Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Dorothy Sayers的Strong Poisonopens with a description of a man’s last meal before death. The deceased, Philip Boyes, was a writer with “advanced” ideas, dining at the home of his wealthy great-nephew, Norman Urquhart, a lawyer. A judge tells a jury what he ate: the meal starts with a glass of 1847 oloroso “by way of cocktail,” followed by a cup of cold bouillon—“very strong, good soup, set to a clear jelly”—then turbot with sauce,pouleten casserole，最后是一个甜美的煎蛋卷，上面塞满了果酱和准备好的桌子。描述的目的是表明，除了一瓶勃艮第（Corton）之外，他只能单独喝酒，因为每道菜都被分享了，因为每道菜都被毒死了。法官的演说是对被告的另一次罢工，波西米亚神秘的小说家哈里特·瓦恩（Harriet Vane），他在他去世的那天晚上看见了博伊斯（Boyes），并且有动机和机会毒死他。著名的业余侦探彼得·温西勋爵（Peter Wimsey）从观众看着观众中。他认为哈丽雅特·瓦恩（Harriet Vane）是无辜的，他突然而完全爱上了她。
Strong Poisonwas published in 1930, but the meal at Norman Urquhart’s was rooted in the Victorian era, serving a fish dish prior to a poultry dish. Photograph by Erica Maclean.
The moment is one of great significance for fans of Sayers’s work. The eleven Wimsey books, published between 1923 and 1937, hinge on the romance between Wimsey and Vane, which percolates through several novels followingStrong Poison, and culminates inGaudy NightandBusman’s Honeymoon. For me, though, it’s the menu that’s more intriguing: cold Jell-O soup, followed by sauce-smothered fish, soggy-skinned chicken, and eggs with jam? Even if you account for changing tastes, this meal is a pungent reminder that Dorothy Sayers was having a joke. Urquhart is smugly respectable, and the stuffy and unappetizing menu illustrates his stodgy Victorian-era tastes. Moreover, it reminds us that Wimsey began as a satire—a bumbling Bertie Wooster who detects things—dreamed up a time when Sayers desperately needed the money. The books were potboilers, and the upper-class milieus, four-course dinners, mannered menservants, literary quotations, and aged wines were played for winks and kicks. When Sayers’s financial situation stabilized, she moved on to work she considered more important: writing a series of religious plays, penning original theology, and translating Dante.
And yet, the books have endured, despite their many flaws, and I’ve read and reread the entire run every few years since first discovering them in high school, including the wonderful one about the church bells and the boring one about the artists’ colony in Scotland. The biographer James Brabazon suggests that their true appeal was the pleasure of spending time in Sayers’s company. She was the daughter of a rector, born in Oxford, and a member of its first female graduating class. Her erudition informs her plots, and Peter’s silly, quotation-laden verbal style has delighted readers for generations. When Harriet, declining Peter’s proposal of marriage, tells him that “if anybody ever marries you, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle,” the reader understands. Sayers’s books are also credited with being the first feminist detective stories, and she also worked in advertising as a woman in the twenties, wore gender-bending three-piece suits, and expressed a frank sexuality. Brabazon writes that her work has been so successful because it “communicat[es] her energy, her amusement, her intelligence, her love of writing, her enthusiasm, her sense of fun.” I refined that theory when I read—at long last—the work Sayersdidtake seriously: her theology and her translation of Dante. How I’d never done this before is the true mystery.
A character calls Sayers’s sleuth “a chattering icicle in an eyeglass,” but Wimsey warms the reader’s heart while investigating this chicken dish in order to free Harriet Vane. Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Sayers’s theological volumeThe Mind of the Makerexamines what we can learn about God the Creator from observing the practice of human creators—artists. I began skeptically, but was delighted by how original the premise was. I also read two volumes of the Dante translation, still in print from Penguin Classics, and was captivated by Sayers’s notes, which make the rings of hell and levels of purgatory morally and spiritually comprehensible to the modern reader. Even more impressive, in a feat few other translators have dared, she preserved Dante’s rhyme scheme. Familiarity with these works brought my conception of Sayers in line with her self-conception: a writer who was primarily a moral philosopher.
