'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).' (Publication summary)
Contents indexed selectively.
In this chapter 'Rachel Franks and Alistair Rolls investigate food and its role in two of Australian Upfield's Napoleon Bonaparte novels. In particular, they examine food as an important element of storytelling, as well as a signal of indigenous identity, gender relations, ethnicity and class lines. In addition, Franks and Rolls discuss the ways in which food brings literary reflexivity into focus.' (Introduction 10)
'In English, we might claim we could “murder a good steak”. Italian and Spanish speakers might “kill for a coffee”, and Germans refer to acute hunger as Mordshunger or murderhunger – but do people really kill for food?' '
'In English, we might claim we could “murder a good steak”. Italian and Spanish speakers might “kill for a coffee”, and Germans refer to acute hunger as Mordshunger or murderhunger – but do people really kill for food?' '
