TDG: OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe

[NeroW]

Good stuff!  Thanks much.

Word.

[Dave the Cook]

I just asked my mother to ship me at least part of her collection, but expect disappointment. Maybe if I offer Wodehouse in return. Thanks for the rekindling.

Thanks for reading.

Not to screw eGullet out of a hefty Amazon commission, but before giving up your Plum, go to alibris.com. Last time I checked, they had at least twenty Wolfe titles in paperback (used) for $2.95 each.

Edited July 9, 2003 by Dave the Cook (log)

[maggiethecat]

Good stuff!  Thanks much.

Word.

Nice to get commendations from the Guys Themselves! (Nero...let Fritz cook...don't burn yourself!)

And KNorthrup: Thanks for the edit. Appropriate indeed.

[Priscilla]

Of course starlings, IF you're Nero Wolfe. Course, lacking starlings, if one is NOT Nero Wolfe, as I am, not, there's quite secondarily quail, which is what I did when I prepared the recipe.

Also do not so hastily dismiss roasted-breaded-browned pork tenderloin, Missy Ma'am ... and somehow, even the scrambled eggs work for me, although of course it's not the way I habitually make scrambled eggs.

Green corn pudding? ONLY perfection, for God's sake.

Even Fritz's bread.

Sheila Hibben, food writer for The New Yorker at the time, was a great friend of Rex Stout's, and is credited as the source of the recipes, I think, in at least one introduction but I'd have to look. Funny hard-boiled quote from her, too, as I recall, in this same introduction. She also wrote other cookbooks (and I believe also literary criticism), which are pretty useful, not mere Olden Days artifacts.

Also I've always thought of Nero's Montenegran origins as paramount in importance -- there's an anti-Tito thread running throughout the series. Plus, Marko Vucic, chef at Rusterman's, the only NYC restaurant Nero will travel to patronize, was a Montenegran childhood friend, wasn't he?

Course then there's that Wm. Baring-Gould guy who had them as actual brothers, and also posited the detailed not to say convoluted theory that Nero Wolfe was the illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and also worked out how Archie might be Nero's nephew. Or something like that. See what I mean? Good thing it ain't Catcher in the Rye.

[JAZ]

I've only just begun to read the Nero Wolfe novels (I have read several short stories and seen a few of the A&E adaptations), and being the sort of person that I am, I'm beginning with the earliest ones I can find. These don't dwell much on the actual dishes consumed by Wolfe and Archie, except for the chicken fricassee with dumplings in Some Buried Caesar (Archie's first meal with Lily, incidentally -- do I get extra credit for that?).

On the other hand, I'm always thirsting for beer as I read these books.

[maggiethecat]

Also do not so hastily dismiss roasted-breaded-browned pork tenderloin, Missy Ma'am

Oh, accuse me not of this particular crime! Breaded pork tenderloin in any of its delightful guises is never to be hastily dismissed.

Have you tried this particular recipe, Priscilla? If you have, and you give it the thumb's up, I'll make it this week! It's just the thought of a three pound tenderloin floured, roasted over a coarse mirepoix and some wine for an hour and a half , then breaded and returned to the oven...seemed like a long, long time.

Didn't Wolfe actually go to Montenegro? "The Black Mountain" maybe? Yes, I loved the thing about Nero being Sherlock's son.

Good thing it ain't "Catcher in the Rye!"

Edited July 9, 2003 by maggiethecat (log)

[Priscilla]

Yes he (and Archie too) went to Montenegro in The Black Mountain ... fantastic imagery of an astounded Archie watching old Nero nimbly navigating tiny mountain paths. Just another of the 8,000 laugh-out-loud moments in the series.

(Tenderloin addition: Yes I've made it. Quite a while ago now, and wow I don't know WHERE a person would get a pork tenderloin that weighs three lbs. all by itself, and a loin I don't think would work. I will try it again myself and see.)

Edited July 9, 2003 by Priscilla (log)

[KNorthrup]

Holmes and Irene Adler. Who was quite formidable in her own right.

[maggiethecat]

Holmes and Irene Adler.  Who was quite formidable in her own right.

Thank you, thank you, for coming up with the name of Holmes's inamorata! Yes, the incomparable Irene...pronouncing of course, the final e. (I've been trying to place it for a couple of hours now; each birthday makes me surer that part of my brain is playing in some farther field!)