This new understanding of her work brought into focus the aspect of the Wimsey books that I believe has been central to my enjoyment of them. After the courtroom scene, Peter bursts into the visiting room at the jail to propose to Harriet, and she turns him down. She does so because he holds all the cards, because he’s saving her life. In this way, beginning withStrong Poison, Sayers interrogates the idea of marriage and partnership, and insists that it should be a union of equals. Harriet cannot marry Peter while she is dependent on him, nor while she in his debt and humiliated by her trial. The couple struggles to attain equal footing for several books, and when they finally unite they have established each partner’s self-respect and answered all the hard questions, about money and children, individuality and work. The thrill of the love affair, for me, lies in the moral philosophy. It may not have been Sayers’s intention to create this effect—by all accounts the characters’ deepening humanity and increasingly sophisticated struggle was an accidental byproduct of the author becoming better at her craft—but it has kept readers engaged with Wimsey for a century.
Adding whipped egg whites to a yolk and sugar mixture should produce a light and fluffy sweet omelet. Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Sayers transcended her genre, so I hoped she would also transcend her satirical murder menu and that together we would make a good meal. I set out to make the four-course dinner fromStrong Poison, staying true to the letter of the recipes while making adjustments to suit my palate. The soup “set to a clear jelly” sounded like the worst of it, so I made no attempt to season it blandly, as an English cook in the twenties probably would have. Instead I thought of a collagen-rich broth made from a Chinese recipe, with chicken feet infused with the flavor of peanuts and red dates. The fish course in the novel was turbot, a flatfish whose flesh is a delicacy. I bought flounder, which is less expensive, poached it in milk, and served it with hollandaise, following a recipe from Alain Ducasse. This seemed appropriate, since the next course was also French-influenced: apouleten casserole.The term can refer to any kind of chicken cooked in a pot, with vegetables. I found oneàla Normandewith bacon and apples, braised in apple cider. It was seasoned with garlic, which would have been considered risqué in twenties England, but I wanted my dish to have lots of flavor. The internet had plentiful recipes for sweet omelets, which are about as simple as they sound (an omelet, just add sugar).
书中的酒是Grand Cru,指定for wines from the most elite subregions. Ours is from Aloxe-Corton, a village adjacent to Corton. Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Dorothy Sayers was said to enjoy both food and drink in great quantities. And her characters do as well. Wimsey is a wine connoisseur, and this was the first time I’d reread the series since becoming interested in wine myself. Even prior to rereading, I recalled several pivotal moments involving wines—a short story in which Wimsey proves his identity against two imposter Wimseys through duel of palates, and the scandal provoked when Mrs. Ruddle washes the bottles of Cockburn ’96 port inBusman’s Honeymoon. Analysis performed withHank Zona，我的精神顾问透露，塞耶斯也在玩葡萄酒。Wimsey的港口，紫红色，白兰地，炒菜和勃艮第是他一天中最好的，而且大多数仍在我们的工作中。Some of the specific vintages mentioned are even available today as collectors’ items: a bottle of the Cockburn port from 1896 sold for $734 online as recently as 2018. To buy the wine from Harriet Vane’s honeymoon would have been a true fan moment, but instead I asked Hank to source the elite wines from the meal fromStrong Poison- Oloroso Sherry和Corton Burgundy，我可以负担得起。他发现的是以传统风格制成的，其价格具有极高的价值。雪利酒尤其接近1847年从诺曼·乌尔克哈特（Norman Urquhart）开始的饭菜。它来自1830年代成立的雪利酒屋费尔南多·德·卡斯蒂拉（Fernando de Castilla），采用“古董”风格制造，意思是不融合，更长的老化和更强化。
This beautiful oloroso sherry has notes of treacle, warm dates, and powdered ginger. Photograph by Erica Maclean.
But was the meal fromStrong Poison中毒？如果是这样，怎么样？情节悬挂在此上，我不会把它放弃（尽管这里有一些线索）。我喝了雪利酒，按照指示，吃了四种蛋白质菜，并配上红色勃艮第。正如预期的那样，毒甜的煎蛋甜点和果冻汤都不是我的口味，但是两种法国食谱都很美味，而且这顿饭具有某种老式的优雅。温暖时汤很棒。用花生和干果煮鸡脚，使肉汤咸，咸，坚果和甜味。对于鱼，我喜欢Alain Ducasse的建议，以芳香的牛奶煮鱼。结果是如此细腻可口，几乎不需要荷兰酱。而且，由于我的鸡肉在用培根和奶油的硬苹果酒中慢煮，所以它的味道真的不好。 I’d recommend only the addition of a crusty baguette to soak up the juices. The omelet for dessert smelled delicious, but was rubbery and flat by the time I ate it, proving the judge’s commentary in the novel that it’s best to prepare an omelet “at the table in a chafing dish” and never allow it to stand or it will get tough. The Burgundy, from Edmond Cornu & Fils in Aloxe-Corton, was the best bottle of wine I’ve tried since I began exploring wine. It had the notes of cherries, raspberries, and earthiness that are characteristic of Pinot Noir, and its bright, lingering presence on my palate reminded me that Sayers considered France and sensuality synonymous. After all, as we find out inBusman’s Honeymoon，彼得·温齐（Peter Wimsey）在床上说法语 - 像其他所有人一样，在正确的措施中，这是讽刺和浪漫的。
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Strong Bouillon
Adapted from a recipe onWok＆Kim博客.
