Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Maybe that's why readers today are eating up culinary mysteries — tasty tales of death and danger against a backdrop of restaurants, cooking and delicious food.
The amateur sleuths are chefs, restaurant critics, caterers and even diet counselors. And most of the books sport tongue-in-cheek titles, like "This Little Piggy Went to Murder," "Fat-Free and Fatal" and "Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth," and they include recipes that might just be to die for.
Food isn't a stranger to mystery novels. In the 1930s, Rex Stout wrote "Too Many Cooks," starring sleuth Nero Wolfe and several recipes. In 1976, Nan and Ivan Lyons published "Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe," where the chefs' murders coincide with their signature dishes — a French chef known for pressed duck is found with his head in a duck press, for instance. (That book was made into a movie, and in 1993, the Lyons came out with "Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of America.") In the early 1980s, Virginia Rich, former food editor of Sunset magazine, created a mystery series with recipes that included "The Cooking School Murders." These were like the first few kernels of corn in a little hot oil; by the '90s, a whole batch was popping up.
In the late 1980s, a Colorado writer, Diane Mott Davidson, was inspired while watching the comings and goings in a neighborhood cafe/catering business. She penned "Catering to Nobody," in which caterer Goldy Bear tracks down the person who poisoned the coffee she was serving. Her second book, "Dying for Chocolate," hit the best-sellers list.
While they don't skimp on style, humor and quirky characters, most culinary mysteries tend to be "lite" on violence and gore. "You don't show the body being hacked into small pieces, and you don't kill an animal," said Lou Jane Temple, author of "Bread on Arrival," "Death by Rhubarb," "A Stiff Risotto" and "Revenge of the Barbecue Queens." "Children are never kidnapped, or they have to be returned really quick," Temple adds.
In "Bread on Arrival," sassy chef Heaven Lee attends a bread-making convention where a fellow chef ends up murdered in a pan of dough.
So why the connection between recipes and revolvers? Consider how often cooking terms are applied in regular mysteries: a "hard-boiled" detective, a "half-baked" scheme, a "juicy" tip. And how often do people rave about their "killer cheesecake?" Authors of these murder-mayhem-and-menu yarns say they're a logical step to satisfy the senses.
"Many people read cookbooks the way that they read novels; they have them piled up on their bedside table," said Temple. "Maybe they'll never cook a thing from those books, but it still gives them satisfaction to read them."
It follows that if readers have an appetite for regular cookbooks, a suspenseful novel with a food background, spiked with recipes, would be even more tempting. Also, many of today's real-life chefs have gained celebrity status, creating interest in the culinary world.
"Being a chef is a very sexy thing in America right now; it's like being a rock star in the '70s," Temple said.
Temple and Phyllis Richman, author of "The Butter Did It" and "Murder on the Gravy Train," spoke on a panel on culinary mysteries in Kansas City, Mo., in September. Both write from personal experience — Temple was a chef and caterer. Richman recently retired as restaurant critic for the Washington Post, where she was known as "One of the Most Feared Women in Washington."
Temple said her writing career arose from a loss. In 1992, her Kansas City restaurant, Cafe Lulu, folded. "It was always packed with people and a fun place to go, but it could never be profitable," she said.
She worked as a caterer to pay the bills, and freelanced a wine column for the Kansas City Star. But she wanted to share some of those things she learned in the restaurant business. She sold her first book, "Death by Rhubarb" in 1994 and is now working on a story based in New Orleans, "Red Beans and Vice."
"Phyllis and I can stay in business if we can keep coming up with bad food puns," Temple joked.
In her first book, Temple had recipes interspersed in the text of the book. But due to reader feedback, she now limits them to the beginning of each chapter so they don't break the reader's train of thought. In each case, the recipes are connected to the story. "Revenge of the Barbecue Queens" offers barbecue recipes and "A Stiff Risotto," which centers on a cooking competition, gives a recipe from each of the competitors.
"I really enjoy the recipe development," she said. "They're all my recipes. I wanted to do a recipe for hopping John, for this soul food thing I was doing, and I read every book about it, and all about the African slave influences, but then I tried to make it my own. I ended up putting in greens and sausage and made it more of a meat dish."
