“Eating Between the Lines: A Maine Writers’ Cookbook” combines two of my favorite things: food and words. If you’re a big fat wordophile like I am, it doesn’t get any better than this.

But the obvious question is: What do writers know about cooking?

In some cases, not much.

Take, for example, Bern Porter’s Favorite Recipe. Here are the ingredients: Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses wrapped individually in silver foil. Followed by that is a list of what you won’t need for this meal. “No pots, no pans, no boiling, no frying.” You get the picture. That Bern, he sure has a way with menus.

And, shall we say, a way with women, too. The little biography accompanying this well-balanced meal reads like a personal ad: “Wants female to come live with him.” Talk about a recipe for disaster. At least you wouldn’t have to worry if you could make a souffle. Every night you could just call out: “Bern, honey, would you like your Kisses wrapped or unwrapped tonight?” For special occasions, you could serve Hershey Kisses with Almonds.

Published by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, a nonprofit educational organization in Brunswick, the cookbook is serious about writing and about cooking, although not always in the same recipe. Since the grassroots group has the aim of promoting the “value of literature and the art of writing,” the useful bonus is you get a book you can happily read while you’re waiting for the dough to rise.

Some writers in this quirky anthology tell about how this dish or that dish became meaningful to them, or how they developed a recipe. Others, such as Dean Bennett, a naturalist writer and professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, takes a more Zen-like approach. He offers a dialogue with a reporter about delicious rolls. No, he won’t give the recipe, he says, because he has “a moral responsibility to protect the unique features of our natural heritage.”

Fair enough. At least it doesn’t come with heavy-duty responsibility, like Lee Sharkey’s Original Soup. Her recipe is simple. Boil some squash, blend it until creamy, add some water, sour cream and seasonings and top with roasted almond slices. But the bite of it is when you are eating, you have a literary obligation to be in the company of friends, who have just previously dipped apples in honey and have broken the braided loaf. Not just any braided loaf, mind you. But THE braided loaf.

The squash, Sharkey tells us in a poem, invented this recipe in its own belly. She writes: “This is the mother of soups. When you praise it, you praise her hand traveling your newborn body.” Oh great — soup that comes with instructions on cosmic digestion.

Even Stephen King finds his way into the kitchen with Lunchtime Ghoul-ash, which has a very unsatisfying plot, indeed. Brown a pound of hamburg, add two cans of Franco American Spaghetti. Eat. Talk about needing an editor. C’mon Steve, old sport: Everybody knows this recipe isn’t any good without Kool-Aid to drink.

Nearly 100 writers have contributed to this book. They write poetry (Kathleen Lignell Ellis, Betsy Sholl, Candace Stover), novels (Michael Kimball, Cathie Pelletier, Lynn Flewelling), biographies (Carol Brightman), children’s books (Robert McCloskey) and art criticism (Carl Little). They are famous (Carolyn Chute, Tess Gerritsen, Alix Kates Shulman, Marion Stocking, Janwillem van de Wetering) and they are Olympians (Joan Benoit Samuelson). (Give her a break; she wrote an autobiography, OK?)

The recipes cover every taste you could want — salmon mousse, split pea soup, apple cake, multi-grain cereal, enchiladas, fiddlehead stew, and road-kill grouse. Some of the recipes cater to a writer’s need to be distracted. For instance, Periwinkle Sauce for Pasta starts with: “Fill a child’s pail with periwinkles.” Read: You gotta be living on a secluded island for this one, pal.

Some recipes are clearly meant to relieve the writer of extracurricular burdens. Take these instructions for Spaghetti for the Single Maine Person: “Bring two quarts of water to boil.” Well, duh.

Here’s my proposal: Let’s get this crew together for dinner. Bring some food. Bring a dictionary. All in all, the tastes will balance out into a delicious 100-course potluck. Furthermore, the crowd would certainly have the potential to satisfy both the head and the belly. And frankly, what else is there?

“Eating Between the Lines: A Maine Writers’ Cookbook” costs $16 at bookstores. Proceeds benefit Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.