Let the incantation begin.

One cup White Ichor of Hellmann. A quarter pound slaughtered and pulverized cattle. Two cups of sailor’s might.

If it sounds like we’re summoning a kitchen nightmare, you’re right. All three are ingredients in “The Necronomnomnom: Recipes and Rites From the Lore of H.P. Lovecraft” (Countryman Press, $24.95), a new cookbook by Mike Slater inspired by the early 20th century supernatural horror of H.P. Lovecraft. Translated to modern English, he’s calling for mayonnaise, ground beef and spinach.

For the once misanthropic youths who grew up reading the always eldritch Lovecraft, the new title is a side-splitting romp through his oeuvre of oddities. For starters, the name is a play on “The Necronomicon,” an arcane tome of evil that plays a significant roll in Lovecraft’s universe.

Lovecraft birthed an entire pantheon of unknowable dark deities during his brief 46 years, and many of those show up in punnishingly delightful names like Cthus-Koos, The Oats of Dagon and Shogghoulash, which are sure to please the longtime fan. For Lovecraftian neophytes, recipes with names such as The Side Dish Not to be Named, New England Damned Chowder and Cultists in Robes provide more accessible giggles — not to mention a potential menu for your upcoming Halloween parties.

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Following the recipes requires a bit of cryptographic intelligence and sense of humor. A portobello mushroom sandwich, for example, begins with these instructions: “Lobotomize the fungi by removing the stems. This will make them more pliant to the remainder of the procedure.” A riff on egg-in-a-hole reads, “Rend the center of the bread slabs with voids of dire shape.”

Fortunately, “The Necronomnomnom” includes a codex in the back, all the recipes kindly deciphered into conventional text if you feel a need to actually cook any of the dishes — which one undertakes at their own perilous risk.

Paul Stephen is a food and drink reporter and restaurant critic in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pstephen@express-news.net | Twitter: @pjbites | Instagram: @pjstephen