“The Bangalore Detectives Club”

 

The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra (published 2022) is an amusing historic fiction. Set in the spring of 1921, during British rule of India, it features a group of doctors and their wives. The doctors work in a hospital in Bangalore, with both English and Indian men and women playing a role in a murder investigation. The central character is Kaveri Murthy, a nineteen-year-old woman who was just settling in as the wife of Dr. Rama Murthy. Kaveri has recently finished at a secondary school, and wishes for further education, especially in mathematics. She’s secretly studying for exams to be admitted to a further course of study, but she’s distracted by wanting to investigate a brutal murder that takes place in the garden of an exclusive club during a formal dinner for the medical staff of the hospital. 

Two themes predominate the course of the novel: one is the murder investigation, which involves policemen; underworld characters; several of the doctors, medical professionals, and their wives; various servants; and also cow herders — who live in the city with their cows so that they can go to wealthy homes each day and provide fresh milk direct from the cow herself. The second theme is the developing relationship between the two Murthys. Not only do they become engrossed in trying to find the dangerous murderer, they also develop their relationshipto each other, deeply trying to have a more egalitarian marriage than their parents and friends experienced. 

I enjoyed reading this novel, which includes several classic tropes of the mystery genre. First is the classic use of a closed group — the doctors and staff in the hospital plus their wives — who are all in some way involved with the fatal events. A number of other characters from different social classes, including a police detective and a woman who is being trafficked by a criminal organizer, provide interesting contrast to the lives of the doctors.

The second classic feature is the character of an amateur detective whose knowledge and interest are based on detectives in fiction — in this case, her favorites are Sherlock Holmes, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard created by Baroness Orczy, and supposedly Hercule Poirot, (I wondered about him since Agatha Christie’s first detective story, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in October, 1920, in the US and in January, 1921 in the UK). 

A third classic feature is the constant description of meals and food preparation, mainly concerning Kaveri, who is a novice in the kitchen. She often combines sleuthing with recipe requests to more experienced women cooks. The food in this novel is especially interesting to me because most of the dishes that are featured are completely unfamiliar. I don’t even recognize their names — though the author has included a few recipes at the back of the book. A few examples:

“A waiter silently glided up to them, a large silver platter in his hand. He held out a selection of vegetarian delicacies – grilled paneer, small cocktail samosas, bite-sized fried vadas, and pieces of chili cheese toast.” (p. 35)

“The dessert course was brought in – carrot halwa, glistening with slivers of almond, and garnished with flourishes of sweetened cream.” (p. 46)

“Indira brought in a plate of steaming fried ambades, which Uma aunty seized upon with delight. … Kaveri forced a smile and said sweetly, ‘These are delicious. I was just thinking that my husband, too, would love these. Are they very difficult to make?’ … ‘Not at all, my dear, they are very easy to make. I’ll write it down for you.’ … Over coffee later that day, Ramu heard of their visit to Indira’s home. He also tasted the fruits of the visit, in the form of ambade: crisp fried ovals of dough, made of kadalabele with curry leaves and green chillies. Indira’s recipe, written down and explained to Kaveri, was a success.” (p. 186-187) 

The most common
woodpecker in India is
the Black-rumped flameback
woodpecker. (Wikipedia)

Food is not the only exotic and fascinating area where the author familiarizes the reader with the atmosphere of India in 1920. I was interested, for example, in the mentions of various species of birds that are seen or heard by the characters in the book: crows, the black kite (a bird of prey), egrets, lapwings, a woodpecker… I wonder if you can still see them in Indian urban areas today. I’m thinking of the blog Cranium Bolts where the birder Shiju Sugunan posts fabulous photos of birds in Bangalore.

In discussion of a murder mystery, the key questions are: Is it well-plotted? Does it create suspense? Is it decently plausible? Does it hold your interest? Are the characters believable? 

My answer to all these questions for this book is YES. There’s a strong plot. Circumstances demand careful thought and courage of the amateur detective Kaveri. The minor characters are interesting and well portrayed as well as the major ones. The atmosphere of 1920 India, including the relationships of British rulers to Indian citizens, and the background of politics throughout the story. 

That said — I have absolutely no idea about historical accuracy!

In sum: I enjoyed reading The Bangalore Detectives Club. If you like mysteries set in far-away times and places, you will probably enjoy it. Quite a few reviews of this book mention the mystery author Sujata Massey and her character Perveen Mistry — the only female lawyer in Bombay in 1921. I definitely see the similarity in the work of the two authors! 

The red-wattled lapwing from India (Wikipedia).

Review © mae sander 2024

Vera Stanhope

Another mystery series that’s new to me: the detective Vera Stanhope novels by Ann Cleeves. In Hidden Depths, I found the most fun feature of the story to be a depiction of a group of bird watchers. We see them seeking rare sightings of birds, waiting for water birds to fly past a viewing point, and also participating in bird ringing. (In America, ringing is called bird banding). Ringing/banding involves catching the bird in a very light net and then gently fastening a small identification tag around the bird’s leg so that it can be traced if the bird is caught again, or if its little body is found somewhere. 

