In Pursuit of Spenser (18 page)

I don’t personally mind dining alone in New York restaurants, but I always do so at the bar, and I would never go anywhere in which my husband had expressed the smallest interest because I want the experience to be shared. Food is about family. The fact that Spenser makes this point in
New York City
, of all places, only drives the argument home. New York features arguably the most sophisticated food culture in the United States, and Spenser the gourmand is having none of it (despite relishing a tongue sandwich on light rye) because Susan is not there. Dining out in New York for me means finding a restaurant where my loved ones and I have never eaten, then going
together and each ordering something different off the menu so that we can spend the night wildly switching plates around like the maddest of gourmet tea parties. Dining there alone is not the same. I once ate an absolutely lovely pumpkin and sage ravioli dish with amaretto biscotti crumbled all over it, in solitude and while jotting down writerly notes for a project, and found myself highly irked that the dish was so good and
no one was there to taste it with me
. Small wonder that Spenser wanted only to return home again.

In
Rough Weather
, eating at a favorite restaurant, Spenser reports, “I was having pasta with Bolognese sauce, which is what I always had. Traditions matter.” Well said, Spenser. They do indeed, and it is a significant character trait for Spenser to be untempted by a veal chop when he knows the Bolognese to be superior at that particular location, that a classic trumps a show-offy entrée, and that ritual matters at the dinner table. At the end of the day, a tried and true favorite will beat out novelty each and every time, and perhaps Spenser’s complete adherence to this principle can be paralleled with his effortless monogamy. There is no other woman save Susan for Spenser, just as there is no other entrée at Davio’s than pasta a la Bolognese. This constancy is an admirable trait in an already admirable man, a man greatly resembling his creator, and Robert B. Parker’s interweaving of personal honor into the world of food is a masterly effect.

When Parker speaks of food, it is never superfluous and seldom simply atmospheric. Rather, every aspect of Spenser’s attitude toward food laterally informs us about his attitude toward the world at large, which is of course why the author speaks of the food in the first place. The best writing is the ability to echo character within seemingly unrelated details and specifics, reflecting personality through thousands of tiny mirrors. Spenser orders Bolognese at Davio’s because he
is loyal; he takes the time to squeeze fresh orange juice in
Painted Ladies
because he is meticulous; he orders Sterling sauvignon blanc with his paillard of chicken in
Chance
because he is discerning; he finds Roman salad funny in the same novel because he owns a keen wit; and he feeds Susan pork tenderloin en croute in
God Save the Child
because he is falling in love.

All this affection for domesticity, of course, has everything to do with Robert B. Parker himself. In a 2005 interview with Dean James and Elizabeth Foxwell, co-authors of
The Robert B. Parker Companion
, Parker was asked about the genesis of his departure from the typical private gumshoe as a cynical loner into a happily paired family man. Parker answered, “I am a happier man than Chandler was, and the center of my being is Joan and my sons. They are not only context. They are life. It was inevitable, I think, that I would evolve Spenser into a man with a similar center.”

Like Parker with regard to his wife, Spenser sees no possible world outside of Susan. What is rewarding about Parker’s re-orientation of the private detective’s center of gravity is that it makes Spenser no less of a relentless protagonist just because some of his discussions of cases now take place at the kitchen counter with Susan as he slices green apples into a bowl for fritters (
Painted Ladies
)—as opposed to, say, in the back corner of a sordid and smoky bar, in conversation with a sociopathic informant, or in a dark alley with a decaying lady of the evening. Parker understands that a man who remembers to slice his prettily crisp and tart green apples into lemon juice to prevent the browning process caused by oxidation is not feminized by the act, but rather is all the more capable for it. If you are going to make your protagonist a chef, a loving chef, a good chef, then that chef would be appalled by a brownish-colored green apple fritter. And because Spenser
is respectful of the classics, he would also put nutmeg in the dredging flour, and Parker makes no apology for reporting such. He is not worried about what we will think of Spenser’s manhood, because it is never in doubt.

