Mystery Meals: Sleuthing out the meals in detective stories

Nothing like a good whodunit where the sleuth is caught red-handed in the kitchen with the knife.

Of course, it’s a meal in progress, not mayhem perpetrated by our antagonist. Maybe in some cases that would be debatable.

Characters in mysteries and thrillers often eat well, or at least often. Detectives such as Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe or Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret are served delectable meals, usually with not much more elaboration than you might get on a restaurant menu, although Stout’s “Too Many Cooks” did include recipes. Both series have actually spawned cookbooks.

There’s a sub-genre of culinary mysteries, with sleuths who are caterers, cooks, critics or otherwise expert in gustatory matters, complete with recipes in the text or at the end of the book.

In all of them, the food is an integral part of what is going on. Sometimes it’s even the murder weapon.

Susan Wittig Albert, Ellen Hart, Diane Mott Davidson and Lou Jane Temple are among many writers who have created culinary series, and the recipes make it easy for you to make the dishes, if you are so inclined. (If you want to find more of this genre, go to www.mysteryreaders.org and search for culinary crime.)

But I enjoy the rough-edged sorts who may be more gourmand than gourmet, throwing ingredients around in no specified amounts and whipping up a morning or evening repast. I often wonder how some particular concoction might taste if I approximated it, or even if I should try.

Food is not essential to the main action, but it says a lot about the detective — what he eats, how he thinks about food. The character and the story often develop as conversation flows around the preparation of a meal, which is usually basic, so I don’t think the authors intended anyone to use their books as great culinary sources. The food is there to say something about the character, to develop a scene or set a mood.

Let’s look a couple of tough-but-sensitive guys who mess around in the kitchen, one who spends more time and thought on the food, and another who finds expression in sandwiches.

Spenser slices and dices

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser eats a lot and eats well. Drinks a lot, too, but that’s another story. You can even find an index of what he eats in which chapter of what book at bullets-and-beer.com. There are links to some recipes (not Parker’s) supplied from other sources. What can I say? Some people are more obsessed about these things than I am.

With Spenser, you often don’t see much resembling an actual recipe, more of a general idea or a meditation of what he’s having or going to have. Here’s an example from “Playmates” as he’s driving home:

“I was playing a Matt Dennis tape in my car and planning supper. Fresh crabmeat, maybe, sauteed in olive oil and white wine with red and yellow and green peppers, and mushrooms, and served over rice.

“Or I could pound out some chicken thigh cutlets and marinate them in lemon juice and tarragon and a drop of virgin olive oil and cook them on my new Jenn-Air indoor grill.

“I could have a couple more beers while I waited for them to marinate, and I could eat them with some broccoli and maybe boiled red potatoes. I’d put a honey mustard dressing on the broccoli.”

When he gets home, he decides on the crab, but also opts for the broccoli and potatoes instead of the rice. He seems to have a well-stocked kitchen.

Spenser does pasta a lot (and uses peppers often, you’ll notice). In “The Widening Gyre,” he makes dinner for a guest (conversation is elided):

“I put the water on to boil and sliced up some red and some green peppers and a lot of mushrooms. Paul got another beer and opened one for me too …

“I stir-fried the peppers and mushrooms with a little olive oil and a dash of raspberry vinegar, cooked some spinach fettuccine, and tossed in the peppers, mushrooms, and a handful of walnut meats.

“Paul and I ate it at the counter with grated Jack cheese and half a loaf of whole wheat bread that was left in the cupboard.”

In practice: I tried the pasta, slicing one red and one green bell pepper, along with a half-pound or more of crimini mushrooms. Paul wasn’t there to open a beer for me (Rolling Rock is a favorite of Spenser’s), so I continued with the stir-frying in olive oil and raspberry vinegar. Spenser mentions no seasoning in his preparation, but I made an assumption and used a little salt and pepper. The rest went according to his description.

Critique: It tasted — OK. It’s a very basic, easy-to-make dish, the kind you’d expect a couple of guys sitting around in the kitchen drinking Rolling Rock would enjoy. If I made it again, I would maybe add some chopped parsley or basil and use Parmesan or another cheese tangier than jack.

Resnick’s constructions

Charlie Resnick doesn’t seem to eat as often as Spenser, but he does manage to down a sandwich or two or three per novel in John Harvey’s police procedural series set in Nottingham, England. The narrative often includes shopping stops at delis and grocers.

Here is Resnick’s sandwich philosophy (as he prepares one for a lunch guest, Claire, in “Rough Treatment):

“Sandwiches, to Claire Millander’s experience were neat slices of wholemeal bread pressed around cheese rectangles or turkey breast, augmentations of tasteless salad and a smear of low-calorie mayonnaise. For Resnick, they were more satisfying on every level: two major ingredients whose flavors were contrasting but complementary, sharp and soft, sweet and sour, a mustard or chutney to bind them, but with the taste all its own, finally a fruit, unforced tomato, thin slices of Cox or Granny Smith.”

And to illustrate, this is Resnick sharing a meal with one of his four cats in “Lonely Hearts,” the first Resnick book:

“The sandwich was tuna fish and egg mayonnaise with some small slices of pickled gherkin and a crumbling of blue cheese; the mayonnaise kept dripping over the edges of the bread and down on to his fingers so that Dizzy twisted and stretched from his lap in order to lick it off.”

Again, in “Easy Meat”:

“He was building a sandwich, waiting for the kettle to boil. Four slices of fresh garlic salami overlapping across rye bread, a pickled cucumber sliced narrowly along its length, goat’s cheese that he crumpled between his fingers, a single, thinly cut shallot; finally, the second slice of bread he drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil before setting it on top and pressing the sandwich closed, encouraging some of the oil to seep down before he sliced the whole thing in two.”

In practice: I built the salami sandwich to specifications, a simple layering of four ingredients, plus olive oil, between slices of dark rye. Easy enough.

Critique: The flavors did indeed work well together, but in another construction, I went back to Resnick’s original philosophy and decided to add tomato to one half and sliced Granny Smith apple to the other half. Surely he wouldn’t mind. The additions made a tasty sandwich even better. I would give the tomato a slight edge in this combination, but the tart, thinly sliced apple worked very well. Worthy of a world-weary British police inspector.

So why do this at all? You could just read the book, but I enjoy the tangible connection to the character, and I enjoy food. And the preparations are sometimes just another part of the mystery to unravel.