Here’s a passage that for me captured some of the feel of looking for a bird, in this case a rarity that a number of birders were trying to spot. I’ve been there when a lot of eager birders do this!

“‘There it is.’ Clive, still bent over the telescope, spoke so quietly that only Gary could hear. ‘About four metres in from the fence, on the bare branch just below the top.’ And then Gary was on to it and it was filling his scope. He could see the inside of the bill when it began to call and the colour of its eye. Mind-blowing. Only the sixth British record and it was here in Deepden. Worth falling out of bed at six in the morning and the tension of the drive. Around him other people had picked up his excitement and they were looking at it too. Then the bird disappeared behind the hedge again and they were all standing around grinning. Some people started wandering off, talking about bacon sandwiches and work. Clive remained focused, though, and when the bird reappeared, further away on a dead tree by the lane, he was the person to find it.” (p. 155)

There are also a few and bad good meals eaten, along with — of course — a very nasty murder story that Vera and her colleagues figure out. It seemed to me that the portrayal of the birders, who became enmeshed in the murder story, and of the lives of several other characters who were similarly involved was really much more vivid than the mystery, as if the real heart of the novel wasn't really the detecting, but the social aspect. This seemed a bit odd. Despite various clues, I never had any idea how the murder was done, and I’m still not quite sure about the exact details!

Here is an example of a good meal, being planned by a very dedicated wife and mother:

“She sat over another coffee and made a list for the farm shop. She had planned the weekend meals already in her head. There was a cake of course, already baked and iced. It was a pity the three older children lived too far away to share it. For dinner tonight she’d made a daube of beef, rich and dark, slippery with olives and red wine. It stood in the pantry and needed only to be reheated. Now she changed her mind. It was too hot for beef. If Neil at the farm had a couple of chickens, she’d do that Spanish dish with quartered lemons and rosemary and garlic. It would be much lighter, beautifully aromatic and Mediterranean.” (p. 25)

And here is an example of a bad meal: 

“The cafe had set a garden table and chairs outside on the pavement. Any attempt to create a continental atmosphere was ruined by the smell of greasy burgers and stale cigarettes coming through the open door, but the pavement was in the shade now and they sat there anyway. Vera drank instant coffee, Clive a bottle of bright-orange fizzy pop.” (p. 252)

Tea and coffee are constantly consumed by all the characters, especially Vera as she visits one home after another looking for evidence or even slight clues about the crimes. In every household where she enters, Vera is offered tea, coffee, chocolate biscuits, cake, etc. She can be quite manipulative in using these opportunities to distract or otherwise affect her subjects. Two examples:

“When Peter came out from his office, Vera had her mouth full, and spattered crumbs over the table as she tried to speak. Felicity wanted to say to Peter: Don’t be taken in by this woman. She wants you to believe she’s a clown. She’s brighter than she looks. But she could tell that Peter had already dismissed her as a fool. As she choked and coughed and swilled tea, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. At last the pantomime was over and Vera began to speak.” (p. 125)

“Mrs Richardson appeared from the kitchen, a mug in each hand. Vera accepted hers, then tipped most of the contents into the compost of a sad umbrella plant when the woman went to get biscuits. Julie, staring at the blank television screen, didn’t notice. ‘A great cup of tea,’ Vera said, slurping the dregs. ‘Just what I needed.’” (p. 138).

I always look for food and drink in mystery stories. I'm glad to learn about another very popular author!

Catching up: a couple of books I read but never reviewed:

The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants 
and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon
Finished reading Nov. 26

Shimura Trouble by Sujata Massey,
latest in a mystery series I’ve been following.
Finished reading November 27

Blog post © 2022 mae sander

Reading on Vacation

As we travel, I sometimes have time to read, as long as I pick an easy book. It's nice that my Kindle app means I don't have to carry a huge stack of real books! My selections are by authors whose works I've read before. Here they are, with only very brief comments -- I am on vacation.

"My Evil Mother"
This very short story reminded me of some of
Margaret Atwood's early novels.

One more in the series about Rei Shimura,
the Japanese-American amateur detective.
Sujata Massey is a fun author.

Set in Washington, DC, and published around 15 years ago, The Pearl Diver is all about the challenges of restaurant workers and how they live and work, as well as a pretty good mystery. I liked the references to real restaurants in DC -- for example, 

“There’s a small-plates trend in better restaurants,” Marshall said. “In this neighborhood alone, Zaytinya and Jaleo have made their names because of tapas-style menus. Kaiseki is just a Japanese version.” (p. 20). 

Published just in time for me to read it in the Southwest.
One more book about the everlasting Navajo detectives
Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito. Suspenseful! 
Interesting because it's set during the pandemic.

A very serious book, hard to read. 

Edmund deWaal has captured the spirit of the times of his extended family a few generations ago: how their riches, exquisite taste, and contributions to French society couldn't save them from Auschwitz. I can't imagine why I chose this as vacation reading! 

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.

