My Comfort Foods

 RHYS BOWEN: Recently when I was interviewed the woman said, “You must love to cook. There is so much food in your books.”

No, actually I love to eat good food. I’d love someone else to cook it for me. I get messages all the time asking me when I’m going to put out a cookbook with all the foods in my books. I may do that when I ever find the time to breathe… still two and a half books a year, you know!

 Now I’ve started my own Facebook group (TEA WITH RHYS—come on over and join) I just chose this title because it sounded like me, and warm and welcoming. But I’ve found that my members actually like to talk about tea, and scones, and share pictures of luxurious tea settings and cozy tea pots. It’s something that binds us together.

 And I’ll share a secret: I have found a way to enjoy all my favorite foods without putting on a pound. I write about them! I realize, as I go through the Royal Spyness books, that the menus I include are ones I’d like to be savoring right now. I confess they include a lot of the dishes that Queenie makes—not at all haute cuisine, but my own childhood foods, fondly remembered. Shepherd’s Pie. Toad in the Hole, even spotted dick (which sounds awful but was filling and comforting to a child in a cold house. Of course served with warm custard).

 I do like more adventurous foods: Italian, French, Chinese, Indian etc. I enjoy them all. I’ve plenty of French foods in my books, and now very fancy French cuisine with the introduction of Pierre the chef. So my characters have had boeuf bourguignone, coq au vin, floating islands, crème brulee… all the dishes I love. I can drool as I describe them and not gain an ounce. I’ve a great idea: I’ll charge a small fee to mail out a daily description of a meal. Readers can salivate and not have to worry about all those calories. Brilliant, eh?

 But seriously, I most enjoy writing about my comfort foods. There are certain foods from childhood that I need when I am stressed, or not feeling well. When I was pregnant with my first child I had horrible morning sickness that lasted all day and all I craved was my mum’s lamb stew. And we could not find lamb at any shops near us.

 When my stomach is a bit upset all I want is marmite on toast (I know you have to have British genes before you can eat Marmite, but I love it, spread thinly).   If I go out to a fancy seafood restaurant I often end up ordering fish and chips. When I am in England and we go to my SIL’s manor house in Cornwall the first things I want are scones with clotted cream and jam, bangers and mash and Cornish pasties. All items that are laden with fat and everything bad for you, so I’m glad I’m only there a couple of weeks. But I can keep writing about them all year, can’t I?

So, dear Reds, what are your favorite comfort foods? Do they come from your childhood?

HALLIE EPHRON: Like you, Rhys, I love to eat good food. But I also love to cook. But I confess my comfort foods are out of a bag. Barbecue potato chips. Roasted salted cashews or almonds. Shrimp cocktail with loads of Heinz Chili Sauce. Haagen-Dazs Rum raisin ice cream. 

My mother rarely set foot in the kitchen (we had a live -in cook, Evelyn Hall, who has SO gifted and talented…)  But the one thing my mother would make for herself were roasted almonds. She’d boil almonds untl you could pop them out of their skins.Then roll them in butter and salt and roast them in the oven. A lot like what you can buy today as “Marcona almonds” but better. To me that’s still the quintessential “comfort food.” 

RHYS: My mother also worked all her life so food was anything that could be cooked quickly with no fuss: 

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh how I love to eat and read and talk about food and eating! But Rhys, your technique of writing about food so you don’t eat it all does not work for me. I get hungrier and hungrier as I write!

My mother was a little like Hallie’s–she did not love to cook. With four kids, she had to do it, but it was 50’s-60’s style convenience foods and roasts and so on. She would also eat liver and onions and pigs’ feet–as Hallie would say, ICK! My comfort foods are hearty homemade things like spaghetti Bolonese and chicken pot pie and lots of piping hot biscuits loaded with butter. I will help Hallie with the BBQ potato chips, and I admit that we both share an addiction to Bishop’s Orchards caramel corn. Yesterday I found some cheese wafers at Trader Joe’s that were extremely dangerous…to my waistline.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: First I will say contrarily that –like the term bucket list–I am not a fan of the term “comfort food.” That said…:-) If I could eat anything and doing so would make me happy and I wouldn't worry about carbs and whatever, I would DEFINITELY  have Popcorner chips. AND spinach artichoke dip. Tacos, with sour cream on top. Baked potato with sour cream and broccoli.  Truffle fries. 