Spenser, when ruminating in
Back Story
over having killed several antagonists and pondering the moral weight of his chosen profession, concludes, “Was it worth a lot of dead guys? I did this work because I could. And maybe because I couldn’t do any other. I’d never been good at working for someone. At least this work let me live life on my terms.” Spoken as matter-of-factly as any deadly private vigilante, and better expressed than many. As an unabashed hardboiled detective, Spenser is appropriately forceful, sarcastic, and, according to Susan in
Chance
, one of the “hardest people I’ve ever known . . . And most of the time, you enjoy it, except when you have one of these little sentimental spasms.”

In the arena of palate, however, Spenser owns another key difference from detectives of his ilk like Marlowe and Spade, and that is his attitude toward alcohol. When Marlowe drinks highballs and takes pulls from his bottle of rye, it is far more likely to be the result of impossible situations, corrupted women, and acid thoughts than it is for simple enjoyment, and the same goes for Spade. Drinking is a part of the culture of the hardboiled detective, which is a culture with a hard and glittering edge to it, a world of dangerous men making sad and ruthless choices.

Spenser, on the other hand, drinks because he likes the taste and enjoys the sensation and wants something appropriate to pair with dinner. When he drinks, he drinks methodically and with pleasure, but never to excess. Alcohol is a gustatory diversion for him, and not a crutch to allow him to limp through the world with a recent emotional flesh wound a
little more effectively. He is also highly eclectic in his choices; everything from Laphroaig to champagne to Calvados to Burgundy to beer to Bailey’s on the rocks are all considered fair game, depending on his whim and what he happens to be eating. The alcohol is a pleasant and welcome divertissement and though, like Marlowe, he keeps a bottle of liquor in his desk drawer (Irish whiskey, a fine choice), one never worries that he might put it to ill use. His steady domestic life hardly warrants the melancholy swigs from a flask so typical of the genre’s more spiritually corrosive protagonists.

The single meal that I think best characterizes Spenser’s love of food appears in
Paper Doll
and naturally is created for Susan. He prepares grilled buffalo tenderloin marinated in red wine and garlic with fiddlehead ferns, corn pudding, and red potatoes cooked with bay leaves.

Where to begin when discussing this hugely ambitious dinner plan? First, buffalo meat, also known as bison, resembles beef closely but cannot be cooked in the same manner and exhibits a leaner, gamier, darker flavor profile. Spenser, of course, would have known this. The white marbling of fat that one sees in cuts of ordinary beef are largely absent from buffalo, which means that cooking buffalo with a beef technique would produce dry, unpalatable meat because there are too few striations of fat to melt into the flesh while it heats.

Classically, if grilling is the desired cooking medium (which really would produce a lovely, smoky char on the bison tenderloin), it is necessary to first marinate the buffalo (as Spenser did, and aptly, too, because wine is a tenderizing agent), and then to cook it just off flame over a very low heat—either on an indoor gas grill or else on a barbecue with coals that have died down somewhat—basting frequently to retain the moisture. This would produce a gorgeous cut of
meat, but it is an operation requiring meticulous care, not to mention technical knowhow and the desire to make life hard for yourself in anticipation of future reward. First Spenser must have created a marinade and soaked the meat in the fridge, probably for several hours, and then he chose to grill it, which would have required him hovering over the grill for the entire cooking time. This is not an endeavor for the faint of heart. To those who suppose he wouldn’t have bothered doing all that, my answer is that no way in hell did Spenser cook bad bison for Susan.

Let’s take the corn pudding next; a bad corn pudding is a terrible, terrible thing. A good corn pudding, however, is a fit subject to write home about. Retaining our hypothesis that Spenser would have produced a fantastic specimen, the best corn pudding is neither too heavy nor too light, tastes like the very embodied essence of sweet July corn kernels, is a gorgeous pale yellow color, is soft without being at all insipid, and includes no creative elements jarring enough to distract from the whole, though additions like jalapeno and bell pepper are often used.

