Even vampires deserve treats. One of many many sacrifices that folks make in change for everlasting life in vampire lore is taste. They will solely eat one factor for the remainder of their elongated lives, and it’s a metallic, salty, sinister factor. Everyone knows this. We settle for this. However vampires shouldn’t have to surrender texture, too. So, in 2013, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was courageous sufficient to create a vampire with the imaginative and prescient to show that blood into one thing good to eat: Eve and her blood Popsicles in Solely Lovers Left Alive.

As a millennial girl, I’ve consumed greater than my fair proportion of vampire tales. I grew up entranced by Interview with the Vampire. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight sequence of books and movies fell into my lap proper on the heels of one other fantasy sequence that, er, needn’t be named. Then there was True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, binge-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the then-new app Hulu. However simply as soon as has ingesting blood ever seemed appetizing to me. As soon as have I ever vanted to suck blood, and that’s due to Eve.

Jarmusch’s moody hangout comedy stars Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as vampires named Adam and Eve (don’t fear about it) who’ve been on-again-off-again spouses for hundreds of years and reunite when Adam is in a selected state of ennui. He’s acquired a hookup at a neighborhood blood financial institution, so he doesn’t have to do any killing. However Eve will get experimental. In an effort to shock and cheer Adam up, she freezes some O damaging. Very refreshing, particularly whenever you’re in “a sizzling spot,” she says. Now, Hiddleston having fun with “blood on a stick” is a finger-licking picture by itself, however this isn’t that form of thirst weblog. Hand to Lilith, that is the primary and solely time I’ve felt represented on display by a fictional vampire. That is precisely the kind of factor I’d do if I have been undead. I like to eat Popsicles. I like to make Popsicles.

Have you ever ever been in a scenario the place you had restricted elements in your home — due to cash, faculty, a thunderstorm, or a pandemic, for instance — and needed to get inventive with the intention to keep away from consuming the identical factor day-after-day? Think about that plus immortality. Shouldn’t vampires be messing round within the kitchen in an try to boost their lives, like, on a regular basis? The titular cannibal on Hannibal loved sanguinaccio dolce, an Italian pudding, with human blood as a substitute of the normal pig’s blood. You’ll be able to’t inform me Lestat wouldn’t be into that.

Vampires are ingenious, prolific even, in some ways. Throughout literature, movie, and tv, their combating types range. They select to spend their daytime hours in numerous methods. You’ll be able to all the time depend on a fictional vampire to experiment with vogue. However not meals. Whether or not the story is romantic or horrifying or a little bit of each, we often see vampires feeding on contemporary human blood by sucking straight from their sufferer’s neck, wrist in the event that they’re well mannered, or femoral artery in the event that they’re nasty. It may be scary or erotic, however by no means precisely tasty. If a vampire doesn’t need to kill, and we have now loads of sullen and brooding faces in common tradition, they’ll discover extra palatable strategies. The immortal youngsters on The Vampire Diaries drink blood-filled IV luggage like Capri-Suns. Baz in Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On sequence, Interview with the Vampire’s Louis de Pointe du Lac, and the “vegetarian” Cullen household within the Twilight sequence hunt animals. Nonetheless, they’re ingesting from the supply. There’s no sense of enjoyable. There’s no aptitude.

I can consider some notable exceptions. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire Spike alludes to enhancing his blood with burba weed for taste and crushed-up Weetabix for texture. A minimum of as soon as in season 6 we see him doing it, so we all know it wasn’t a dry joke (arduous to inform with these Whedon sorts). What We Do within the Shadows has a bit enjoyable, too. The vampires can get excessive off the blood of people who find themselves on medication. They will combine blood with Bud Gentle and get drunk. Nonetheless, that’s not very elegant or ingenious. I anticipate extra from them.

Others simply benefit an honorable point out. The glamorous antagonist identified solely because the Countess within the 1985 intercourse comedy As soon as Bitten drinks a glass of blood with a celery stalk. Often you’ll see vampires drink their blood from a pink wine glass or a flask. Presentation is necessary, so I admire that. Amy Heckerling’s romantic comedy Vamps mixes it up by having Krysten Ritter stick a straw into the rat she’s draining. That’s (a) gross and (b) boring! And True Blood, after all, is constructed round an artificial blood that vampires should buy bottled and drink “out” in society. Nonetheless, most of the vampires on True Blood want the actual factor and have a tendency to drink it within the regular manner. Russell will stick his hand right into a human’s chest cavity and pull out their coronary heart, however he apparently can’t be bothered to organize his meals.

Come on! The place are the foodie vampires? I do know that Hollywood’s greatest and brightest can do higher. What about blood foam? Blood soup is already a dish in lots of cuisines. There are many meals cooked with blood, like black pudding or coq au vin. The place’s the whipping, frying, curdling, and coagulating? Present me a vampire beginning the day with a steaming cup of sizzling blood. I don’t see why you couldn’t make freeze-dried astronaut blood for a day snack. If Popsicles are doable, why not a bloody shaved ice, slushie, or sorbet?

I don’t even suppose I’ve ever seen a vampire lick a uncommon steak. Let’s face it: Being a vampire seems to be enjoyable! Aside from ingesting blood, after all. That may change. If vampire fiction is right here to remain, we owe it to them to offer them one thing handsome to eat as a substitute of simply somebody handsome to eat.