A Cookbook Mystery

My newest cookbook is A Taste of Murder edtited by Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl, published in 1999. 

Dozens of mystery authors contributed recipes with fascinating commentary to this compendium. Among these recipes, the editors interspersed quotes from earlier mystery authors, such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Rex Stout. Profits from the book were donated to some charity or other.

I'm enjoying looking through these literary reflections, reviewing the noted food choices of detectives I know, and learning about new detectives and mystery series that I've never read.

Turning first to my favorites, I started by reading the recipe "Susan Silverman's Boiled Water" contributed by Robert B. Parker, who was alive at the time the book was published, but died in 2010.

As any Parker fan knows, the character Susan Silverman appeared in many of his books: the long-time girlfriend of Parker's splendid detective creation, Spenser. While Spenser was a lover of good food of many sorts, Susan ate very little and maintained her very slender and beautiful figure for the entire 40 years or so covered by the mystery series. Spenser, to summarize, was happy to eat donuts with low-level cops, to eat haute cuisine when offered, or to cook delicious meals for Susan to pick on. Susan's recipe for boiled water, served "in a pretty cup with a squeeze of lemon and some Equal," illustrates her character perfectly.

At the beginning of the recipe, I read:

"When invited to participate in this cookbook, Robert Parker kindly responded: 

'Since there is a Spencer cookbook in development, I guess I better not. But should you wish to be frivolous, you might wish to use Susan's recipe for boiled water, which follows.'" (A Taste of Murder, p. 21)

Always on the lookout for cookbooks based on detective fiction, I immediately began to search for this book, hoping it had indeed been completed before Parker's death. It's a bibliographic mystery indeed! References to a Parker cookbook appeared in very interesting newspaper articles in the past. But I've seen no evidence that any Spenser cookbook was ever published in English at all. Examples:

"A collection of Spenser's recipes, to be edited by Kate Mattes, the owner of Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., is to be published by Delacorte." Who Done It? Food Can Thicken the Plot. by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, June 4, 1986.

"Robert Parker's 'Spenser' novels have been best-sellers, including his 13th, 'Taming a Sea Horse,' and the basis of a television series. He now has another book in the oven -- a cookbook. Parker has signed a contract with Delacorte to produce the 'Spenser Cookbook,' but he won't be writing it. He will be collaborating with Kate Mattes, owner of Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass. He'll cook and she'll write it down." -- from Glimpses by William C. Trott, United Press International, June 11, 1986. 

"The Japanese have also published a Spenser cookbook, because the detective's regularly displayed skills, along with insolence and a penchant for walloping people, include whipping up a good meal." -- from He Said He Had a Pistol; Then He Flashed a Knife. by John Kifner, June 11, 1997.

The page from A Taste of Murder.

I'd love to add a Parker/Spenser cookbook to my bookshelf, which includes recipe collections from Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Simenon's Inspector Maigret, and Donna Leon's Venetian Detective Brunetti -- and now this collection from many authors. I'd be really curious to see a Spenser cookbook: especially one written as the food-loving writer Robert Parker cooked while his collaborator Kate Mattes wrote down the recipes. But I'm convinced that this isn't a reality and probably never will be.

Meanwhile, we had another stunning fall day here in Michigan, with record or near-record warmth.

I went for a brief bird walk...

And at the pond by the city dump, I saw a heron and a turtle.
Rarer birds that had been spotted here didn't appear when we were looking.