Did they come from my childhood? Definitely not. (Mine mirrored Halllie’s, we had Viola Brown, thank goodness, although my mother DID cook, in a kind of a 1950’s way..)  ALTHOUGH I am a massive peanut butter and jelly fan. Which did come from childhood. 

In fact, toast with peanut butter is one of the best things in the world. AND bagels with cream cheese and tomatoes and capers and smoked salmon. Stopping now.

JENN McKINLAY: My mother is a fabulous cook and baker. Usually, people are one or the other but she is both. I am a baker - I love, love, love it and when the Hooligans were at home I baked breads, pies, cakes, and cookies all of the time. Now that it’s just Hub and me and we’re not supposed to have all that baking goodness, I don’t bake unless it’s a holiday or birthday. Very sad but our cholesterol thanks us. 

Hub does most of the cooking now (I officially quit during the pandemic when I was the only one working and then declared no give backsies when life resumed), although I make the salad because he won’t. He swears no one likes salad but I do, I really do! Anyway, comfort food for me is my mom’s lasagna or her coconut custard pie. If I’m cooking for myself it’s my signature mac and cheese. If I’m sick then it’s a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup – the ultimate comfort food.

RHYS: Oh yes. Totally agree to that, Jenn. When I've been on book tour and had to eat fancy hotel food for a week or so, all i want is grilled cheese!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My mom was a good cook, but she never made most of those traditional American comfort foods–I don't remember her ever making mac and cheese!--so I had to think a lot about what was comforting and I kept coming back to toast. This is what I want when I am under the weather, when nothing else sounds good. Especially cheese toast, with good bread and good sharp cheddar, sometimes with a slice of tomato sprinkled with oregano, sometimes with some British pickle (like chutney–Rhys will know Branston's pickle) and sometimes just plain, maybe with some apple slices.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My comfort foods as a kid were Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese with - wait for it - fried Spam slices. My mother would make that for us when she was going out for the evening and we had a sitter. And then, of course, when we were sick, it was Lipton Chicken Noodle Cup of Soup. You can tell those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s because it’s impossible to describe your favorite foods without using trademarked brand names!

As an adult, I will always go for a soup and sandwich when I need to be braced. I make excellent chowders, bean soups and butternut squash bisques, and with a nice grilled cheese on the side, I’m in my happy place. Now, please excuse me, all this food talk has me famished, and I’m off to make myself something good to eat!

RHYS: I think the concensus among the Reds is that grilled cheese wins! I lived on it in college when I was studying for exams, and then as a single working girl who had no time to eat properly.

So Reddies: how about you? What are your comfort foods and do you think that the Reds should publish a cookbook together? Great idea, huh?

It's Fiction, Dammit.

RHYS BOWEN:  Like the rest of the Reds I get letters all the time telling me I’ve got something wrong. It seems that readers get great delight from scoring a point against authors, whether it's a typo on page 54 and would you please go back to print, or some fact that they are sure is not right. Much of the time it is they who have got it wrong. Clare and I are just in the middle of copy edits for our next Molly Murphy book and the editor has queried our time line in some of the innovations we mention. However Clare, the most meticulous researcher in the universe, can quote an article in a trade publication or a lawsuit in the NYT that proves we are right.

It's funny because we are writing fiction. We should be able to make up what we like. But if we are writing about a real time and place then accuracy is important, at least it is to me. I want to take my reader to that time and place and make them feel that they are there. For the early Molly books I went to New York and walked every street that Molly would have walked. I got a letter saying “the distance she walked was quite impossible.”  I replied, “I walked it.”

For The Paris Assignment I got a letter from an Australian woman saying that nobody would have flown out from England before 1970. They would have taken a ship. Again I replied, “I did.”

