Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Friday Recipe Exchange: Food in Fiction

Friday Recipe Exchange: Food in Fiction

by | 122 Comments

This post is in: ,

jeffreyw beef or venison stew

JeffreyW does beef stew but let’s pretend it’s venison

.
From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

I’m travelling this week, so this is going to be a quick post. But I had this inspiration when John Cole was looking for Hot Chocolate recipes and all I could think of was the movie, Chocolat. I love food in movies and books. Especially when it is just casually mentioned, to set a mood or give a little description of a character or place.

A while ago I did a series of recipes called, yes, you guessed it, Food in Fiction (you can see all those recipes here). And I wanted to highlight it tonight because I really wanted to hear if you have any favorite foods from movies or books. Have you ever explored recipes for those favorites? Would you like me to rustle up a recipe if you haven’t?

Here are three of the books/recipes I had to search out and try. At each link is the recipe and an excerpt from the book, describing the food.

From my childhood fav, Trixie Belden, Venison Stew (click here).

My all time favorite book, ever, To Kill a Mockingbird, has many, many fun ideas for recipes that I tackled (crackling bread, anyone?), here is the most challenging, the Lane Cake (recipe here, narrative here).

A little darker book, in a series I discovered a few years ago, Lomax and Biggs, Blood Thirsty, the lead character was having dinner with his girlfriend and they had something I’d never tried before, broccoli rabe, so I had to check it out. I came up with several recipes, including Broccoli Rabe and Hot Italian Sausage Pasta (recipe here).

That’s just a few of the ones I played with, it was a fun idea I probably should explore more when I have the time.

Tonight’s featured recipe comes from Agnes and the Hitman, in which the heroine is a food columnist and chef. It was a wealth of ideas and I put together several recipes based on the story. But this was by far my favorite and I made them for Valentine’s day one year.

A little background, these cupcakes open the book and in the midst of making them, our heroine is attacked by a young man with a gun who wants to kidnap her dog and she defends herself with hot raspberry sauce and a skillet with deadly consequences. For the full narrative, click here.

Chocolate-Raspberry Cupcakes

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Moist Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, separated
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup chopped raspberries

Dry ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Grease and flour muffin tins. Cream together oil, butter and sugar. Mix in remaining moist ingredients, one at a time, until well mixed. Sift together dry ingredients. Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture and beat for 2 minutes at high-speed. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they bounce back when pressed lightly.

Chocolate Ganache:
6 oz dark chocolate
6 oz heavy cream

Double boiler (I use a metal bowl over a saucepan with about an 1 inch of water)

Place chocolate and cream in top of boiler, bring water in bottom half to a boil, reduce heat to med-high and let chocolate melt, stirring occasionally. When completely melted, remove from heat and stir until cream and chocolate are completely mixed. Let cool and dollop over cooled cupcakes.

Raspberry Sauce:
2 cups raspberries
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
saucepan

Puree raspberries until smooth, add raspberries and sugar to saucepan and heat to a low boil, stirring constantly. Let bubble for 1 minute, reduce heat to medium low and stir constantly until thickened, remove from heat and add lemon juice. Let cool and spoon over frosted cupcakes.

Note: While making the raspberry sauce I was never accosted by any strange men breaking into my house, forcing me to use the sauce as napalm. Mores the pity.

That’s it for this week. If you missed it. the Dinner Menu and Shopping list for this week was Baked Ricotta Gnocchi in Fire Roasted Tomato and Basil Sauce and Grilled Asparagus. – TaMara

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  11. 11.

    BarbCat

    Have you ever read ‘The Debt to Pleasure’ by John Lanchester? My sister sent it to me, from MD to CA, for Christmas years ago along with an iced pound of lump blue crabmeat. The latter I knew what to do with immediately and the former? Well the book changed the ratio of oil to vinegar in my vinaigrette recipes forever. So much to love in that novel.

  16. 16.

    gogol's wife

    Russian literature is full of great food. I just read the scene in War and Peace where they have a delicious feast after hunting (“herb-wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye-cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples, nuts [raw and roasted], and nut-and-honey sweets,” followed by ham and roast chicken). Once I attended a conference on Gogol at which they actually prepared a bunch of dishes mentioned in his works. It was fantastic. Darra Goldstein’s cookbooks have a lot of this material.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    I went out and bought a can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes after everyone (someone?) raved about them in a thread last week, and now I don’t know what to do with them.

    Any ideas?

  18. 18.

    Lyrebird

    Well I always remember Alonzo Wilder & his brothers baking potatoes in a bonfire & not poking one of them thoroughly enough beforehand… And Heidi’s grandfather making toasted cheese over an open fire.

