Food In Mysteries

 RHYS BOWEN:  I was being interviewed recently when the interiewer said "You have a lot of food in your mysteries. You must love to cook."

I'd never thought about this before or consciously made sure I included food in the books. The answer is that I do not love to cook. After fifty years of having to put a meal on the table every night, thinking up the menu, shopping for it, preparing it and then washing up the dishes I have lost interest in cooking. However I do like to eat well. What I'd really like is Mrs. Pattmore, or Mrs. Bridges so that I could summon them to the morning room and ask what they recommended for dinner that night.

"Oh, I'd say we start with the quail in aspic, my lady," they'd reply. "Then the turban of sole and a nice leg of lamb and a summer pudding to finish with."  Food must have been less expensive in those days! Actually I know it was less expensive because even working class families all had a Sunday roast, all bought fish and chips and even oysters. 

But it's true I do like to read about food. I'm excited that Martin Walker has just come out with a cook book for his Perigord region of France. I think how characters approach eating reveals a lot about them. If a lone male detective snatches a hamburger on his way to the crime scene you know he's due for heart problems in the future. If my spinster sleuth invites suspects to tea and we witness the bone china, the tiny cucumber sandwiches and freshly baked scones we know the sort of meticulous lady she is. (and we enjoy that tea vicariously).

Lady Georgie in the Royal Spyness books started out by fleeing from her Scottish castle and coming to London with no money and no real life skills (she knows where to seat a bishop at a dinner table. This is hardly marketable or useful unless you know a bishop.) She struggles to survive living on beans on toast, that British staple for those with little money or students in rented rooms. And so it is food that provides the contrast, that shows us how far she has come by book 17, THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING, that came out this month.

Georgie now lives in her godfather's lovely mansion, she is married, expecting a baby, AND she has just acquired a French chef. She took a gamble with him, not having tasted his cooking but it turns out to be wonderful. She gives a dinner party. Everyone is impressed. And I... I get to write about all those exquisite dishes. Duck breast a l'orange, crab mousse, chilled asparagus soup, floating islands and berry tarts (the latter play a pivotal role in the story).

One of the things I love most about going to France, which we do once a year, is the French attitude to food. They like to buy everything fresh from the market. Local food, picked that morning. There are shops that just sell cheese, shops that just sell charcuterie and boulangeries, where baguettes are always just warm from the oven. And my favorite, the patiseries. Every tiny pastry a work of art. Last fall I celebrated my birthday on a cruise up the Seine with my daughter Jane and son in law Tom. The brought back a box of tiny pastries, each exquisite. A dozen had cost ten euros! A baguette costs one Euro. 

As I'm writing this I'm thinking when can I go back? When can I have crepes and mussels and have to make the hard choice which pastries to choose?

I started to write this about food in mysteries. Somehow I wandered into France and French food. But I'd like to hear your thoughts. Does reading about food detract from the plot of the mystery for you? Or do you love to savor meals with the characters?