In Pursuit of Spenser (17 page)

“What’ll you charge not to tell?” I said. “Makes a mess of my image.”

She went on without pausing. “And I shall in a way always love you for those moments.” Her glass was empty. I filled it. “But I am a lesbian and a feminist. You still embody much that I must continue to disparage.” She had trouble with disparage. “I still disapprove of you.”

“Rachel,” I said, “how could I respect anyone who didn’t disapprove of me?”

A pretty open-minded and thoughtful response.

So where did Spenser get his enlightened attitude toward women? One would think that he grew up in an urban household with lots of women, or a strong mom, or a strong aunt. And one would be wrong. Spenser was born in Laramie, Wyoming, and his mom died in childbirth. He was raised by
his dad and his two uncles—all carpenters—and then moved with his family to Boston at a young age, where he got a football scholarship at Holy Cross.

The womanly influence, then . . . where did it come from?

From his creator, of course.

My wife, Mona, an avid reader of mysteries herself, likes to think that Parker grew to appreciate strong, independent women when he attended Colby College in Maine, my wife’s alma mater and a known incubator of strong, smart women, like the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Maybe so. But here’s Parker himself, talking about his (and no doubt Spenser’s) view of women:

I have known an interesting, sexy, independent woman for some 50 years and have had many opportunities to observe her in many different situations. And one of the many things I have learned during the course of our relationship is that ultimately the things that separate women from men are less significant than the things that we have in common with each other.

What a great yet simple explanation of why Spenser was Spenser. Seeing women as equals, as partners to enjoy and cherish along life’s bumpy path.

And along the way, if you drank some Pilsner Urquell along with fresh crabmeat, sautéed in olive oil and white wine with red and yellow and green peppers, with mushrooms, and served over rice, well, that just makes it much more memorable.

Just like Spenser.

| LYNDSAY FAYE |

“Scotch and soda,” I said, “lemon chicken, and thou.”

—Spenser to Susan,
Hundred-Dollar Baby

ROBERT B. PARKER’S
iconic Boston private detective Spenser is a true gourmet not only in that he creates and appreciates fine food, but in that he understands the fundamental principle of eating: food is about love. Having worked in restaurants from suburban chains to Park Avenue flagships, immersed in the culture that accompanies food enthusiasm, it has become clear to me that gastronomes exist in many incarnations, and some of them fail to follow this precept.

The chef de cuisine of BLT Steak (a talented fellow who was selected by Laurent Tourondel and remains the creator of the best Chinese five-spice rubbed duck breast I’ve ever eaten) once remarked to me that there is a difference between people who collect experiences at trendy restaurants
for trophies, consuming delicacies like sea urchin and bone marrow simply for bragging rights, and people who instead want the shared communion of a memorable meal (at which sea urchin and bone marrow could certainly appear). “Foodies” are frequently charged with pretension and elitism, and often rightfully so, but in my opinion exclusivity is the exact antithesis of truly fine dining. When food is about love, then food matters, and loving food is elevated from a hobby some might call absurdly self-indulgent to a lifestyle that celebrates our time on the planet and with each other. Without doubt, Spenser falls into the latter category, and his attitude toward food thus becomes one of his most endearing character traits.

Previous to Spenser, food could not have been pegged as any sort of defining interest in the life of many private detectives (Nero Wolfe being a notable exception), in part because private detectives were such lone wolves as to be positively anti-domestic. To name but a few examples, Sherlock Holmes’ attitude towards food is to avoid it entirely—though admittedly he is capable of appreciating a brace of woodcock or a good Scots breakfast on those rare occasions when he is neither the victim of ennui nor of near-manic brainwork, and once planned so far ahead as to shove a sandwich in his trouser pocket. God forbid, however, that any Victorian gentleman be called upon to cook his own meal.

