AustLit

'Food has been receiving an increasing amount of scholarly attention, with researchers exploring every aspect of selection, preparation and consumption and, so too is the idea of food in fiction. In creating stories, from short -run paperbacks to prize-winning novels, writers utilise food to communicate the everyday and to explore more complex concepts such as the class system and cultural diversity. Food also has the capacity to add realism to fiction with many authors putting as much effort into conjuring the smell, taste and texture of food as they do in bringing their characters to life. This article is an investigation of how cookbooks and fictional works are reflections of each other in terms of creativity, function and structure: they tell us stories, provide education and have neat beginnings, middles and ends. In some instances the two forms are so closely entwined that a volume will concurrently share a narrative while providing instruction in the culinary arts. In particular, this article explores the recipes found within crime fiction, a genre that has a long history of focusing on food in a variety of contexts; from the theft of food in the novels of the nineteenth century to the more modern utilisation of various types of food to administer poison. Recent years have also seen some crime fiction writers proffer a central protagonist working within the food industry, drawing connections between the skills that are required for food preparation and those needed to catch a murderer. ' (Author's abstract)