Sake

Sujata Massey's series about Japan keeps tempting me to read one more. The latest is The Samurai's Daughter.  Like her other novels, this one has held my attention with its amazing variety of Japanese history and culture, as well as several suspenseful plot elements. Food in all of these novels is described in mouth-watering detail, but right now, I want to concentrate on sake, the Japanese fermented rice wine. Sake has quite a history: its roots link to the Shinto celebrations of old times, and it has continuing significance in modern holidays like New Year's, cherry blossom festivals, autumn "moon viewing," and wedding celebrations.

Rei Shimura, the accidental detective at the center of these novels, is highly aware of the significance of Japanese food and sake. When she visits her family in the suburbs of Tokyo for New Year’s, her aunt Norie, a remarkable Japanese cook, serves a traditional dinner to the family, including Norie's daughter Chika, who had had a rather wild time on New Years Eve:

"Norie wanted to immediately open the fine bottle of Fukushima sake that I’d brought to toast the holiday. As my aunt offered the carefully warmed spirits in tiny, dark blue lacquered glasses, everyone said Kampai except for Chika, who had a big glass of water next to her untouched cup of green tea...." (p. 130)

Sake was also used in cooking some of the traditional foods for the dinner, which Rei introduces to her Scottish boyfriend Hugh, also a guest at the party:

"Below the din of voices, I encouraged him to try the safe bets: sweet, sake-simmered root vegetables, the fancy hard boiled eggs, the grilled salmon, and the daikon root and carrot that had been knotted together to look like a New Year’s rope. Everything Norie had prepared was symbolic of different elements of nature, which in turn were symbolic of the New Year and good wishes for the future. This was the kind of Japanese cooking that I admired most and had already spent many pages chronicling for my family history." (p. 130). 

The many types and qualities of sake lend themselves to luxury consumption as well as ritual significance. Rei goes to a high-end very trendy Tokyo restaurant:

"Sake was the specialty beverage of the restaurant, with over a hundred varieties available from different regions in Japan. After some deliberation, I ordered a crisp sake from my favorite province, Fukushima, which came to me in a small glass filled with ice. It was the perfect partner to the otoshi, the small, predinner nibble they served alongside it—a spicy, tangy mix of mackerel and trout chunks. I couldn’t have eaten fish this strong-tasting when I was in high school, but the longer I’d lived in Japan, the more I had become able to appreciate savory and strong flavors, especially if they were spiked with things like chilies and horseradish." (p. 176). 

There's also a Buddhist view of sake and its role in Japanese tradition, expressed by Rei's father: “Well, a person may take sake, but not in an amount to cause intoxication. My grandfather drank sake at supper, but only a single glass.”(p. 2).

Both sake and food, along with many other details, create the atmosphere in which Rei is faced with her own family background and the weight of Japanese history left over from World War II. It's well-written and enjoyable to read, with a few plot twists that kept me interested to the end. I'm really intrigued by the food descriptions and the many varieties of sake. I'd love to know the quality of the sake that's in my refrigerator, for example. I'm sure it's pathetic -- I bought it to make yakitori sauce. 

As I was reading, I looked up a few facts about sake. A very interesting summary is found at the website Eat-Japan.

"When first produced over two thousand years ago, sake was revered and cherished and made as an offering to the various gods and deities of Japan’s indigenous Shinto religion. Indeed, for many years sake production in Japan was carried out for the most part within the Imperial Court, and the drink itself was only enjoyed on celebratory or festival days."  (link)

The multi step process of making rice into sake is very exacting, employing two types of microorganisms, one to convert the starch in polished rice to sugar, and another to ferment the sugar into alcohol. The production process is just as complex as the process of making fine wine from grapes. In fact, maybe even moreso. 

My sake set has 5 cups: odd numbers are lucky in Japanese culture. The number 4 is especially unlucky.

Serving sake in a traditional way involves special serving vessels and special cups. Sometimes it's served warm, sometimes not. I have no idea of all of the possibilities, but I've seen the many styles and designs of these beautiful serving sets. I’ve never used my sake set (shown above), but I think it’s very attractive.

Blog post and photos © 2022 mae sander.

“The Bride’s Kimono”

Sujata Massey has written mystery novels set in many places. Her amateur detective Rei Shimura is an American who lives in Tokyo where she has an antique business. Massey has been writing these novels for a long time, and the one I read this week (the fifth in the series) was published in 2001, which makes it read almost like a historical novel. 

In The Bride’s Kimono, Rei flies to the US in order to deliver some very valuable antique kimonos from a Tokyo museum to one in Washington, D.C. She also has agreed to give a lecture about the history of the kimonos: the description of the research she does is very interesting, though of course I have no way to know if it’s accurate. It does make reading enjoyable.

Rei has naively made a reservation at a hotel near a large shopping mall outside of the city, because she found  a cheap group tour for Japanese women who wanted to shop (and wanted nothing else). As a result, the novel is full of references to fashion labels and fashionable styles, which is kind of retro. Another retro thing: the descriptions of airports, where the passengers can be accompanied to the gate by the people seeing them off: no security for boarding planes!

