I never trust a character who doesn’t eat. Food—the getting and the making, the sharing and the pleasure—is the literal and figurative foundation of our lives. Food can be a critical element of story.
Food can spark a plot—think of Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread and setting in motion the story of Les Misérables. It can define a character. You can’t picture Nero Wolfe without plate after plate of gourmet delicacies. Or Jack Reacher without peach pie.
I write two culinary cozy mystery series, the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries set in a local food market, and the Spice Shop mysteries, set in a spice shop. Food is central to the premise and the retail settings. Erin in the Village and Pepper at the Spice Shop make their living with food. It’s key to their interactions with their staff, customers, and other characters, as well as their personal lives. Pepper works in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, a place teeming with everything from carrots to oysters to fudge truffles. The job puts her in a position to be pulled into conflict, starting with Assault & Pepper, first in the series, where a homeless man is found dead on her doorstep, a sample cup of her spice tea close by. In each book, her customers, neighboring shop owners, vendors, even food reviewers are all potential victims, killers, and witnesses.
Food can also provide a critical clue or illuminate character. In As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles, Erin narrows the time of death based on the steps of a cookie recipe the victim was making. On her honeymoon in the short story “A Death in Yelapa,” she identifies an imposter after observing the woman’s reaction to cilantro. In Assault & Pepper, Pepper’s knowledge of a suspect’s allergy to paprika helps her catch the killer.
Food adds flavor in other ways, too. Readers tell me they enjoy the spice education they get from my descriptions of spices and herbs and how they’re used, the recipes, and the spice lore tucked in the chapter epigraphs. In Lavender Lies Bleeding, the latest Spice Shop mystery, a staffer describes how she created a new blend, Lavender Lemon Pepper. That sparked a book launch demo, and a chance for readers to make a batch to take home.
Lavender Lies Bleeding, Pepper consults her friend and vendor “Lavender Liz” about an upcoming festival. Lavender is the excuse, but its scent permeates the mystery, first of who damaged Liz’s greenhouse, where she was developing a new hybrid, and then of her murder. Who wanted that plant? Who lusts after a nearby farm Liz was intent on saving? The seedling is a McGuffin—the Maltese falcon, the object at the heart of the crime that is actually a stand-in for something else. For what the characters really want.
A dish can deepen the connections between the characters on the page. Food and drink make static scenes more interesting. But they also help me delve into characters’ minds and hearts. A short story featuring Lena, Pepper’s mother, recalls events linked to Lena’s parents’ escape from Hungary decades ago. After a tense conversation, Lena pops into a coffee shop to collect herself. How, I wondered, did Hungarians drink coffee? What recipes or traditions might give Lena comfort?
A honey latte was the closest she could get to her mother’s afternoon treat, a tall glass mug layered with honey on the bottom, boiled milk, and coffee so strong it could have stripped paint. Pepper had created her own version, what Hungarians now called a melange, though she added a dash of cinnamon because she owned a spice shop and thought a dash of something made everything better.
Lena’s memories and experiences are directly relevant to the plot, as well as to the emotional tug-of-war it works on her.
Food can tell us a lot about a time, a region, a social class or situation. I’m reading The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamili, the story of two girls who meet in the 1950s and whose friendship shapes their lives. Ellie’s widowed mother defines herself by the loss of house and status; in contrast, Homa’s relatively poor mother sees food as a love language and delights in teaching the girls to cook. The day the girls skip school to visit the Grand Bazaar and sit on a stone wall eating ice cream is a pivotal moment in their friendship. And Ellie remembers forever the taste of the salad olivier sandwich she was eating when she first met Mehrdad. (I’ll be searching out a recipe after I finish the book!)
Because food is highly evocative and closely linked to memory, it lends itself to magical realism. Some examples: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, and Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber.
My cozies all include recipes, ranging from to soup to nuts. Recipes allow the reader to recreate what the characters have sweated over, craved, or shared—that is, their experience. Giving readers recipes deepens their experience of the story, even if they never lift a slotted spoon.
Food and memory are closely intertwined, especially at the holidays. Stoic Matt gets a little weepy as he remembers making these Candy Cane Cookies with his mother, who hung a few on the tree—and pretended to be surprised when they disappeared!
Whether you trigger drama with a stolen loaf, evoke the innocence of the past with clandestine ice cream, or hide a clue in a conversation about grilling steak, food can add depth and flavor to any story.
Leslie Budewitz tells stories about women’s lives, seasoned with friendship, food, a dash of history, and a heaping spoonful of mystery. She writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as well as the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries and historical short fiction set in her native Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. A three-time Agatha Award winner and past president of Sisters in Crime, she believes that stories are the spice of life.