  19. 19.

    Skipjack

    I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, or are interested in the source fiction, but the numerous (incessant) feasts in George RR Martin’s books inspired a cookbook. The cooks use authentic medieval recipes or even ancient Roman ones as a departure point for cooking the food found in the novels which Game of Thrones is based upon.

    A Feast of Ice and Fire

    I actually bought it and made some things from it, and from their blog which started them off. It came out well, and they convinced me I’d been over-complicating my roast chicken.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (made into the film Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe) could keep one busy in the kitchen for a month.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    There’s a lot of mention of food in the Harry Potter books, which is kind of interesting for an American audience because there are British foods that don’t show up in America. A friend threw a Harry Potter food-themed party primarily as an excuse to make a treacle tart- which I thought was an unfortunate let down.

  25. 25.

    qwerty42

    In the Chocolate-Raspberry Cupcakes, why are the eggs separated? It appears both yolks and whites are used together, with no intervening steps, so why separate them? Just asking; whenever I have separated eggs, it is because they will be used at different steps.

  26. 26.

    p.a.

    The Tin Drum “…all his emotions he put into his soups…” I had no experience with the food of North/Northeast Europe before that not-exactly-uplifting book.

  28. 28.

    p.a.

    @Roger Moore: treacle= light or medium molasses. No big thang. I’ve tried various mead (what is the plural, meads, meades, mead?), not a big fan. Is firewhiskey a play on scotch? And the thought of pumpkin juice makes me gag.

  31. 31.

    jsamback

    there’s that clam chowder recipe in Moby Dick

    However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.

  32. 32.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @qwerty42: LOL. I have no idea. When I settled on a chocolate cake recipe, that’s what it said and I added yolks separately from the whites. I don’t make a lot of cakes, so I wasn’t about to mess with it, since I was all ready going to add crushed raspberries and was worried about that step. So, my guess is, they may not really need to be separated.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne: I think I’m just going to have to open the can so I can get a feel for whether these tomatoes behave more like fresh or more like canned. Maybe I need to have ingredients on hand for whichever way it goes. But hoping for fresh!

    I don’t think tomatoes should have to share a name with those pale, pathetic things we get in the winter.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I have seen no requests, so far, for qagh recipes.

    But then again qagh is best served live…preferably, I”m sure, with a good vintage blood wine.

    Perhaps with yammok sauce?

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jl:

    It’s just “To Serve Man”.

    Specifically, Homer Simpson, after he’s been marbled up a bit…more…

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @p.a.

    Mead can be cloyingly sweet and syrupy.

    If you can find some cyser, though, you might well like that a lot more. Apple cyser is the most common, but there are other varieties. Do not confuse cyser with cider – two different drinks altogether.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @NotMax – @p.a.

    Following up, if there is a wine or beer making club or group in your area, someone there might well also make cyser and be willing to part with a sample bottle or three.

  38. 38.

    Aji

    Oh. My. God. Trixie Belden.

    LOL – that was my first YA book (as opposed to regular children’s books) read at age 5 or 6 when either one of my older sisters or a cousin abandoned it somewhere around the house. And I was hooked. Mystery stories from then on.

    Can’t say I ever bothered with the food angle, though. I cook mostly off the top of my head, so to speak. Or flying by the seat of my pants, whichever metaphor makes ya happy.

  39. 39.

    WereBear

    Yay Trixie Belden!

    I started drinking Remy Martin because the fussy folks in Lawrence Sanders’ novels preferred it. Also learned how to scramble an egg from someone’s butler in Stuart Woods’ work.

    While mysteries and cooking go together wonderfully, I do love hardboiled noir and horror… well, you probably don’t want to be thinking about food.

  40. 40.

    the Conster

    @NotMax:

    LOVE LOVE LOVE that movie!!! Watching Jackie Bissett at the Golden Globes – remember her The Bomb? The sound of the duck press, and the scene at the end with Robert Morley….. OMG. George Segal at his leading man ironic best. It’s not available anywhere to watch again, I don’t think. Best.food.movie.ever.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Villago Delenda Est: Thanks you.

    @Villago Delenda Est: I didn’t know what qaph was, so I looked it up

    K’Tesh’s Klingon Recipe Pages: Main Courses

    ‘ According to “Star Trek: Klingon for the Galactic Traveler”, qagh prepared in the traditional Klingon manner has starved qagh feed on ‘Iw puj (weak or diluted blood). Just before being serving the qagh are placed in a bowl of ghevi’ (a sauce). This sauce is laced with a flavorful herb that the worms eat greedily, despite the fact that the herb is toxic to them. The worms must be consumed in minutes, or else they will die, and we all know that “qagh is always best when served live”. ‘

    http://www.geocities.ws/ktesh_kag/main2.htm

  43. 43.

    p.a.