I was very amused at the descriptions of various places in the areas of Washington and Virginia that I'm rather familiar with, including the huge shopping mall which I suspect is based on Tyson's Corner. Not surprisingly, the author somewhat rearranges the geography of the area to suit the needs of her plot.

Of course there's a big mystery plot -- one of the women in the group disappears, and Rei has to investigate what happened to her. Also, one of the very valuable kimonos disappears from Rei's hotel room, and its disappearance is linked to the disappearing young woman, as well as to Rei’s complicated relationships with the people who run the museums in Washington and Tokyo. Lots of action and danger ensue.

Rei’s relationships with two men in her life play a big role in the book, including their various choices of where to eat. There’s Takeo, a Japanese man whose very rich father allows him to lead a fairly isolated and idle life style — as he doesn’t like to go out, Rei and Takeo usually stay at his Japanese-style house, where a big night includes a corn-and-octopus pizza. For various reasons, he shows up in Washington but instead of this rather simple Japanese-Italian dish he wants upscale French food. 

Then there’s her earlier boyfriend Hugh Glendinning, the Scottish lawyer that she had lived with in Tokyo earlier in the series of books. Hugh turns out to now live in Washington and have a connection to the museum where she’s working. Hugh takes her to one of his favorite restaurants:

"Hugh waved me into a plain glass door labeled EL RINCON ESPAÑOL. The owner beamed at him when he walked in, and the waiter called him by his first name. Within a minute we were ensconced at a cozy table with a carafe of a zesty Rioja between us. A short while later the waiter brought a savory pancake of egg and potato, a bowl of mushrooms marinated in garlic and wine, and slivers of a salty hard white cheese with some crusty rolls. 'This is so good,' I said, relaxing for the first time all day. 'I was looking forward to coming to America to eat all the ethnic food I can’t find in Japan.'" (p. 136). 

In my favorite food description of the novel, Rei eats in an Italian restaurant with a couple of Japanese acquaintances who order a variety of dishes: "sautéed lamb chops with mushrooms over a mint risotto ... a Milanese-style breaded veal chop served with a tomato salad... homemade mozzarella cloaking my eggplant-filled mezzelune pasta... a giant chocolate truffle." (p. 259).

There's plenty of suspense along with the details of food, travel, art history, and both good and evil characters in this book. The Rei Shimura series includes quite a few more novels, with the most recent published in 2014. Will I read more of them? I just don't know! Author Sujata Massey has also written three novels set in India around 100 years ago, about a woman lawyer and detective -- I've read all three of these, and hope Massey will write more of them.

Blog post © 2021 mae sander.

Summer Mystery Reading

"After all, much of what was being said was lies, or at least evasions and interpretations. The business of the law was not the discovery of the truth, anyway, but the imposition of the power of the state upon its citizens." -- Donna Leon. A Question of Belief, p. 173

Throughout the Inspector Brunetti series, one theme is always the corruption and ineffectiveness of the government, both in Venice and in Italy in general. Brunetti's thoughts vary but he usually feels crushed by the impossibility of actual justice. However, he keeps on finding who is guilty in the many acts of criminal and antisocial behavior that he's forced to investigate. And meanwhile, he stops for coffee, little sandwiches called tramezzini, and the delicious Venetian cuisine made by his wife Paola.

In A Question of Belief, it's brutally hot summer in a Venice with almost no air conditioning, and Brunetti hopes to escape to the cool mountains. However, a murder interrupts the train voyage to his vacation, while Paola and his children continue to their destination. Thus he's on his own for food much of the time. Paola only makes one meal for him, and it sounds great: "prosciutto and figs and then pasta with fresh peppers and shrimp." (p. 65). 

Even the take-out pizza Brunetti gets while she is gone sounds pretty good -- "pizza with hot sausage, ruccola, hot pepper, onion and artichokes." He took it home "and sat on the terrace and ate it while drinking two beers and reading Tacitus, the bleakness of whose vision of politics was the only thing he could tolerate in his current state." (p. 201).  

Brunetti mysteries make good summer reading, though it's quite cool and pleasant here in Michigan this week. The descriptions of the sweltering heat in Venice made me feel hot anyway. 

My other summer reading has been some historical fiction by Sujata Massey: several stories collected under the title India Gray.  I admire this author's ability to create vivid characters in very remote conditions. Here, the character Perveen Mistry makes her first appearance as a student at Oxford just after World War I. She's called on to find a missing person, and enlists the support of her friend Alice, who also later appears in the other books in the series that are mainly set in India.

Another story in the collection is set in the 1920s during the British occupation of India, this one about an Ayah who cares for British children and contrasts their life with the painful plight of her own family. A story set during the end of World War II sees the situation from the point of view of an Anglo-Indian woman married to a British agent; it highlights the motives of the Indians who went over to the Japanese side because they thought it would hasten the liberation of India. Finally a very short story is a kind of fantasy about a very young woman who finds a way to defeat a tyrannical Taliban war lord.

