Not all private eyes live out of their office and consume bath-tub hooch from paper bags. There is a well documented association of detectives with good food and fine vintages. This even includes those who, though hot on the trail, have put down their magnifying glass in preference to taking up the skillet. In the former category: Lord Peter Wimsey, Miss Jane Marple and Nick and Nora Charles, seem to me to top the list. In the latter, there are the fastidious gourmets and hands-on chefs: Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason and of course by far the epitome of epicurean detectives; Rex Stout's amazing creation, Nero Wolfe.
Left a still from 'The Case of the Curious Bride', filmed in 1935 and starring the wonderful Warren William as Perry Mason. The establishment shots have Perry and the Coroner choosing crabs for crabe à la bordelaise which later, due to a deficit in the wine cellar, turns into à la chablisienne. I will hopefully be making this recipe too but in the meantime there's E.F. Benson's
crabe à la Riseholme
With the arrival of the title character and the machinations of crime, Perry and his friends finish their gourmet meal with café royale a variation of Parisienne or French Coffee, probably with Bourbon or Cognac, in the morgue!
Rex Stout, however with Nero Wolfe, took the gastronome sleuth to a whole new level and with each case playing out against a background of cordon bleu meals and vociferous arguments with his chef Fritz. One case in particular; 'Murder is Corny' hinges upon Wolfe's fine understanding of the optimum time for harvesting sweet corn. This is reminiscent of an earlier confrere, Mr Sherlock Holmes who remarked in 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons' :
"You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day."
Like Holmes, Wolfe is a person of incredible self-belief, he will brook no argument as to his ability and opinions, his recipes, 40 minute scrambled eggs included, demand a similar blind faith from the reader too.
“Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef's ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish.”
Nevertheless, the first time I ever made this recipe I was very happy to be using sweet corn which was free, gratis and for nothing from the box of debris I get from my local organic shop. The reason for ambrosia ending up in the trash being, that in rural France, people don't really go for sweet corn on the husk. Two decades ago when I inadvertently mentioned another roasted favourite of ours, I was told unceremoniously that: 'parsnips are for pigs'. Similarly a great percentage of maize grown in this country is processed in situ at harvest, with the whole plant finely chopped up and carried off to be made into silage. Times change however and not only are parsnips now sold at our organic shop and people buy and eat them but French friends even recommend them to me.
Last year, when I was first considering making Wolfe's corn recipe, I was thinking that at that high a temperature, if I ended up with burnt corn, at least we would not be out of pocket. I should have known though that Nero Wolfe was right, after all, in his books Rex Stout has him constantly reminding us of the fact. Like Holmes with his parsley, Wolfe understood the science involved, in that the corn had to be exactly at the correct level of moisture on picking so as to roast and steam to perfection. Ambrosia was/is the right description for this dish of roasted corn. Sadly though when I went back to the shop, there was no corn to be had, the season being so short. So I've had to wait until this year to make it again. Even so there were only 10 ears on offer and I bagged 2, which at Euros 1.40 a piece is not surprising.
I cooked mine at 230°C - 450°F although I have read of others going up to 550°F - 290°C! However, I find that the former temperature works well and anyway we have a woodcooker and hand-saw our wood so there's no point in making more work than is needed. After 40 minutes you just follow Wolfe's advice, add butter and sink your teeth into..ambrosia.
From the image above I deduce that two people have just eaten Nero Wolfe's delicious roasted corn.
If you've enjoyed this recipe and would like to comment and/or share it on social media, please feel free to do so. I would also like to hear from anyone who also has an interest in cooking recipes from literature and films.
I hope you will join me here again for another recipe from an old farm house in Normandie in the meantime all the very best,
Sue
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© Sue Cross 2019