Philip Marlowe will deign to eat food, but the allure of repast offers only a pale shadow of the comfort that he finds in occasional swigs of neat liquor and, more importantly, in his ever-present cigarettes. Although Sam Spade is perfectly willing to consume lunch and dinner, in such establishments as Herbert’s Grill on Powell Street or the Palace Hotel on Geary, he is seldom interested enough in the fare to report what he actually ordered, whether it was any good, or why.
Pickled pigs’ feet make an appearance to represent bar fare, as do scrambled eggs with bacon, toast, and marmalade in a more domestic setting, but they are incidental items and in no way does eating them affect Spade. All three detectives eat for utility and remain entirely disengaged from the act of dining itself.

By contrast, Spenser’s entire outlook can be shifted by means of a perfectly rendered snack. In
Hugger Mugger
, for instance, he remarks, “The donuts were everything donuts should be, and the bright beginning of the day contained the prospect of unlimited possibility.” It is difficult to imagine Spade evincing the same emotional reaction to a pig’s foot. But it is equally difficult to imagine Sam Spade as blissfully contented in love, or to conceive of Philip Marlowe finding an untroubled domestic arrangement, or to imagine Sherlock Holmes going within ten feet of any female whosoever. Spenser’s relationship with food differs from Holmes’, Marlowe’s, and Spade’s because he is a different man than they are: a man possessed of warm and, at times, even uncomplicated domestic ties.

The warmth so evident in Spenser’s makeup is of course primarily devoted to Susan Silverman. As Spenser’s longtime friend Hawk remarks in
Now and Then
, “You love her . . . More than I ever seen anybody love anything.” The mere fact of Spenser’s commitment to a passionate and monogamous affair with an intelligent, wry, capable female forever altered the landscape of hardboiled detective fiction. Whether the romantic interludes are to the tastes of the more cynical readers of dark crime fiction is debatable, but surely no one doubts that Spenser’s love life adds a great many human facets to the ex-boxer and ex–state trooper tough guy.

Spenser’s own opinion of his relationship with Susan is that their differences wholly complement one another
despite the fact that they are not alike. In
Painted Ladies
, he muses, “What we had in common was that we loved each other. What was different was everything else. She could feel deeply and think deeply, but she tended to rely more on the thinking. I was probably inclined somewhat the other way.” In
Crimson Joy
, he goes so far as to say to Susan, “It’s not only that I love you. You complete my every shortfall.” It is impossible to imagine words of this tenor emerging from the mouths of Holmes, Marlowe, or Spade, and I would equally argue that it is this quality of completion that defines Spenser as a food-lover. He is no aloof iconoclast, divorced from humanity’s softer emotions save for a friendship with an army doctor and occasional violin rhapsodies. Neither is he a hard-drinking PI roaming the mean streets without so much as a secretary as ally, nor a “hard and shifty fellow” destined to break the hearts of femme fatales. Rather, Spenser is a spiritually open man deeply invested in family life, and from the moment of falling in love with Susan, he gains the perfect audience for his forays into the heights of culinary exertion. The meals he creates for her are, in the truest sense, a series of love letters. When Spenser is most engaged emotionally, it is with Susan, and when he engages most deeply with food, it is in the context of their relationship.

Food for Spenser is an art, but it is a refreshingly unpretentious art, and he prefers to practice his hobby at home, hands-on, than to indulge himself at chic establishments. In
Painted Ladies
, Spenser says, “We sat at the bar. The Harvest was a bit elegant for the likes of me. I was probably the only guy in the place wearing a gun. I asked for a beer.” While pork tenderloin en croute (featured in
God Save the Child
) is a Spenser effort so delicate, tricky, and time-consuming that I would never dream of serving it save for a dinner party of my closest friends and relations, he also makes johnnycakes (in
Ceremony
), a cornmeal
and water pancake concoction that is so old-timey and simple that Civil War soldiers would have eaten it within camp when they could get their hands on the flour.