    @NotMax: that’s new to me. I’ll be on the lookout. I live near an importer of hard Spanish (Asturias) cider. Nothing like AngloAmerican hard ciders. Astringent. They use some bitter apples a la Normandy Calvados, and wild yeast. Nice with food.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    @Mnemosyne: Book-wise, Norah Ephron’s Heartburn has some good recipes and cooking advice in it in addition to the (thinly veiled) Bernstein-bashing.

    I’ll never forget the image of him picking out the million little transparent slivers of onion. That book is a monument to passive-aggressive marital woes.

  46. 46.

    Randy P

    Well, how about another chocolate-titled book/movie: Like Water for Chocolate? As I recall, each chapter is preceded by a (presumably Old Mexican) recipe.

    Also, I never read the Isak Dinesen novel it’s based on, but Babette’s Feast was, as you might guess, centered around food. Outrageously fancy food. The title character is a French chef, female, who has wound up for unspecified reasons being sheltered in a remote Danish village and decides to show her appreciation by making a feast.

    I see the food scenes are available on YouTube.

  47. 47.

    Tommy

    @tybee: I don’t know. I got into cooking Thai food lately, The stuff I cook in my garden I wish I had the rest of the year.

  48. 48.

    MomSenss

    @WaterGirl:

    I use them all the time. One of my favorite recipes is turkey and black bean chili.

    Yellow onion chopped
    5-6 garlic cloves finely chopped
    1 or2 hot chilis diced
    1 lb ground turkey
    1 28 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes
    1 28 ounce can Goya black beans drained and rinsed
    Cumin
    Chili powder
    Salt
    Pepper
    Fresh cilantro (half a bunch)
    Olive oil
    Saute onions, garlic, chilis in olive oil until soft
    Add ground turkey, salt and some cumin and chili powder and cook turkey thoroughly (I do not like turkey to be too fine and you have to season it or it will not have any flavor)
    Once turkey is cooked,add tomatoes, beans, and season to your taste
    Add fresh cilantro at the end

    I use very lean turkey so I don’t usually drain the fat
    I also usually make larger quantities because I have a house full of huge people.
    Serve with corn bread or corn chips
    This may be full of typos because I am using a tablet
    Also,too I only measure when baking so good luck!!

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    @the Conster

    Friend and I went to see it when it first ran. Arrived at the theater a bit after the scheduled start time, bought tickets, rushed in and quickly grabbed some seats just as the trailers ended and the movie was beginning.

    Only when our eyes adjusted to the darkness did we realize that we were the only two people in the theater.

  51. 51.

    tybee

    @Tommy:
    i can make outstanding pico in the summer when the maters come in but this time of year? not so much.

    only decent thing about this winter: i hadda go pick all my peppers right before the first vortex, dried them and ground them up (in a blade coffee grinder no less).
    a mix of ancho, tabasco, cayenne, serano and jalapeno.
    outstanding flavor and smell but will remove paint if you get too much.
    other than that, winter inhales vigorously and i want it gone.

  54. 54.

    Steeplejack

    This is the thread to plug my favorite fake foodie show: Posh Nosh. “Extraordinary food for ordinary people.”

    Episode 1: Architect’s Fish and Chips.

    Episode 2: Birthday Parties.

    ETA: There are eight episodes in all. For some reason FYWP won’t let me put in the link to the user page. Just click on the uploader’s name.

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    I use them all the time. One of my favorite recipes is turkey and black bean chili.

    Yellow onion chopped
    5-6 garlic cloves finely chopped
    1 or2 hot chilis diced
    1 lb ground turkey
    1 28 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes
    1 28 ounce can Goya black beans drained and rinsed
    Cumin
    Chili powder
    Salt
    Pepper
    Fresh cilantro (half a bunch)
    Olive oil
    Saute onions, garlic, chilis in olive oil until soft
    Add ground turkey, salt and some cumin and chili powder and cook turkey thoroughly (I do not like turkey to be too fine and you have to season it or it will not have any flavor)
    Once turkey is cooked,add tomatoes, beans, and season to your taste
    Add fresh cilantro at the end

    I use very lean turkey so I don’t usually drain
    I also usually make larger quantities because I have a house full of people.
    Serve with corn bread or corn chips
    This may be full of typos because I am using a tablet
    Also,too I only measure when baking so good luck!!

  57. 57.