I enjoyed these stories, especially the character Perveen Mistry's view of food in Oxford such as "the almond and jam confection known as a Bakewell tart" and "a large pink-and-white-checked Battenberg cake, as well as a similarly sized Victoria sponge," (p. 31, 34) There's also "mulligatawny, the uniquely British concoction of chicken, flour, apples and curry powder," which she liked "better than the mutton soup that was served at least once a week." (pp. 51-52). 

The stories in India Gray presented a little bit of history of several places from a point of view that I have never really thought about, especially the view of the colonial British from the point of view of Indian people. The stories aren't just local color, though, they are well-plotted and the characters are developed in an interesting way. I think I'll be continuing with more Sujata Massey's books, of which I've read several before.

Review © 2021 mae sander.

"The Satapur Moonstone"

India is an unknown territory: I have never been there, and have read only a few books about the country. Thus, I enjoyed the first of Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry mystery series (blogged here). Conveniently the name Mistry is a common surname in the Parsee community of Bombay to which Perveen's family belongs!  

The Perveen Mistry novels are set in British-ruled India 100 years ago. Perveen, the central character, is a woman lawyer and detective. She's well-qualified to practice law, as she studied British law at Oxford before returning to Bombay to work in her father's legal practice.  Her professional opportunities were very limited, though, because women had very few rights. Unsurprisingly, she was a believer in women's rights, as well as an admirer of Gandhi, who was already an active Indian independence advocate at the time. Fascinatingly, while Perveen is of course a character invented for the mystery series, an actual pioneering woman lawyer was active in Bombay at the time: see "The veiled history of India's first woman lawyer."

I have just read and very much liked the second in the series: The Satapur Moonstone. It begins when Perveen, the only woman lawyer in the entire area, is hired as a representative of the Raj by the British authorities. Her assignment is to travel to a very remote (fictitious) principality called Satapur, in order to interview the female members of the royal family there. These women live in a separate area of the palace called the zenana. Traditionally, women stayed in these restricted quarters "from the day they enter as brides until they die." (p. 72).

Arriving at the palace after an arduous journey by train and uncomfortable palanquin, Perveen meets the elderly dowager queen mother and the younger widow of the most recent maharajah. They are isolated in the zenana and do not speak to men from outside their family. These two women disagree about how they will educate their ten-year-old son/grandson who has inherited the throne. His education is a matter of concern for the British rulers, who have quite a lot of power despite the nominal independence of Satapur, and thus Perveen's job is to survey the situation and propose a compromise. Not easy!

As expected in a mystery novel, Perveen discovers many family secrets and tragedies in her effort to negotiate with the two widowed maharanis. She shows great bravery in the face of physical danger and cleverness avoiding a poisoner; she shows tact and cultural sensitivity in dealing with the princely family, she understands their Hindu religious beliefs though she is Parsi, and she is very cautious in her dealings with the British officials. Eventually she solves the mystery of the identity of several of the characters, which is foreshadowed by the mysterious moonstone necklace that was entrusted to her near the beginning of the book. It's a well-plotted and interesting book to read, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series which is scheduled to publish in a few months.

In my reading life, besides nice escape fiction, I have been checking out some studies of foodways in India, and I found the author's descriptions of Perveen's meals very interesting in this context. Although I have eaten in American and British Indian restaurants, this does not mean I know anything about the important cultural meanings of food in India today or 100 years ago. The rigid caste system dictated many cooking and dining practices. Ruling families of the highest caste had separate food and dishes from their servants, and could not eat with lower caste people, nor could they have cooks who belonged to an inappropriate caste. 

Food prohibitions were numerous. Some individuals and castes were vegetarian and of course no Hindus could eat beef -- in fact, Perveen makes a major error just by carrying a leather brief case with her government documents. Furthermore, British officials dealt with life in India by a combination of adaptation and sticking to their own ways, such as an English breakfast served to Perveen at a club in Bombay -- "The eggs looked fluffy, the toast appropriately buttered, but Perveen did not like kippers." (p. 4). 

As Perveen travels, she must eat, and the author provides us with many descriptions of her meals, from dinners in the royal palace to poor food from a village food stall. For example, Rama, the cook at the home of Colin Sandringham, the British agent for Satapur, has a limited repertoire. As the dinner hour approaches, he says to Perveen: 

"'We can offer you chicken kabob. Chicken cutlets. Roast chicken. Curried or stewed chicken!' Mr. Sandringham affected the accent and manner of a Cockney hawker. 'Boiled chicken. Smothered chicken. Fried chicken. Chicken mince. Chicken biryani.'" (p. 22)

 Perveen opts for smothered chicken, which was quite tasty: "The chicken had been smothered with sliced onions, which had melted into soft sweetness that offset the savory, salty flavor of the bird." (p. 26).

Returning to Colin Sandringham's official residence much later, during her adventures, an exhausted Perveen is served again by Rama, who has been a major help and clever companion as well as a cook. Piles of small leaf-wrapped foods were served on a plate: 

"Guessing they were rice pancakes wrapped in banana leaves, she gave a sigh of pleasure. 'Panki! I thought this was only a Gujarati dish.' 'Gujarat is not so far. Recipes travel through the mountains like the birds,' Rama said with an elegant movement of his hand. 'I will prepare a full dinner after this. What kind of chicken tonight?'" (pp. 229-230). 