6杯水
8 good-quality chicken feet
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 chunk ginger
1 tbsp unsalted peanuts
4 Chinese red dates
1茶匙盐
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
First, preboil the chicken feet. Place them in a medium saucepan, cover generously with water, and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and drain. Rinse the pot. Return the feet to the pot, and add the six cups water, garlic, ginger, and salt. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low. Simmer for six hours, adding water as necessary. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool. Strain the broth, discarding the solids. Pour into individual ramekins and chill overnight. Serve cold.
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Poached Flounder with Hollandaise Sauce
Adapted from arecipe by Alain Ducasse.
2大菱的鱼片,棘鬣鱼,或其他比目鱼,abo血型ut 1 lb
1 ¼ cups of milk
1个小树枝百里香
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
盐
2 black peppercorns
pepper
7盎司黄油，融化
3 egg yolks
½柠檬
Salt
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Bring the milk to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the thyme, garlic, bay leaf, salt, and peppercorns and simmer for twenty minutes, to allow the aromatics to infuse into the milk. Remove the aromatics with a skimmer, then gently lower the fish into the milk. Cook for ten minutes.
To make the hollandaise sauce, combine the egg yolks with a little bit of water in a small pot over very low heat. Whisk continuously until the mixture is pale yellow and fluffy, and has a ribbonlike consistency when drizzled off the whisk. Slowly whisk in the melted butter, then the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Pouleten Casserole
Adapted from a recipe onthe Vikalinka blog.
1汤匙橄榄油
2磅鸡大腿和腿，用盐和胡椒调味良好
4 shallots, diced
1 rib celery, diced
4–5 thyme sprigs
2个丁香大蒜，切碎
6 strips bacon, chopped
2 tbsp brandy or whiskey
2 tbsp flour
⅓ cup chicken stock
1 ½ cups hard, dry, apple cider
2 apples, cored and cut into wedges
½ cup heavy cream
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
将烤箱预热至350°F。
In a large casserole dish, brown the chicken parts in one tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat until golden. Remove and set aside. Reserve the chicken fat. Add the bacon to the dish and fry over medium heat until crisp, then remove and reserve. If the bacon released a lot of fat, discard that as well. To the same pan, add the shallot, celery, and two sprigs of thyme and cook until soft but not colored, for five to seven minutes. Add the garlic and cook thirty seconds longer, while stirring.
Deglaze the pan with some brandy and stir, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Add the flour and stir until it’s combined with the fat and turns into a paste, then slowly add the chicken stock and stir until the mixture resembles a thick gravy, then pour in the apple cider and stir to combine. Return the chicken and bacon to the dish, along with three more sprigs of thyme, and bring to a boil.
Cover, place in the preheated oven, and cook for thirty minutes. Uncover and cook for thirty minutes more. While the chicken is in the oven, fry the apple wedges in two tablespoons of the reserved chicken fat. Do not let them burn.
Take the casserole out of the oven, add the heavy cream, and cook for twenty minutes more. Taste and adjust seasonings for salt and pepper. Stir in the fried apple wedges just before serving.
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Sweet Omelet with Jam
2个蛋
2 teaspoons sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 tsp butter
Jam to serve
Separate one of the eggs and whisk the white until it holds soft peaks. In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, vanilla, remaining egg, and remaining egg yolk. Gently fold in the whisked white.
Melt the butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the egg mixture and fry until set on the bottom and firm enough to hold its shape. Flip and finish cooking. Spread the jam on one half of the omelet, fold over, and serve immediately.
Photograph by Erica Maclean.
Valerie Stivers is a writer based in New York. Read earlier installments ofEat Your Words.