I’d take the Vegan Cookbook over this

by Peartree



Editor’s Note (Admiral Fartmore): Hm. Guess not all nerds love building bombs.

Two thirds into reading this book my e-reader broke down. It is now permanently stuck showing a glitched out version of the cover of “The Anarchist Cookbook” by William Powell. Thanks for fucking up my e-reader Powell. Twat. All of my annotations and highlighted quotes are stuck on there so I’ll be doing this from memory, the way all cookbooks should be used. Gotta wing that shit™ and feel the flow.

Written in the late 1960’s by a 19 year old, the Cookbook was a collection of various recipes and instructions on general dissidence. From making your own drugs and explosives, to using firearms and tactics to rebel against the state. The book has it all for the malcontent who wants to annoy ‘the man’ and severely injure themselves.

Powell actually did a good job researching the information in the book, mostly drawn from various army handbooks he took out from the library. He was also upfront about any of the recipes he hadn’t tried to create himself, so you have to give him credit for that I suppose. But there’s some odd shit™ in there. A drug recipe using 5 kilos of bananas, or one with peanuts I think, a gun silencer made of a balloon wrapped over an egg beater, and a diagram outlining the different types of billies and blackjacks (so you can identify that it’s a hickory billie and not an ironbark billie that is beating your dumb hippie ass down).

This lady can smoke my banana any day

But reading it in the age of the internet the book comes across as quaint and fairly outdated. Anything you wanted to know can be found online with up-to-date information, and personally if I wanted to get high I’d stick with just walking into one of the many dispensaries and buy some edibles instead of scraping out the inside of 50 bananas. You’d also think at some point in one of the newer editions they’d update the section on surveillance, which lists an impressive selection of mail order electronics outlets to choose from.

Seriously though, why are people still reading this book? It’s useless nowadays and the author wants it gone. I understand why regular cookbooks are still around, because food recipe sites are too overwhelming, and it’s nice to flip through the pages and get inspired (I recommend Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks, the man keeps it simple yet charming). But I doubt some edgy shitstain™ building a bomb needs the inspiration of phsyical page to decide which type of explosive material they’re in the mood for that day.

How can you not find this man adorable?!

The last chapter is probably the most infamous: explosives. No I didn’t try to make any. Yes it would have been fun to blow up my broken e-reader. There are hundreds of videos online of people making, or attempting to make, all of the explosives found in the Cookbook, I’m sure you can find them.

For me though, it was the postscript which was the best section. Just a few pages on what to do when you get arrested and a few tidbits of advice for when you’re in jail. It was nice of Powell to include that for his readers. It’s too bad his warning on who should read the book was on the last page and not at the beginning. I’m not sure it would have prevented his two most popular demographics from reading the book, but maybe a few would have realized they shouldn’t be going through it.

And before anyone says it, yes I shouldn’t be reading this book either because I’m a moron for joining this stupid shit™ bookclub.