After gorging myself on the Donna Leon Brunetti books set in Venice I cast about for another Italian detective/policeman and came up with Inspector Montalbano in the books by Andrea Camilleri. He lives in Sicily as far away from Venice as possible but I just thought Oh yippee Italy and started to read them expecting to fall in love with them as swiftly as I had with those of Leon.
Well, I didn't. I read the first two and found them very indifferent and rather boring. I found Montalbano to be a character who had no attractions for me whatsoever and as different from the gorgeous Guido Brunetti as it can possibly be. Whereas Brunetti is happily married to Paola (thought there are hints in the later books that he is falling in love with Elletra at the Questura) with two children, Salvatoro Montalbano lives on his own, Livia his lover lives miles away and drops in now and then, he is obviously tempted by Ingrid a Swedish woman who keeps popping up at intervals, and he appears to have no home life at all.
Because I know and love Venice, I delighted in the descriptions of that wonderful city. Though I do not know every byway Guido takes when travelling around the city, there are enough mentions of churches and places that are familiar to me so that I can place him and this gives me a nice feeling. I know nothing of the landscape of Sicily which could not be more different from my beloved Venice and I found the books somewhat alienating.
But then I found that I gradually began to like them. Why did I continue reading them when I was not keen? Because I am a sucker for a series of books, the knowledge that there were several of them for me to find and would keep me going - simple as that. I read them in a haphazard kind of way, totally out of order and then after half a dozen found I was hooked and that Montalbano had a dry wit and a caustic sense of humour that appealed to me and I found I was enjoying them. I then did the usual and read all the outstanding ones over the last few weeks, have re-read a huge pile of the Donna Leon ouevre and now of course am stuck again and waiting for the next ones from the pens of these two authors to be published. I have to wait till June and then they will be mine....
On paper these two men, Brunetti and Montalbano do not have much in common apart from their profession, though it would appear that they are two incorruptibles in a cess pit of backhanders, conspiracy and scandal amongst the great and the good in both cities, but the one thing that you cannot help noticing is how much they love their food. Brunetti always tries to get home for lunch no matter what and this is always described so beautifully that you can feel your mouth watering:
"He sat and lifted the kitchen towel spread across the board and exposed the half wheel of golden polenta, still warm and now grown firm beneath it........and spooned liver and onions onto his plate then added a broad wedge of polenta. He speared a piece of liver with his fork, pushed onions on top of it with his knife and then began to eat. For dessert there were figs. He took his knife and began to peel one, when he had one with juice running down both hands he cut it in half and handed the larger piece to Paola......she poured them both glasses of port and borught them to the table, sweet, it caught up with the lingering taste of fig"
Now, we turn to Montalbano who I have to say seems to be real glutton. His housekeeper, a cook of great skill and taste, leaves meals for him in the fridge. He never knows what he is going to get and is always thrilled and delighted to see what is there. He is also a well known figure in all the local restaurants and trattorias and seems to take incredibly long lunch breaks and then has to fight of sleep all afternoon.
"Back in the house he opened his refrigerator. Adelina must have come down with a acute form of vegetarianism. Caponata and a sublime pasticcio of articholes and spinach. He set the table on the verandah and wolfed the caponata as the pasticcio heated up"
and later he receives a gift of food from the alluring Ingrid:
"He opened it and realised it was insulated. Inside there were five round, transparent plastic containers in which he could see large fillets of pickled herring swimming in multicoloured sauces, there was also a whole smoked salmon........first thing he did when he got home was attack the salmon. A hefty slice dressed with fresh lemon juice and a special oliver oil given him by the person who had made it ..the virginity of this olive oil has been certified by a gynaecologist said the little ticket that had come with it"
No matter how awful the day has been, how dreadful the sights that have greeted them, both Guido and Salvatoro find consolation in food. I find the descriptions of these marvellous meals and the wine they drink spaced out beautifully in all of these books, as a way of anchoring not only the two policemen, but gives us the readers time to reflect also on the happenings and the possible answers to the case.
I adore italy, always have done, history, music, food, wine - the lot. When I read these books I cannot help but laughing and contrasting them with English detective fiction and the place of food within. In the Bill Slider stories by Cynthia Harrod Eagles, Slider has a friend who loves to cook, there are mentions of fine food in the Ngaio Marsh stories but these are few and far between, though we are sure that Alleyn must be a lover of cuisine, and Lord Peter of course has a good palate, but on the whole the over riding memory of food and its place in your average detetive fiction seems to consist of rushed meals, Macdonalds, hamburgers and other ghastly food. In the case of Inspector Frost, a much darker and more unpleasant character than the one we know and love from the TV series, his entire eating habits seem to be centred around fry ups in the police canteen or grabbing chicken tikka masala sandwiches from filling stations.
British detective fiction and hamburgers and sarnies versus Italy and pasta with artichokes and olive oil.
No contest really but if I have it wrong and anybody can come up with examples of food in Uk and US detective fiction which is worthy of a mention please let me know. And yes, I know Hercule Porot loves his food so no need to tell me that one....
