Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Dining with Sherlock Holmes (1976) Rosenblatt & Sonnenschmidt - Post 6


My Post No. 1 pointed out that the modern era of Sherlock Holmes fandom began—gaining overnight an unprecedented popularity—when Nicholas Meyer and Dutton Publishers brought out The Seven-Per-Cent Solution in 1974. Of course, for decades before then, many Sherlockian organizations existed with local branches all over the world. Yet these Baker Street Irregulars, as they were sometimes called, in whole or in part, had an underground existence with members from all walks of life, which members consistently wrote, according to the authors of Dining with Sherlock Holmes, "volumes about the experiences and habits of the Great Detective of Baker Street. The literature of the field known as the Writings on the Writings or the Higher Criticism has spawned endless discourse over the most minute details of Holmes' life and 'death.'"

Throughout the year, both then and now, in the USA and overseas, regular celebrations and parties and tributes and gatherings were held to honor Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and their noted agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Restaurants were sometimes dressed to recreate the famous rooms at 221B Baker Street. From more pipes and cigars than any ordinary person would ever encounter in one place, wafted vast columns and volumes of noxious smoke, for the attendees of these functions cherished and emulated Holmes' use of tobacco. The irony is that these attendees more often than not were professionals, including all kinds of doctors of medicine.

Further, these get-togethers  usually included elaborate illustrated formal presentations wherein the presenters gave dead-serious analysis of why Holmes was tall and angular, or why Watson couldn't remember where his war wound was located, or, for that matter, why it was that he sometimes lost track of his various marriages.

Similarly, from this environment issued countless volumes of specialized reasoning, published in small batches destined for the confreres of this esoteric order.

Yet, as busy and as devoted as this widespread clique of fans were, their activities were known mainly to themselves. Yes, of course, there were countless Holmes movies that kept the character's flame alive.  Nevertheless, the more serious-minded tended to look disdainfully at these celluloid outings. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution changed all that. Overnight, Holmes became big business and a household word. A torrent of books, novels, and story anthologies quickly issued from the publishing industry, and I must admit that when I picked up this cookbook and saw that it was published in 1976, a mere two years after The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, I naturally believed it was yet another volume to hop on the Sherlock Holmes bandwagon. Yet as I investigated the book, the more I realized that it was more likely that this book was in the process of development long before 1974 and that it was, in fact, meant to be one of those specialized volumes for the Irregular community, but was deemed complete enough and singular enough that it was granted a broader distribution and became a part of the post-Seven-Per-Cent Solution wave in any case.

The purpose of this book is to provide recipes for the many meals that Mrs Hudson cooked for her illustrious boarders, as well as for dozens of other meals that appear in the Canon. Some examples:  stuffed lemon piquant, spinach tarts, roast chicken Lestrade, English dill loaf, cold woodcock, bread pudding, white wine sherbet, glazed turnips, and, my personal favorite beefsteak and kidney pie, and 220 pages of such delights.