Spenser also has a sense of humor about food, an ironic perspective less smug than the wit he wields against antagonists; more good-natured. In
Chance
, he reports, “I ordered something called a Roman salad. I didn’t know what it was, but Vegas was very taken with ancient Rome, and I wanted to be with it.” The aforementioned salad turns out to be a normal green dinner salad with the improbable elements of green olives and artichoke hearts added in, as Spenser informs us in a dryly distant fashion. And thus we are made aware that food is not about hat tricks for him, posh ingredients dressed up to look like special effects. Spenser is not a “foodie” in the trophy-hunting sense; Spenser is, instead, a lover of food. The distinction is an important one.

The food Spenser makes himself, often for Susan, has soul. The venison chops marinated in red wine and rosemary he creates for her at the end of
Chance
are served alongside yellow-eye beans baked in an “old-fashioned brown and tan” pot, as well as classic cornbread and bread pudding with whiskey sauce. That the food is for Susan matters, but that the beans are cooked in an old-fashioned pot matters, too. Kitchen equipment, in particular non-electronic items like casserole dishes, cast iron skillets, and pots, acquire profound character by means of their past achievements, imparting flavor and an indefinable spirit of legacy to otherwise humble dishes. When a cooking vessel has a history, it will produce superior food. I have no doubt that Spenser’s recipe for yellow-eye beans elevated the humble bean to the level of a gorgeous venison accompaniment, and I hope that bacon was involved somehow, but I also appreciate the fact that he understands that beans baked in an
old pot are better. Cornbread baked in my grandmother’s cast iron skillet is also better, and though Spenser’s cornbread technique is unrecorded other than with the note that a “pan” is used, my hope is that it was a venerable pan, and worthy of association with the old-fashioned brown and tan pot. Were I making yellow-eye beans for dinner tonight, I would employ the much-used purple Le Creuset casserole pot that one of my closest friends left at my house after a recent barbecue for which she made dirty rice, and I’d ask her over to eat them. I would do this because food is about relationships, and I think that Spenser, if I chatted with him about it, would agree with me.

When I’ve cooked at home, I have made everything from Thai curry staples to garlic scape risotto with poached egg to rabbit carnitas over carrot mint puree, but these concoctions must inevitably be
for
someone. Alone, when my husband is working and I am writing, my most often repeated dinners include: tinned sardines with crackers; corn tortillas warmed in a pan with grated cheddar and slices of pickled jalapeno; that timelessly delectable classic, Top Ramen, with the addition of fresh pepper and a liberal dash of sesame oil; and leftovers, always eaten straight from the plastic container.

Spenser likewise cooks, when he does cook, for an audience. When Spenser first cooks pork tenderloin en croute for Susan in
God Save the Child
, he watches her avidly during the meal. He observes, “She ate with pleasure and impeccable style,” and one wonders, had Susan been picky or critical or faddish or apathetic or whiny about food, whether their relationship would ever have gone anywhere. One has doubts.

Susan, meanwhile, finds Spenser’s proficiency in the kitchen amazing, possibly because she owns no such technical skill herself. Her function as domestic partner in the Spenser series
inevitably grows to mean Primary Eater of Spenser’s Home Cooking. Of her own prowess in the kitchen, Spenser says in
Hundred-Dollar Baby
, “She was halfway into the preparation for some sort of chicken in a pot. As she spoke she chopped carrots on a cutting board. It was slow going and I feared for her fingers, but I was smart enough to make no comment.”

Not only is Spenser’s love of food tied up in his love of Susan, but he himself is well aware of the fact. Perhaps it is true that his appreciation of fine cuisine predates
God Save the Child
, in which Susan is introduced. But as is so often the case with significant others, Susan grows to be the axis of Spenser’s food hobby. In
Hundred-Dollar Baby
, during a stint of investigating out of town, he says, “We had been five days in New York. I was sick of room service, sick of eating out, sick of not being at home. I missed Susan.” Room service (impersonal food) and eating out (impersonal food) equals not being at home (personal food) equals missing Susan (who eats the personal food with Spenser). I have never seen a passage better illustrating the point that shared food is the best food, that when food is not domestic it is less satisfying, that the depth of emotion that the act of eating can grow to be entangled in is profound.