Percy Bysshe Shelley was a radical. He wanted to overthrow the government, the church, and the institution of marriage. But his most dangerous idea? The Menu.

Shelley was a militant vegetarian in an era where “dinner” meant “half a cow.” He wrote a pamphlet called A Vindication of Natural Diet, arguing that eating meat caused violence and madness.

Fine. But Shelley wasn’t a good cook. He believed that if you just boiled nature, it was food.

There is a famous story of him inviting friends over for a dinner party. The guests arrived, hungry. Shelley proudly served the main course: Boiled Nettle Soup. No spices. No stock. Just weeds from the garden, boiled in water.

He ate it with gusto, declaring it the food of the revolution. His guests politely choked it down, probably while hallucinating from malnutrition. One friend famously stopped by Shelley’s house, saw the poet eating a raw loaf of bread and raisins in the corner of a room like a squirrel, and decided to just go to a pub instead.

Shelley wanted to save the world. He just wanted to starve it first.

Why was he so intense? We unravel the Punk Rocker of the Regency this Wednesday.