The Nero Wolfe Cookbook

The recipes in this book are a bit more complicated or refined than I would normally cook, but they are great fun if you are a Nero Wolfe fan.
The few I've tried are good, too.

This is a wonderful book. It helps to know the setting (which makes the illustrative passages more relevant), but it's not needed.

Taken from the Nero Wolfe mysteries, by Rex Stout, it sits with "Lobscouse and Spotted Dog" as a cookbook where in all the recipes are based on references to food in a

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set of novels (and the same could be done from Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, but the scope of food is a lot less).

The foods are often rich, and the ingredients pricey, but for a slice of life the way the well to do in Europe might have eaten in the earlier part of the 20th century, it's unparalleled.

The directions are easy to follow, (though some of the dishes are quite complex, and not really doable by most home cooks) and the descriptions useful. If you've read the books, and been interested in the food, this is the book for you.

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This is a great addition to the library of any serious Nero Wolfe fan. You can truly get the feel of what a good cook (Fritz) went through on a daily basis to prepare meals for the great man. In addition, it's a great look into how people used to eat (and wish they still did) in the days before we

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were all concerned with trans fats, calories, cholesterol, fiber in the diet, the hazards of red meat, and so forth.

I have tried a couple of the simpler recipes, and they are very good, so it is also possible to actually use this book as a true cookbook.

Really, though, it's just a great side light to the Nero Wolfe series and I heartily recommend it.

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One of the amazing things about this particular cookbook is, that you don't really have to like mystery stories to enjoy it. It is so well put together with excerpts, commentary, recipes, instructions, that it is eminently readable by any one.

As an historical note, it is an encapsulation of

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American eating habits of the time period--whether or not it was "good" for you.

And, as a bonus, it introduces the unaware to one of the truly great fictional creations in all time--the great (in so many ways) Nero Wolf.

May it never go out of print!

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This is one of those cookbooks I would call "unique" just because it isn't just a bunch of recipes with a common theme. This cookbook is for the diehard Nero Wolfe fans who really want to submerge themselves in his world. It's a great concept. I don't know how many readers actually tried to cook

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these meals, but they are real, honest-to-goodness recipes, albeit with weird ingredients like kummel, kirschwasser, sauterne, and pig livers. There is a whole chapter on just corn (note to self: try the roasting of corn in their husks instead of the traditional steaming). Throughout the recipes are little snippets of Wolfe's unique relationship with food. I found it interesting that he can't stand to have hungry visitors, even if those same visitors are thought to be suspects.

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