In Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange Is The New Black, which went on to inspire the Jenji Kohan adapted series for Netflix — one of the things Kerman discusses are the many prison-based recipes the women came up with, which played an important role in prison life. The women apparently bonded over cooking with contraband ingredients and cooking implements, and Kerman herself perfected the perfect prison cheesecake recipe.
So, in an effort to capitalize off of the success of the hit series, Abrams Books is publishing Orange is the New Black: The Cookbook, with an October release. The book’s description reads:
Staffed and run by a band of misfit inmates, the kitchen at Litchfield is in many ways the center of the popular show Orange Is the New Black—a setting for camaraderie, drug smuggling, power struggles, and plot twists. And then there is the food. With 65 recipes, 12 sidebars that expand upon the fiction of the show, and 60 photographs from the show featuring favorite characters and memorable moments, Orange Is the New Black: The Cookbook adds new dimensions to any fan’s obsession.
The recipes cover three square meals a day, plus snacks/sides, desserts, and drinks. They include Red’s Chicken Kiev, Miss Claudette’s Coconut Cake, and Prison Punch. The sidebars include Taystee’s suggested prison reading list, the recipe for Red’s Homemade Homeopathic Remedies, and a prison glossary.
How fun! It’s like getting a small slice of prison life without ever having to go to prison! See also: The perfect gift for your favorite college student. When OITNB premiered last year, Netflix released the following prison recipe-based posters, so this is probably about what you can expect (including Kerman’s “Correctional Cheesecake”):
Mmm! My tapeworms are getting excited just thinking about it!
