Creating Fictional Food

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Judy Penz Sheluk

Let me start by saying I’m a terrible cook. I can make a decent veggie lasagna, and my mac and cheese is better than most, but that’s about where my repertoire ends. No one knows this better than my long-suffering husband, Mike (who is, by the way, an excellent cook), but he came into our relationship eyes wide open. The first time he stayed overnight, I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. I expected him to say cereal, or toast and peanut butter, but he asked for scrambled eggs. When he caught me looking in my trusting Betty Crocker cookbook for the recipe—yes I needed a recipe—he could have cut and run. But he stayed, probably thinking my culinary abilities would improve with age.

Fast forward three decades, and I’m now writing murder mysteries. And while I don’t write the sort of cozy that includes recipes in the book, food definitely plays a part.

In my latest book, Past & Present, my protagonist, Callie Barnstable makes homemade croutons and a tourtiere (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a French Canadian meat pie, traditionally served around the Christmas holidays).

Have I ever made croutons? Of course not. There are perfectly good ones available at any grocery story. What about a tourtiere? A pie of any sort? Another no (unless you consider one of those Bisquick Impossible Pies a pie…I’ve made a few of those with limited success).

Now, you might be thinking, “how can a terrible cook create fictional food, let alone write about it?” Well, the internet helps with the plethora of recipes, but I do have to tweak anything I find to make it my own. And photos…I either have to make it, get a friend to make it (yes, I have resorted to that with Tourtiere — I don’t eat beef or pork), or find a royalty-free photo online (wikipedia commons and morguefile are both good resources). In the end, though, it’s mostly about letting my imagination run wild, sort of like creating a fictional town, character or setting. And what can be more fun than that?

Garlic Butter Croutons

PS: you can find my recipes for Easy Peasy Veggie Lasagna, Garlic Butter Croutons, Tourtiere and more on my website’s Food & Drink page.

Tourtiere

Easy Peasy Veggie Lasagna