Catan and Ticket to Ride are getting their own cookbooks
Would you like wood, sheep or brick today?
Catan and Ticket to Ride are receiving their own cookbook tie-ins themed around each board game.
Announced via an email from Asmodee Entertainment – a company owned by the tabletop gaming giant Asmodee, which also owns studios such as the publisher of the living card game Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Fantasy Flight Games – it was revealed that two board game classics, Catan and Ticket to Ride, would be getting their own cookbooks.
Both hardcover cookbooks will feature a selection of original recipes themed after each tabletop title’s respective premises – the building of a new civilisation in Catan and travelling a rail network in Ticket to Ride. Alongside the recipes will be full colour photographs of what each finished dish should look like, as well as layout illustrations designed to evoke their specific themes. Whilst the theme for Ticket to Ride is focused on train-rides across North America, Catan’s theme is both more vague and somewhat problematic considering its connections to colonialism. Asmodee has not revealed any specific recipes from either cookbook.
The Ticket to Ride and Catan cookbook will be co-published by Ulysses Press, an independent publishing house based in California, USA, that has previously released several cookbooks such as an unofficial cookbook themed around the Disney 1993 film Hocus Pocus – which has also been adapted into a horror board game – and an unofficial Studio Ghibli cookbook featuring recipes inspired by the Japanese animated studio’s films. (Including a ramen and ham recipe inspired by Ponyo and a skillet bacon and eggs dish that takes inspiration from Howl’s Moving Castle.)
Catan – originally released as Settlers of Catan in 1995 – is a board game for three to four players that sees players attempting to develop their own civilisations. Beginning with two settlements and a collection of roads connecting them, players must upgrade and expand upon their civilisations by building new settlements alongside cities and roads. Players require certain resources to construct buildings, which they can acquire via random dice rolls or through trading with their opponents. Whichever player gains 10 victory points first is named the winner.
Ticket to Ride is a beginner board game that has players competing to complete rail routes across North America by purchasing tickets and placing trains cars. On their turn, players can take cards, claim a route or gain a destination ticket. Claiming routes requires players to have formed a line with their train cars between the starting and ending points listed on one of their tickets, with players earning points whenever they successfully claim a route. Train cars require players to have cards matching the route’s colour, with players needing to obtain cards by taking them from the market or randomly from the top of the deck.
The Catan cookbook is set to be published in spring 2023, whilst the Ticket to Ride cookbook will be available in summer 2023. Both books will be distributed by Simon & Schuster, with prices yet to be confirmed.