    Tommy

    @tybee: I grow six kinds of peppers in my yard. Seems it is the one thing I can do. All you said and a few others.I was stunned how easy it was to dry them. I got a lot of peppers hanging. Even canned a lot of them this year. Best thing I ever did.

  59. 59.

    NotMax

    @tybee

    outstanding flavor and smell but will remove paint if you get too much.

    Found this in the market recently. For those who crave hot, it is quite tasty in tiny portions.

    Tried putting a half teaspoon into a batch of spaghetti sauce and it worked well as a perky addition.

  61. 61.

    MomSense

    Trying to adapt to using a tablet but did anyone mention the film Big Night? Lots of great ideas in that film.

  62. 62.

    Steeplejack

    There are some interesting recipes in Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, a “triumph of culinary anthropology” based on Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. Those books have some great food-related scenes. A particular favorite is in Desolation Island—a dolorous Christmas dinner featuring salted penguin.

  63. 63.

    tybee

    @Tommy:

    the large ones (ancho, bell, etc) freeze rather well if you just plan on stuffing them for baking or chiles rellenos. drop them in a ziploc and chunk them in the freezer.

  65. 65.

    aimai

    @gogol’s wife: Thanks for the recommendation, sounds delicious!

    Dinner here tonight, just finished and now watching Sherlock:

    Boeuf Bourgignon
    Roasted Cauliflower
    Roasted teeny potatoes with turkish spice rub
    green beans vinaigrette
    carrot/lemon salad
    home made challah
    eggplant with a chinese vinaigrette
    Now a dessert of poached dried apricots in cream in a pistachio tarte with chocolate fudge sauce.

  71. 71.

    TEL

    Loved “Agnes and the Hitman”! For food movies, I liked “Eat Drink Man Woman”, though I bet a lot of that food would be difficult to make. And for books, how about one of the “Nero Wolfe” recipes? Anyone want to spend 45 minutes properly making scrambled eggs? I do want to try sweetbreads at some point, one of the Nero Wolfe books made them sound delicious.

    I’m wondering if reading all those Trixie Belden books as a kid explains my love of mystery novels up to this day.

  74. 74.

    Origuy

    @Tommy: I’ve had haggis a few times, but I don’t know about the stuff in that article. I had chicken Balmoral (breast stuffed with haggis and bacon) once in Scotland, which was pretty good.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @Tommy: Old Scots* rule:

    If you’re hungry enough, you can eat anything.

    If there’s whiskey enough, you can eat anything and ask for seconds.

    *Probably a universal peasant saying, but my ancestors were also from Scotland, via Connemara.

  78. 78.

    Tommy

    @TEL: My best cookbook is the River Road. A thing from Baton Rouge. I think it is in its 49th printing. It is something my family owns and trusts it is “god” to how you cook food.

  80. 80.

    WereBear

    Thanks for tip re: Agnes and the Hitman. Looks like just the thing for my get-over-the-threatening-flu-downtime-weekend I have planned.

    Kindle through the BJ Amazon link; as much as I can.

  81. 81.

    raven

    Don’t forget Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices Paperback

    I am also publishing for the first time authentic historical recipes of great importance. For your convenience I will start with meats, fish, eggs, soups and sauces, sandwiches, vegetables, the art of French frying, desserts, how to dress game, how to properly sharpen a knife, how to make wines and beer, how to make French soap and also what to do in case of hydrogen or cobalt bomb attacks, keeping as much in alphabetical order as possible.

  85. 85.

    TEL

    @Tommy: I’ll have to look at it! My go-to cookbooks for learning something new are Joy of Cooking and occasionally America’s test kitchen, but it would be nice to have something different and I love cajun cooking.

  89. 89.

    Ken

    Paprika Hendl, from Dracula.

    @NotMax: You mean Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe was a book before it was a movie that, inexplicably, did not have Vincent Price?

  90. 90.

    Tommy

    @TEL: Worse case you learn how to make a good reuex. I would argue it is the best cookbook know to man. I realize that is over the top to say. but feel comfortable saying it.

  91. 91.

    Tommy

    @TEL: Worse case you learn how to make a good reuex. I would argue it is the best cookbook know to man. I realize that is over the top to say. but feel comfortable saying it.

  94. 94.

    the Conster

    @NotMax:

    That happened to me when Fargo came out. I had been let go from my job in Hartford, and drove to the East Hartford megaplex on a brutally cold February Tuesday to see the early show. The theater was at the very end of an eight screen corridor, and I was the only one there. I didn’t tell anyone I was going either, and two men walked in about 15 minutes after it started, by which time a whole shitload has happened in the movie, so I wasn’t going to leave. So I got up and moved to the very back of the theater so that I could see the two guys and anyone else who walked in, and when I left the theater in my car on a snowy highway home, I’d REALLY been to a movie.

