I don’t mean the mindless snacking that sometimes goes with reading a book, nor do I mean propping up a book and reading while eating a meal.
I am talking about the food references that often crop up in mysteries. After all, a detective has to eat, too.
A line in Sue Grafton’s U Is for Undertow about Kinsey Milhone eating a peanut butter and pickle sandwich recently sparked myriad posts on DorothyL.
What kind of pickles? What kind of peanut butter? What does it taste like? Has anyone ever had this before?
I have to admit, I also wondered when I read about Kinsey’s gourmet meal. But I figured it had to be crunchy peanut butter and bread and butter pickles (which some call hamburger pickles, others sliced dill pickles and still others just pickles, depending on where you are from.)
After all, this is one of those horrible meals just about everyone has probably tried, especially when you’re in college, rushing from test to class and have forgotten that your mother doesn’t live with you and hasn’t stocked the fridge. I’m just saying, that’s how I saw it.
But all the DorothyL discussion on Kinsey’s dietary habits just reinforced how we readers are so connected to the characters who inhabit the mysteries we read.
Mysteries are filled with food references and I am not talking about just the culinary mysteries, or the wonderful meals Robert B. Parker’s Spencer used to make or Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, a gourmand and a gourmet with an oenophile’s knowledge of wine and brandy.
Does anyone remember the wonderful sandwiches that Lawrence Sanders’ New York Chief of Detectives Edward X. Delaney made in the “Sins” series? Delaney knew that a well-made sandwich is a thing of beauty. I can still visualize him leaning over the sink to eat his “wet” sandwiches, even hear the snap of a raw onion. And I am so ready for lunch.
While reading “Deep Shadow,” the latest novel from Randy Wayne White, left, I had an overwhelming craving for red snapper with peanut sauce. Maybe that’s because White’s character, Doc Ford, was making a dinner of red snapper with peanut gravy. That’s about the only thing White and I didn’t talk about in the cover story of the Mystery Scene. (By the way, the recipe is on page 39 of “Deep Shadow.”
And I have to admit I recently bought a jar of Nutell, mainly because I had just read “212”, the latest novel by Alafair Burke. Her character Ellie Hatcher often snacks on Nutella. The last time I bought Nutella was after I had read a previous novel by Burke.
And who wouldn’t want that delicious sounding fish dinner that is prepared for Roxy Abruzzo in Nancy Martin’s clever and funny Our Lady of Immaculate Deception. The sexy chef helps, too.
I’m hungry again.
