Quick Specs
- Type: Pagan recipe reference for incense, oils, food, and cleansing baths
- Format: 6 by 9 inch paperback, 177 pages
- Author: Kim Wakefield
- ISBN: 978-1-6613-8954-3
- Contains: Recipes for herbal baths, oils, incense, and Pagan celebration foods; suitable across Pagan paths and for non-Pagans
- Best for: Home practitioners assembling a working recipe reference for celebrations, holidays, and daily practice
A Working Recipe Reference for Pagan Practice
A Pagan’s Book of Recipes is a 177-page working reference organized around the recipes a home Pagan practice actually uses across a year: incense, oils, food for celebrations and holidays, and cleansing baths. Kim Wakefield writes for practitioners across the range of Pagan paths rather than for a single specific tradition, which means the book works as a general reference regardless of whether you practice Wicca, eclectic Paganism, hearth witchcraft, or a specific reconstructionist path. The recipes range from simple to complex, and the intention is to give you something practical you can prepare when a holiday or a working comes around, rather than a survey of Pagan foodways to read once and shelve.
The book’s usefulness lies in its practical orientation. Pagan holidays and celebrations often call for specific preparations (a bread for Lughnasadh, a bath before a Beltane rite, an oil for candle work at Samhain), and having a working recipe reference on hand saves the last-minute search through blog posts and half-remembered instructions. Wakefield’s recipes are structured for practitioners at any experience level and can serve a beginner assembling a first working celebration or an experienced practitioner adding to their existing reference stack. The material is presented in the folk-tradition register, and the food, oil, and incense recipes are for celebration and working use rather than as clinical dietary guidance.
How This Book Fits in Your Practice
Reach for A Pagan’s Book of Recipes when you need a working preparation for a specific celebration or ritual and want a reference that treats the recipes as practical rather than academic. If you keep a wheel-of-the-year practice, the book gives you preparations tied to each holiday. If you build individual rituals rather than following a calendar, the recipes serve as templates you can adapt. Browse my Herbal Spell Mixes collection for adjacent working supplies.
How to Use This Recipe Reference
Recipe references reward planning ahead; the practice is stronger when you prepare before the celebration rather than at the last moment.
- Plan Around the Calendar
Look at the upcoming Pagan holidays or working dates on your calendar and identify which preparations you want to have on hand. Order or gather ingredients a week or more in advance so you have time to make the preparations without rushing. Rushed preparation reduces what the working delivers, and the book is easier to use with lead time than under pressure.
- Start with Simple Recipes
Wakefield ranges from simple to complex recipes. For your first several preparations, choose simpler recipes that let you build confidence with the basic techniques (bath tea steeping, oil infusion, incense blending) before attempting the more complex compound preparations. Simple recipes made well beat complex recipes made in haste.
- Note What Works for Your Practice
Keep a journal alongside the book noting which recipes you have tried, what modifications you made, and how each preparation supported the working it was used for. Over a year of practice this journal becomes your personal reference layered on top of Wakefield’s, and it helps the book serve your specific practice rather than a generic one.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I brought A Pagan’s Book of Recipes into the shop because a working recipe reference organized around Pagan practice is more useful in daily working life than a general Pagan cookbook or an academic survey of ancient practice. Wakefield writes for practitioners rather than for readers, and the book is oriented toward getting you to a finished preparation you can use. Browse my Spellcraft, Witchcraft and Magic collection for the broader working practice these recipes support.
Frequently Asked Questions
The book is organized around Pagan celebrations and holidays across the year, which for most Wiccan and Neo-Pagan practices means Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, and Mabon (the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year). Wakefield’s recipes span the year rather than focusing on a single festival, and both beginners and experienced practitioners will find preparations for the holidays they observe.
The book’s subtitle calls them ancient recipes for the modern-day Pagan, and the recipes draw inspiration from historical Pagan foodways as they are understood today. Read them as practical modern preparations that reference a long tradition rather than as strict historical reconstructions; if you want strictly documented ancient recipes, seek out academic food-history sources alongside the practical cooking Wakefield offers here.
No. Wakefield explicitly writes the book to be usable by both Pagans and non-Pagans, and the recipes span incense, oils, food for celebrations, and cleansing baths that anyone interested in seasonal cooking, herbal bath practice, or ritual incense can prepare. If you already follow a specific Pagan path, adapt the recipes to your tradition; if you do not, the material still works as a seasonal cooking and ritual reference.
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