The one thing you absolutely can’t get wrong is guns and trains. People who know about those are fanatics. In one Constable Evans book I had a missing dueling pistol when someone is found dead. I got all these letters saying “those pistols didn’t use bullets. So stupid etc etc” and I replied, “read on.” A chapter or two later a bullet is found and it is decided that the missing pistol has nothing to do with the murder.

But I got a letter from a train buff complaining that the train Molly had taken to San Francisco would not have stopped in Reno because that particular train would have taken the Winnemucca cut. Nothing happened in Reno. The train stopped then went on. No major plot point happened there. But it mattered to this man..

So I do work hard to get things right. IN one of the Constable Evans books Evan has to creep up a steep mountainside and wrestle a rifle away from a man. I asked John to help me figure out how he’d do this and we ended up wrestling on the kitchen floor, muttering "If I grab this, you'd grab that.". Our son (teenager at the time) came in, stared in utter horror, and asked “What are you doing?”  But we got the scene right!

I’m really annoyed when I watch something on TV and they get it wrong. As John will attest, I complain quite often. One pet peeve is when a policeman has to break down a door. I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but you’d dislocate your shoulder long before the door would give, especially if it's a good old British solid oak door. However on TV the policeman is not even seen rubbing the affected shoulder afterward.

Another pet peeve is the number of times people are knocked unconscious in books. If they are knocked out in every single book in a series they are going to have severe brain problems. Concussions are not to be taken lightly, as I can tell you from the latest sports protocols. In a water polo match in which my granddaughter was playing the goalie was taken out after a ball hit her in the head. Not allowed to play for the rest of the game.

So I do understand. It is worth getting every detail right because it will matter to somebody. I’m always so tempted to write back saying “It’s fiction, dammit.”

Do you have any pet peeves about things that books and TV get wrong? And authors, have you had snippy letters telling you that you’ve goofed?

Hagini Nagendra on A Right Royal Mess

RHYS BOWEN:  Having been to India many times and married to someone who worked for Air India, I was delighted to find the first book in this series, giving a wonderfully different perspective on the days of the British Raj: the narrator is an educated Indian woman, with a forward-thinking husband!

And since I write a lot about the Prince of Wales it is fascinating in this book to see him visiting India. So welcome Harini!

HARINI NAGENDRA:

I’m so pleased to be back on Jungle Red Writers, announcing the launch of A Nest of Vipers, part of my 1920s historical mystery series. The first book, The Bangalore Detectives Club, and the second, Murder Under A Red Moon, were also featured here - it feels like a good luck charm to be back for the third time. A heartfelt thank you to Rhys Bowen and the other terrific Jungle Red writers for inviting me back!

The 1920s were a time of political ferment in India. In April 1919, a peaceful gathering of Indian protesters in a park in Amritsar turned into a bloodbath. Hundreds of men, women and children were brought down by a hail of bullets, shot in the back as they fled. India never forgot or forgave the Jallianwalabagh massacre.  For its part, the British empire refused to apologize, or even to discipline the men responsible.

Shortly after, Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement in August 1921, asking Indians to boycott British institutions and British-made goods. Across India, calls for Swaraj – self-determination and independence – grew louder. At this non-propitious time Edward, Prince of Wales (the very same Edward whom Rhys writes about so entertainingly in her Royal Spyness series, who later abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson), choose to visit India.

Edward landed in Bombay in November 1921. The Prince might have expected to see streets packed with cheering crowds. Instead, he was greeted with hartals and bandhs – city wide strikes – in Bombay, Allahabad, Benares, Lucknow and Calcutta. Terrified of the Swaraj movement, the police threw anyone they suspected of being involved into jail, packing cramped cells with tens of thousands of political prisoners.

Edward hated his visit, complaining that “I am hardly ever allowed even to drive through the bazaars and native quarters of the cities” (because of the fear of violence. By February 1922, the unrest reached its zenith when policemen fired on protestors in the small north Indian town of Chauri Chaura. The crowd stormed the station, and set fire to it, killing over twenty men. Shocked by the transformation of what was intended to be a non-violent civil disobedience movement into large scale violence, Gandhi went on a five day fast, and persuaded the Congress Party to pause the noncooperation movement.

