Local author brings Greek chef back for seconds

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2014 (4420 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg mystery writer Karen Dudley’s latest fantasy novel demonstrates once again that she has a taste for tall tales. And once again she travels through time to ancient Greece for a mash-up that mixes a good nosh with nonsense.

Dudley has always shown an affection for the eclectic circus approach to her subject matter, moving from non-fiction wildlife titles to her environmental mysteries featuring Robyn Devara, and most recently into fantasy.

Kraken Bake continues the successful style of Food for the Gods. The good news is you don’t have to have read the earlier one to savour the new one.

Once again Chef Pelops, who was cut up and served to the gods before being reconstituted in the first book, is beset with difficulties. Having angered Poseidon by having turned down his offer of hanky-panky, he finds his cooking skills fail him when it comes to preparing kraken (rhymes with bracken). Which is too bad; there’s a lot of it around since Perseus slew the great beast, and bits of it keep washing up on shore. Who knew the gods could be so petty?

Pelops’ problems multiply with the announcement of a Bronze Chef competition (with a mystery ingredient), as well as the revelation that the woman he loves is to marry his best friend.

And, of course, being in the food business, he has a cash-flow problem.

Dudley never met a Greek god she didn’t like, and so they appear and are introduced in a steady stream. A randy, spiteful lot they are — party-goers, often unscrupulous shape-shifters, and when two of them, Dionysus and Hermes, offer to help Pelops, his plot begins to boil.

Hermogenes, Pelops’ right-hand man, gets to work marketing his boss, and that means marketing his skill as well as his looks (both hair and clothing) and finding a suitable sponsor.

The tale takes a twist when Perseus, the mighty Kraken slayer, arrives on the scene with his winged horse, Pegasus. Perseus turns out to be an awesome dude with the brain of a pea and the manners of a goat.

Turns out he’s also related to Pelops, although distantly is what Pelops comes to wish for, as the scrapes and the Greek equivalent of multiple faux-pas come fast and wincingly furious.

Imagine a London-accented stage production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with, say, Frankie Howerd as the naughty slave Pseudolus (in this case named Hermogenes), now a free man but with a mouth on him like a Cockney barrow boy.

Add a recipe or two in a plummy voice from Julia Childs (and there really are recipes to try) and simmer with a dollop of boy-loses-girl romance.

The silliness describing the day-to-day life of a Greek city would seem over-the-top and straight out the great Canadian comedy team of Wayne and Shuster (who took a similar approach to things Roman with Rinse the Blood Off My Toga), except that enough graffiti has been uncovered to indicate Dudley’s not far off the mark describing life on the streets, in the marketplace and in the homes.

Indeed, one Winnipeg classics professor spotted reading Kraken Bake was overheard to say, “She doesn’t get much wrong.”

To sum up, then: “Too silly” (as Monty Python might have said), never half-baked, and ending with a suggestion that Chef Pelops could make a return appearance in another novel.

It’s on the knees of the gods.

 

Ron Robinson is a Winnipeg broadcaster who loves baklava.