[kopi-susu]

Speaking of strange and twisted conections, anyone know Michael (Union Square Cafe) Romano's middle initial? In my 1977 fifth printing of TNWC Michael S. Romano is credited for testing ' more than half the dishes and (writing) the first draft of many of the recipes ' A quick perusal of his bio on Star Chefs supports him possibly being right age (started pro cooking in 1971, book published in 1973) and connected (James Beard). Seems a little young, but Laurie Colwin would have been what? 29? in 1973. And yes Sheila Hibben (of the New Yorker) is the main cook credited in this early intro. Also a Barbara Burn gets a big mention for wording and testing.

Re the scrambled recipe: for what it's worth, RS says all the dishes were cooked 'twice - some three or more times - by (Sheila) and me' . I am a fan of extremely slow cooked scrambled eggs. It's A LOT about the pan and the not-even-simmering water (barely, for normal cooks, is usually poorly interpreted) Re-read that recipe while envisioning the kind of custard you'd usually bake in the oven in a water bath and perhaps you'll be kinder. (or crueler, if you are a beleaguered pastry chef for whom this only brings back bad memories of just-overdone-pot-de-cremes)

Maybe it was in one of the books, because I can't find it in the index, but what has stayed with me for some 25 years is an explaination NW gives about the quails he is going to have that night having only been fed only on blueberries and cornmeal, and that is why they are exquisite. Maybe it was because I was an adolescent, but I was never so much interested in the actual recipes as I was in the discrimination applied in the making of them.

[Fat Guy]

Part 4 . . .

[ivan]

The Black Mountain is Rex Stout's manifesto, a testament to love, dignity, honor and humanity. It should not be the only, or the first Nero Wolfe book you read, because familiarity with Wolfe's and Archie's characters is necessary to understand Stout's message.

The part where Wolfe impresses Archie by whipping together a puttanesca using the contents of a rustic Italian cupboard is one of my all-time favorite scenes.

[jhlurie]

The Black Mountain is Rex Stout's manifesto, a testament to love, dignity, honor and humanity. It should not be the only, or the first Nero Wolfe book you read, because familiarity with Wolfe's and Archie's characters is necessary to understand Stout's message.

The books should really be read in order. Even though time operates very oddly in the Wolfian universe, it just doesn't make sense otherwise.

Edited July 10, 2003 by jhlurie (log)

[Jason Perlow]

beaglefarts. I like that word. It sounds much more serious than poodlefarts.

[MatthewB]

I know the title is a play off one of Mary Frances' book titles.

But everytime I see this thread pop to the top of the list, I think it says, "TDG: OTOH: How to Cook a Wife" and I'm horrified until I realize what it really says.

[Dave the Cook]

beaglefarts. I like that word. It sounds much more serious than poodlefarts.

Trust me. It is very serious, though probably not as serious as huskyfarts.

[hollywood]

beaglefarts. I like that word. It sounds much more serious than poodlefarts.

Trust me. It is very serious, though probably not as serious as huskyfarts.

Got a match?

[Lady T]

I know a house you could demolish with the gas output of its resident English mastiff.

Thank the Infinite Wisdom it ain't in Chicago.

[Dave the Cook]

This is, of course, the sort of rarefied discussion for which Maggie and I were hoping.

[jhlurie]

Okay, someone help me. My memory is gone. Which is the book where Wolfe gets dragged off to some kind of Spa to meet with a group of Chefs?

ETA - Never mind. Google helped - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8907/nero.html

It's obviously "Too Many Cooks"

What I recall of it is that it showed a bit of Stout's worst side, and its one of the more dated books, although interesting since Wolfe was out and about, and thus extra surly.

Edited July 10, 2003 by jhlurie (log)

[maggiethecat]

This is, of course, the sort of rarefied discussion for which Maggie and I were hoping.

Hey, mon ami, you coined a brand new word! Sit back and enjoy the attention. Safire will be writing about you in a couple of months.

(Do cats fart?)

[Lady T]

Yes, they do, Maggie, particularly when they get older. Think about the Dark Side of tuna breath.

[Fat Guy]

The grand finale . . .

[maggiethecat]

I also made the recipe for Fritz's Bread. It's a standard American white loaf, except that it differs from, say, "The Joy" or "Fanny Farmer" in specifying milk as 100% of the liquid content, instead of milk/water 50/50.

So...and I could have guessed: it's a little heavy and sweet. I don't know if I'd use it for a tuna salad sandwich, but it makes amazing toast.

The thing of it is: Why 100% milk? Very odd.

[Ian McA]

Golly, gee whiz: doesn't anyone remember that Archie had a photographic memory, and didn't have to write down recipes? and that those long-cooked "sunshine eggs" was a recipe to keep grade five girls out of trouble for forty minutes?