And unlike some culinary mystery's recipes, Temple's really work, said Richman. During her days as a food writer, Richman tried cooking from as many culinary mysteries as she could find.
"It's amazing how many of these writers don't know a thing about food," she said.
Richman said she originally wanted to be a spy novelist.
"But when I finally got down to writing them, I realized I didn't know a thing about politics and couldn't care less about international intrigue anymore," she said.
With her novels, she could re-invent herself with something that didn't depend on an interview or a restaurant visit, but she could still draw on her experiences as a restaurant critic. In "Gravy Train," her main character, Chas Wheatley, grouses about friends who are always on diets and can't help her try out new restaurants. There are morsels of wisdom — how to tell real scallops from the fake surimi types, (fakes are stringy and perfectly identical in size and shape), and how servers drive up the cost of your dinner by enticing you to order an expensive wine. And how restaurants arrange salad bars to maximize profits: lettuce — the cheapest and most bulky ingredient — first, vegetables cut in ways to take up space in your salad bowl, and at the end, the more expensive cheese, bacon and seeds.
And here's some of her mouth-watering descriptions: "The wild mushroom and scallop pan-fry was such a remarkable appetizer — crisp-edged chanterelles throbbing with flavor, scallops caramelized at the edges but still slightly translucent inside." And, "I nearly had to stem the bursting juices from the crisp brown duck breast as I cut into it and it released the perfumes of an Arab spice market."
Richman said she writes in a free-flowing method — "Just seeing where it takes you. In my first book, I thought I knew who the murderer was, but lo and behold, it turned out to be someone else."
And she offers just one recipe, at the end of each book. In "Murder on the Gravy Train," it's "Helen's Coconut Cake," named for a sympathetic editor in the story.
Some book editors say culinary mysteries have peaked in popularity and are "over." But Vivien Jennings, president of the Kansas City-based Rainy Day Books Inc., disputes that. "That's what they said about legal thrillers, and romance was done to death. But when someone writes a really good one, the readers want it. Nothing is over in the book industry as long as the readers are buying it."
HELEN'S COCONUT CAKE
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Topping:
6 tablespoons (stick) butter
1 cup shredded coconut
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 13-by-9-inch baking pan. In a small saucepan or microwave oven, heat milk and butter to scalding. Set aside. Thoroughly combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
Beat eggs in an electric mixer. Add sugar and continued beating until thick and foamy. With mixer turned on, gradually add hot milk, then vanilla. Beat in flour mixture with mixer at slow speed. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, testing after 25 minutes with a toothpick. Cake is done when toothpick comes out clean. Cool cake slightly in the pan.
Prepare topping by melting butter in a medium saucepan or in a microwave oven. Stir in brown sugar, then add coconut and vanilla. Spread topping over the cake as evenly as possible, making sure to reach to the corners.
Turn oven to broil and place cake 4 to 6 inches below heat. Broil until bubbling and dark brown, turning if necessary to assure even browning. The topping should be beyond golden but be careful because it can burn in an instant. Let cake cool to room temperature. Cut into squares at serving time.
From "Murder on the Gravy Train" by Phyllis Richman (Avon, 1999)
GOAT CHEESE SPREAD
10 to 12 cloves roasted garlic
Extra virgin olive oil
8 to 12 ounces goat cheese
Note: Because there are only three ingredients in this spread, each one needs to be the best quality you can find. Choose a very olive-y olive oil for this dish.
Place goat cheese and garlic in a food processor and turn on, drizzling in the olive oil while the processor is running, until you reach a good spreading consistency. Use within 24 hours.
Variation: Substitute walnut or hazelnut oil for olive oil. In the story, this spread is slathered on bread.
From "Bread on Arrival" by Lou Jane Temple (St. Martin's, 1998)
GUSSIE'S CRANBERRY CHEESE NUT BREAD
Chop 1 cup cranberries. Cream 2 tablespoons shortening, beat in 1 egg and 3/4 cup orange juice. Sift and add 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon soda. Stir in cranberries, 1 cup grated cheddar cheese and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans. Turn into one large loaf pan or two smaller pans. Bake 40 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool. Slice with sharp knife.
From "The Nantucket Diet Murders" by Virginia Rich (Bantam,1985)
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com