A Nest of Vipers is set in the backdrop of these tumultuous events. Edward traveled to Bangalore in January 1922, shortly after visiting Madras – where he was greeted by protestors who burnt buses, stoned government buildings, and attacked men in uniforms. From newspaper accounts, it seems as though his subsequent visit to Bangalore was relatively peaceful. Shortly after, he left India for Nepal, soothing away the affront to his dignity made by India by going on a classic colonial pursuit - hunting tigers, mounted on elephant back, from a safe distance.

But would the all good people of Bangalore remain quiet? It does seem as though something might be missing from those sanitized newspaper accounts. This is fertile ground for a book, of course. My story opens with a circus performance in Bangalore, a few days before the prince’s upcoming visit. The police are out in full force, watching out for signs of disturbance at all public events. Kaveri’s good friend Inspector Ismail seems unusually serious, refusing to discuss why he is there with her, as he usually does.

Soon after the circus begins, their master magician disappears from a locked cage on stage, in full view of everyone. Armed goons take over the tent, looting the audience of their wealth, as the police chase them, and the performance devolves into chaos. Soon after, Kaveri stumbles on a dead body – Pawan, her friend Anandi’s abusive husband, who is part of the circus team, has been killed.

When the magician’s son approaches her, asking her to find his missing father, she gets drawn into a tangled web of intrigue. Is the independence movement being co-opted by those who seek to exploit it for their own goals? With danger stalking her, her former friend Inspector Ismail now distancing himself from her, and a sinister team of wrestlers following her across the city, Kaveri must find a way to hide from them all and infiltrate the independence movement - to find out if her suspicions are right.

In 1920s British India, it was dangerous to be seen talking openly about Swaraj or to be found going to independence meetings. People developed fascinating ways to signal that they were meeting in secret. As some of the elderly freedom fighters interviewed by journalist P. Sainath describe, in his book, The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom, they found ingenious ways to hide in plain sight. A pat of wet cowdung outside a safe house might signal that a secret meeting was ongoing - but only to those in the know. If the cowdung cake was dry, the meeting was over, and it was safe to enter. Others used twigs of neem leaves.

These fighters found similarly inventive ways to run underground radio stations and printing presses, rob cargo trains of money, hide messages in hair buns and parcels of food. In one especially fascinating escapade, a young woman - 17 year-old Hausabai Patil - faked a quarrel outside a police station, allowing herself to be brutally beaten by a fake ‘husband’. When the police came out to counsel the supposed couple, escorting them to the railway station, their comrades sneaked in from the other side, stealing four rifles. She was inspired by her father, who was a core member of the movement, later sent to jail. Their family paid a heavy price for their involvement when the British seized their property, working as manual labour, and surviving on very little food, not even able to get a handful of salt from the grocer.

While the bravery of these ‘foot soldiers’ of the movement was inspiring to read, their stories were also harrowing. These incredibly brave men and women became masters of disguise, traveling across India to nucleate new nodes of action, but they also sacrificed so much – home, career, health, family – even life itself. Several of the characters I describe in A Nest of Vipers, whom Kaveri meets while infiltrating the movement, are inspired by these fearless patriots. The book is a small effort to pay homage to their incredible lives and escapades – which seem wilder than anything a fiction author could possibly imagine.  

 

 

About the author:

Harini Nagendra is a professor of ecology at Azim Premji University. She is a well known writer and public speaker on sustainability and climate change, and on Stanford University’s list of the top 2% cited scientists in the world. She has published three acclaimed historical mysteries: The Bangalore Detectives Club, Murder Under a Red Moon, and A Nest of Vipers; and a number of non-fiction books including Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future, Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities, So Many Leaves, and Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities. Harini lives in Bangalore with her family, in a home filled with maps. She loves trees, mysteries, and traditional recipes.