At the home of a rich but not high-caste woman named Vandana, Perveen ate kande pohe: "a mixture of pounded rice, tiny chilies, bits of tomato, curry leaves, and spices, which was delicious, especially with a fried egg served on the side, and a big saucer of the same purple berries that had been served at the circuit house but dusted all over with white sugar." (pp. 92-93).

Indian breakfasts contrast to the British eggs and kippers in the first scene of the novel -- here's the one Perveen is served at the Satapur palace, presented by the maharani's cook: "He pointed out vegetable cutlets cooked to golden perfection, a thick dal laden with sweet raisins, a rich curry of cauliflower and tomato, and pohe, the same beaten-rice dish Vandana had served. It must have been an area specialty. There were also puffy puris and crisp parathas, velvety scrambled eggs and plain hard-boiled ones, and a tall pitcher of fresh lime juice." (p. 163). 

In another scene at the palace, the child princess chooses her meal from the dishes served to the royals: 

"Princess Padmabai was allowed everything. She chose lamb curry, potato curry, paneer kofta, saffron pilaf as well as plain rice, dal, cucumber raita, and stir-fried fenugreek leaves. Sweets were served at the same time, in little bowls; she took a rice pudding and gulab jamun balls." (p. 136). 

While traveling, Perveen and her palanquin bearers stop at a poor village: 

"A sturdy man in rough peasant clothing was making millet rotis.... She drank her tea and took the roti that was given to her first, a mark of respect. The bearers were served next and ate hungrily." (p. 216). 

Food in The Satapur Moonstone definitely contributes to the believable atmosphere of the novel. In a later post, I'll write about my ongoing reading, including studies about the development of a national cuisine from India's many regional foods, and reviews of numerous cookbooks that never reach American kitchens. I found it especially interesting that exchange of foods and recipes among princely families in colonial India took place frequently because the male rulers often married women (or in fact girls) from distant principalities, and the wives and their accompanying servants introduced new foods and recipes into their new homes. 

So many interesting topics come up in these books, like the globalization of curry, which originated in South Asia and is now common in so many contexts like British curry houses, German currywurst stands, Caribbean and Japanese dishes, and so many others. Sadly, Indian restaurants in my midwestern town seem to fit the stereotype of having vats or red, grey, and brown sauce that they pour over whatever you order and call it by an exotic name.

I feel silly trying to cook foods that I have never tasted, especially since Indian recipes call for many ingredients that are virtually unobtainable here, but I have tried a few. 

Kheer: an Indian rice pudding. A new recipe for me.
I used coconut milk, rice, sugar, rosewater, cardamom, and other ingredients.

Blog post © 2021 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

Scenes from my life

. '

Cranberry bread.

Bison (yes, like on the great plains). These live in Ann Arbor along with Canada geese.

A hawk in a tree.

.

A book I read but didn’t write about:
The Flower Master by Sujata Massey

Travel? The farthest place I've been is the many strange worlds of
the HBO series "His Dark Materials," which I've now finished watching.

Blog post and original photos © 2020 mae sander.

Sequels

Recently, I've been reading sequels from a variety of mystery authors. Writing a full review post of every sequel seems a bit redundant, but here's a quick report on some recent ones. As I often do, I'm notably interested in the way these authors use food to tell their stories.

Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura

The second in the Rei Shimura series is titled Zen Attitude (published in 1997). I enjoyed it very much, for its many Japanese scenes set in several Japanese cities. Rei Shimura, the amateur detective who just happens to be around when murderers are busy, has become an antique dealer, with customers whom she must handle with Japanese tact despite her American upbringing. There's plenty of suspenseful detecting and escapes from dangers, as one would expect.

I particularly enjoyed references to special Japanese food and drink; for example, a woman customer asked:

"You drink mugi-cha, don’t you?” My hostess poured cool barley tea for me into a dark earthen-ware cup. (p. 41). 

Or another occasion when she slept at a friend's house:

"She showed me a thermos of green tea and a tiered basket filled with pickled vegetables and onigiri, fresh rice balls stuffed with pickled plums that I loved. I must have smelled them when she walked in and woke me up." (p. 166). 

If anything, I liked the second in the series better than the first one. I'm surely expecting to read more! 

Cara Black's Aimee Leduc

Black's Murder in Belleville is the second detective tale in the Aimee Leduc series (published in 2000). It's every bit as over-the-top violent and exciting as the first in the series, maybe more so. By the end of the first chapter, Aimee has been a witness to a fatal car bombing, has picked up the survivor (a friend who had phoned her for help), stolen a moped, dragged her injured friend onto the moped, and avoided an unknown but clearly evil-intending pursuer. She rides the moped down the steps of a Metro station, with her friend somehow on her back, avoids the enemy, and gets away. That's just the first chapter. Oh, yes, she also is always dressed perfectly for every scene. 

Not much more about this that I would want to say. Lots of bad guys! Really bad ones! Will I read another? Probably. Will I read all 20 of them? Probably not.

