Blood on the Table

Written from a multicultural and interdisciplinary perspective, this collection of new essays explores the semiotics of food in the 20th- and 21st-century crime fiction of authors such as Anthony Bourdain, Arthur Upfield, Sara Paretsky, Andrea Camilleri, Fred Vargas, Ruth Rendell, Stieg Larsson, Leonardo Padura, Georges Simenon, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, and Donna Leon. The collection covers a range of issues, such as the provision of intra-, peri- or paratextual recipes, the aesthetics and ethics of food, eating rituals as indications of cultural belonging, and regional, national and supranational identities. It also tackles eating disorders and other seemingly abnormal habits as signs of “Otherness.” Also mentioned are the television productions of the Inspector Montalbano series (1999–ongoing), the Danish-Swedish Bron/Broen (2011, The Bridge), and its remakes The Tunnel (2013, France/UK) and The Bridge (2013, USA).

Jean Anderson is an Associate Professor of French at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

Carolina Miranda is the Director of European and Latin American languages and cultures at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

Barbara Pezzotti teaches Italian Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and is an Honorary Research Associate of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS). She is the author of three monographs on Italian crime fiction.

Edited by Jean Anderson, Carolina Miranda and Barbara Pezzotti

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 191
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7175-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3274-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
Introduction 4
Recipes for Murder: Crime Fiction, Food and the Imagination (Jean Anderson) 13
The Chef, in the Kitchen, with the Knife: Anthony Bourdain’s Culinary Crime Fiction (Angelica Michelis) 28
Arancini and Crime Fiction: The Aesthetics of Food in the Inspector Montalbano Franchise (Alfio Leotta) 39
Dying for Foie Gras: Murder, Politics and Ethical Food Production (Heike Henderson) 52
Food and Gender in Crime Fiction: Attitudes to Food and Eating Among Female Detectives (Andrea Hynynen) 63
What’s Eating Her? Anorexia and Female Identity in Ruth Rendell’s Domestic Noir Novella Heartstones (Charlotte Beyer) 75
Food as a Marker of Social Otherness: Lisbeth Salander’s Eating Habits (Jennifer Grünewald) 87
Ajiaco, Rum and Coffee: Food and Identity in Leonardo Padura’s Detective Fiction (Diana Battaglia) 99
Food for Thought: Italy’s Detectives Brunetti and Montalbano (Linda ­Ledford-Miller) 113
Food as the Detective’s Tool in the Héctor Belascoarán Shayne Series (Linda M. Crawford) 124
Serving Up Clues to Maigret: Food in the Crime Fiction of Georges Simenon (Barbara M. Stone) 137
Making a Meal of It: Food as a Symbol of Degrees of Fiction in the Novels of Arthur Upfield (Rachel Franks and Alistair Rolls) 150
Bridging the Gap? Investigating Food and Identity in Transnational Television Series (Carolina Miranda and Barbara Pezzotti) 163
Afterword 175
About the Contributors 179
Index 181