Most corn pudding recipes involve one can of creamed corn, one can of corn kernels, one eight-ounce package of corn muffin mix, a beaten egg, a dollop of sour cream, etc., and can be made in about fifteen minutes. I make corn pudding every Thanksgiving, however, and have experimented with the help of a truly good recipe, and here is what Spenser might have done instead, as the man is nothing if not particular. First he would have taken three or four ears of fresh corn and grated the milk and kernels off into a bowl with a box grater (this step alone takes me about half an hour every year, as I’m doing twelve ears). Next he would have heated butter in a skillet and cooked up some celery, onion, and garlic and set that aside. He’d have separated the yolks from the whites
of two eggs, whisked the yolks until frothy, stirred that in with the corn and the mirepoix and some crème fraiche, and then beat the whites into nearly a meringue and gently stirred the soft wet peaks into the rest. If he were me, he would have added a dash of cayenne and some fresh parsley and English thyme along with the seasoning, but I leave that to Spenser. He’d then have baked the pudding in the oven in a cast iron skillet, and I think he would have been very happy with the results, though they would have taken him about forty minutes longer than necessary.

Red potatoes with bay leaves are delicious, but let that pass and instead we can address the subject of fiddlehead ferns. They are among the most prized and most difficult to obtain vegetable ever to lend grace as a side dish, and the fact that Spenser wanted to cook them reveals something about the quality of grocers the man frequents. Not only are fiddle-heads only available in the Northeastern part of the country, and then only in specialty grocery stores and farmer’s markets, but they are only in season for three short weeks during the month of May, which is when Spenser would have been shopping for them.

Actually ostrich fern fronds, they are picked up by professional foragers during the very brief springtime window when they are small and tender enough to eat, and then the pickers will take only three fronds per plant so as not to damage the fern population, which accounts for the greens’ rather high price tag. Their flavor is akin to a toastier, more bitter-almond version of a very young asparagus tip, and they are absolutely exquisite. After being picked, they expire all too quickly, which means that Spenser did his shopping on the same day he cooked them. Then he would have removed any of the light chaff that remained by hand, cleaned them carefully to eliminate any microbes hidden in the tight furl, and
prepared them, either in a classic Bostonian style (steamed with Hollandaise) or otherwise. Personally, I sauté them in butter with hen of the woods mushrooms, shallots, and a little garlic, and have never been disappointed by them. But regardless of his preferred fern method, think of the sheer amount of time involved when Spenser planned this meal: presumably, he did the shopping, made the marinade and trimmed the bison, assembled the corn pudding for baking, cleaned and prepped the fiddleheads, and still had the audacity to make potatoes. My hat is off to him, and doubtless Susan made this epicurean feast well worth his while, as it was all for her.

True food lovers find inspiration everywhere, and nothing tempts us like the allure of attempting a hitherto unknown dish. We crave the challenges of new landscapes no less keenly than golfers and mountain climbers, though our setting is a gastronomic one. In
The Godwulf Manuscript
, Spenser cooks a classic French recipe called Coquilles St. Jacques. From the instant I read this, I was hopelessly intrigued. I have never attempted this particular little number before, which is more than reason enough for me to try it, and thus I took the steps I like to imagine Spenser also takes when trying something new: I looked up several versions and then wrote my own. Spenser seems almost never to be working from a recipe, which is much to both my style and liking, but I did first want to grasp the principle of the thing. Spenser would never dream of cooking a dish improperly, despite his kitchen being so remarkably free of cookbooks and jotted down instructions. So here follows the way I would reproduce the St. Jacques sea scallops that Spenser served, though admittedly his flourishes would surely have differed from my own.

COQUILLES ST. JACQUES A LA SPENSER