Tana French's Dublin Murder Detectives

The Secret Place (published 2014) is very readable despite its substantial length. It's well-crafted: the major action in the book, from the start of a new clue in a cold case until full explanation, takes place in less than 24 hours. Alternate chapters describe the events leading up to the murder that's under investigation. The scene is in a girls' school in Dublin, which is very well portrayed, although I think some of the teenage slang dialog may be a little forced and too much like TV.

I enjoyed the way that food is used to show emotional states, especially the food in the school dining room and the snacks the girls buy at a mall near the school. For example:

"Becca digs her heels into the ground, stares at her beef casserole and refuses to get pulled in. If they want to act like idiots, that’s their problem; they can fix it themselves."(p. 427). 

"A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut." (pp. 232-233).  

Each of French's novels introduces a new detective in the Dublin police, except for The Witch Elm, which has an amateur detective. I have liked them all.

More Sequels

Quite a few other series that I've read in the past have new books available, such as the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny and the Inspector Brunetti series by Donna Leon. I think I've missed several Inspector Montalbano novels in the series by Andrea Camilleri, who died last year but I think left some unpublished work. And I did recently write a full post on the recent sequel in the Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacot series by J.K.Rowling. As there are several authors that I intend to try for the first time as well, I guess I'll have plenty to do!

Review © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

"The Salary Man's Wife"

Do you miss your American food? How about a hotto doggu?” 

"'No thanks, I don’t eat meat,' I said, unwrapping the sweet tofu and rice snack. 

"'It’s no good, not healthy. In Japan, we believe in eating thirty different foods every single day! Meat, fish, rice, pickles, soy beans—'"

– The Salaryman's Wife, Kindle Locations 5614-5617). 

The Salaryman's Wife
Published 1997

In  Sujata Massy's mystery novel The Salaryman's Wife, the amateur detective who solves the case is a Japanese-American woman living in Tokyo. Rei Shimura is an English teacher who would like to become an antique dealer. She works in a Japanese home-appliance manufacturing company where, among the humorous interchanges in the novel is an ongoing discussion about whether the company's ads for an espresso maker should call it "caffe latte" or use Japanese pronunciation "caffe ratte."

The novel is suspenseful and fun to read, with lots of local color in a variety of Tokyo settings, and in a mountain guest house with traditional Japanese rooms, baths, meals, and hosts. And of course a murder. I especially enjoyed the way that food was used to reinforce cultural identity of a number of characters, especially Rei.

Here's Rei's first dinner and breakfast at the rural inn:

"My dinner tray looked very promising. Buck-wheat noodles swam in broth that smelled deliciously of garlic and ginger. Small porcelain plates were filled with a jewel like assortment of sashimi, as well as sweet black beans, sesame-flecked spinach, lotus root, and other artistically arranged vegetables. The only foods that made me nervous were tiny dried sardines meant to be eaten whole and paper-thin slices of raw meat I suspected was horse, a regional specialty." (Kindle Locations 221-225).

"It was difficult to enjoy breakfast, even though it was straight out of my Zen vegetarian dreams: zni, a special New Year’s vegetable broth, plus steaming rice and saucers filled with colorful pickled vegetables. On the side was mochi, a glutinous rice cake." (Kindle Locations 537-539). 

Rei has an aunt Norie and cousin Tsutomu "Tom" Shimura on the Japanese side of her family, whose help she enlists in her amateur detecting. Her aunt offers her a meal when she visits their home:

"For lunch, Aunt Norie served scallops au gratin, a cucumber salad, sake-simmered lotus root, spinach-sesame rolls, and pickled eggplant left over from New Year’s. She said, 'Please tell your mother how much we enjoy that vinegar she sent for my birthday! It’s on the salad. But I don’t understand what it is, exactly.' 

"'Balsamic,' I guessed. And too much of it. I had to keep from puckering my mouth as I ate. 

"'I mean to go on a natto diet, but Oksan keeps stuffing me with high-cholesterol meals,' Tom said, not looking like he minded a bit. 'You eat natto? I’m glad I don’t have to work with you.' I made a face at him. The smell of fermented soybeans was just as bad as its stringy texture, although millions swore it was a font of good health." (Kindle Locations 1724-1731). 

Finally, I enjoyed the following description of ceremonial serving of special tea that an antique dealer offers Rei. This exchange illustrates how she has absorbed many things about how to be polite as a Japanese woman, as well as about appreciating Japanese antiques, her hoped-for metier:

"Mr. Ishida laid out a dark red Kutani teapot, cups, and a small strainer. Such special pieces; it was amazing he used them daily. ... My mentor went into the kitchen to take the whistling kettle off the stove. I toyed with the china, looking on the underside for its stamps. 

"When he came out, he poured me the first cup. 

"'Please try it,' he said. 

"'Itadakimasu.' I said grace before sampling the steaming, pale green liquid. 'A little grassy tasting. Fresh.' 

"He looked pleased. 'It is gyokuro, the highest grade of green tea. It comes from a farm that is eight generations old in Shizuoka Prefecture. I brewed it for exactly one minute.'" (Kindle Locations 5055-5062). 

