ones can grace your table. Dalí's cookbook "Les Diners De Gala" will be available again for the first time in over 40 years, thanks to publisher Taschen.

The spectacular dinner parties thrown by Dali and his wife/muse Gala were the stuff of legend. In 1973, Dali published his cookbook to document his imaginative recipes.

Taschen's reprint of the cookbook features all 136 recipes organized in more 12 chapters, which include various meal courses and aphrodisiacs. Dali also illustrates the recipes and adds his own interesting bon mots on subjects such as dinner conversation: "The jaw is our best tool to grasp philosophical knowledge."

While some of the recipes, like "Toffee with pine cones," take a bit of imagination, others, like "Roast side of beef with vegetables," seem downright old-fashioned.

"'Les diners de Gala' is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of taste," Dalíwrote in his cookbook. "If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive and far too impertinent for you."

Taschen's reprint of "Les Diners De Gala" retails for $59.99 (£48, AU$79), and is currently available online and at bookstores.

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