  95. 95.

    Katherine

    Barbcat / an iced pound of lump blue crabmeat.

    oh my / i grew up in Maryland and i can truly appreciate the treasure that this gift was / oh my

  96. 96.

    Katherine

    a CIA spy thriller newly out has a recipe at the end of each chapter / quite an unexpected delight / my fave was for a Soubise / carmelized onions with rice, gruyere, and cream / i make this all the time now

  97. 97.

    the Conster

    @Steeplejack:

    I just watched The Ramen Girl on Netflix with (poor) lovely Brittany Murphy – it’s The Karate Kid meets Lost in Translation meets Like Water for Chocolate, inspired by Tampopo. A fun 120 minutes.

  100. 100.

    Randy P

    @efgoldman: Parker’s ghost is still putting them out. Different franchise characters have been farmed out to various authors, and Ace Atkins, who has now written two Spenser novels and is working on a third, captures the voice eerily well.

    Down to the recipes.

  102. 102.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @efgoldman: I had totally forgotten about Spenser…and to boot that was my very first onscreen acting job. Robert Urich and Avery Brooks two of the most amazing GENTLEMEN. Kind and generous, the both of them.

  103. 103.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @the Conster: A good little movie.

    My niece and I just made an amazing recipe that I will post later on the blog when I can get home and download the photos. A fun take on french toast.

    This thread is full of win and you guys gave me great ideas. Now I’m off to get beaten in cribbage.

  107. 107.

    SectionH

    One of our favorite fictional foodies* is Nero Wolfe, and of course his Swiss chef, Fritz Brenner. Rex Stout, the author, was apparently a real life gourmet, and there’s The Nero Wolfe Cookbook which contains recipes for most of the dishes mentioned in the books. Mr S has made a number of them, with varying success. It does seem that “the way Fritz holds his mouth” (as Archie Goodwin mused) is crucial to a couple of them.

    *not that the term existed when Stout was writing, but, hey, alliteration

  109. 109.

    Ken

    @SectionH: I suspect Wolfe would not have appreciated “foodies”, as a word. Didn’t he once burn a dictionary, one page at a time, for sins against the English language?

    ETA. Yes he did (thank you, Google), including defining “imply” and “infer” as interchangable.

  110. 110.

    qwerty42

    @TaMara (BHF): Well, heck, maybe they need to be separated, and the whites act better if done that way or something. They sound good and if you’re going to weaponize raspberry sauce, might just as well separate the eggs, so …
    (and thanks)

  111. 111.

    Yatsuno

    @qwerty42: That does seem needlessly…fussy. I’m not certain why. Usually you separate whites because you’re going to whip them for a rising element. Oddsfish.

  112. 112.

    gogol's wife

    @TaMara (BHF):

    I loved that show — who were you? Robert Urich was a Slovak so I had a soft spot for him. Loved Vegas, when he’d drive his car into the living room.

  113. 113.

    SectionH

    @Ken: I’m sure Wolfe would have hated “foodie.” I’m with him on “imply” and “infer” – they don’t mean the same thing at all. Where I scratch my head is with his hatred of “contact” as a verb.

    A little construction I came across (don’t remember which book, alas, but it was published in the early ’50s) was Archie writing a statement followed by “Not.” Can’t remember the actual wording, but it was something like “Wolfe was happy to meet with Inspector Cramer. Not.” About 50 years before it was a popular usage.

  114. 114.

    Schlemizel

    There is a series of murder mysteries with a caterer that solves the crime. The author is Diane Mott Davidson.

    After the first couple of books the stories are pretty lame. If yo are a fan of the genre they are not great reads but every book has 6 or 7 recipes and most of them are really good. Ms. Mott should drop the fiction & put out a cook book.

  115. 115.

    NotMax

    Okay, as no one has mentioned the film, gotta throw in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, although the banquet depicted is for rather, um, specialized tastes.

  121. 121.

    Annamal

    I grew up reading Enid Blyton’s famous five and the Gerald Durrell books, both authors lived through the British rationing and both provide lavish descriptions of food.

    Lashings of ginger beer…

  122. 122.

    2liberal

    eggs portugal
    ———————
    8 slices cubed bread
    1.5 cup grated cheddar
    1 lb browned ground sausage
    2.5 cups milk
    4 eggs slightly beaten
    1 tsp mustard

    refrigerate and then top with:
    1 can cream of mushroom soup
    1 cup mushrooms
    .75 cup white wine

    bake @350 degrees for one hour

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