Although this detective story was published some time ago, I found it still very readable: good escape fiction!

Blog post © 2020 mae sander. 

Indian Food in a Mystery Story

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (published 2018) contains a murder mystery, but the major part of the book is more of a social history novel. A young woman named Perveen Mistry is the only female lawyer in Bombay in 1921. She's exceptional because she had studied law at Oxford, and she is able to do limited law practice in her father's successful law office, though she cannot be fully admitted to the bar.

Her family are members of the Parsi community, a small minority with its own religion, social structure, and customs. The law case that Perveen takes on involves a polygamous Muslim family: specifically, three widows whose husband has died, and who are depending on her father's firm to settle the estate among themselves and their children. Further, Perveen has a good friend, Alice, whose father is a high official in the British government, and who participates in her work on the case.

Under British rule, the traditions of each community are recognized and have the force of law, especially in areas of marriage, divorce, and division of property after a person's death. The plot of the book, including Perveen Mistry's own back story, offers the author a chance to provide a great deal of information about these communities, especially about the very difficult status of women in India under British rule 100 years ago -- including Parsis, Muslims, and even British women like Alice, who wanted freedom and the right to pursue a career.

I loved the background of foods that Perveen loved to eat and that women cooked (sometimes whether they wanted to or not!) There were many food names that were completely unfamiliar to me, and very intriguing. Early in the book Perveen visits a shop where a young girl was working -- a girl she hoped would get an education, but was probably going to end up working for her father's bakery; Perveen wants to buy a special cake called dahitan to bring to her friend Alice, just off the boat from England. The shopkeeper says: "The dahitan were fried an hour ago and are soaking in sweet rose syrup. And of course, there are the cashew and almond fudges, and the pudding and custard cups." (p. 9).

Then there's lunch brought to the law office, that was cooked by John, the Mistrys’ Goan cook. "John had worked hard preparing lamb koftas, a tamarind chicken curry, a thick yellow dal with mustard greens, and caramelized rice. He’d also sent tangy vegetable pickles, fragrant wheat rotlis, and a tin of almond-honey brittle large enough to last a week." (p. 11). This lunch is followed by "delicious tea, a mixture of Darjeeling brewed with milk, cardamon, pepper, and plenty of sugar." (p. 14).

As the story of Perveen's interaction with the widowed clients of the law office proceeds, there are many flashbacks to her now-dissolved marriage a few years before, when she was a young teenager. This was a very fraught story, but I'll just quote the menu of her wedding feast, including a few unfamiliar food names: "The menu contained the requisite succession of Parsi wedding dishes: steamed fish, fried chicken, egg curry, lamb curry, sago crisps, carrot-and-raisin pickle, and an extravagantly seasoned mutton pulao. Dessert was kulfi and lagan nu custard, but Perveen was too full to manage more than a few spoonfuls of each creamy dessert." (p. 139). And during life with her husband's family, she suffered from her mother-in-law's insistence that she labor in their kitchen: "Perhaps your mother’s servants cooked with prepared powders, but here we grind on the curry stone every morning!" (p. 149).

Perveen rarely goes into the kitchen to help when she is living in her parents' home with family including her brother Rustom and sister-in-law Gulnaz. She's mainly occupied with working at the family law firm. But there was one occasion: "Perveen went to the kitchen and saw Gulnaz at the stove. She was tempering cumin seeds and onion, making the tadka that would top a pot of yellow dal Perveen’s mother was stirring. ... The meal was a good one: lamb curry with fenugreek and potatoes, coconut dal, a chicken and tomato curry, and a savory rice pulao." (p. 250-251).

Near the end of the book, Perveen's English friend Alice comes to their home to meet Perveen's mother Camellia and her sister-in-law. John, their cook, serves a lunch of "fish, potato curry, chapatis, dal pulao, and kachumber." The word kachumber especially caught my eye: it's a cucumber and tomato salad with onions and lemon juice; in other words, a salad that I often make myself!

The conversation about this lunch:

“Do you eat like this every day?” Alice was already reaching for her fork and knife.  

“Of course. Will you eat pomfret?” Camellia asked.  

“Yes— but where is the fish?” Alice stared in amazement at the steaming banana-leaf package that John added to her plate.  

“It’s patra ni machhi, a Parsi specialty,” Gulnaz said. “You don’t eat the banana leaf. When you open it, you’ll find a lovely fillet with a coconut spice paste on top.”  

“It’s delicious,” Alice said after a bite. “But did you leave off the chilies for me?”  

“I thought chilies might hurt your stomach,” Camellia said. “Am I wrong?”  

“I was born in Madras and nursed by a Tamil. Bring the chilies!” (p. 333).

Although I was disturbed by the brutal descriptions of how badly women could be treated in Bombay 100 years ago, I found The Widows of Malabar Hill to be a very readable, interesting, and highly informative book. The detective story parts were suspenseful. The social history parts -- though very fascinating -- sometimes seemed a bit out of proportion to the whole.