Food and Crime Fiction

With a series of detective novels set in 17th century Dai-Viet that showcase the traditions, beliefs and customs of an exotic culture, in which the food and food habits of the Vietnamese people play a prominent role, Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut, an engineer-turned-novelist of Vietnamese origins, has carved a niche for herself in the popular crime fiction market in France. This paper focuses on the novel Les Travers du Docteur Porc, in which Doctor Porc, forensic investigator and gourmand extraordinaire, adopts the mantle of chief detective from Tran-Nhut’s usual protagonist, the loyal mandarin Tan. In this movement, we argue, the author has shaped two different but complementary approaches to her birth-country’s turbulent past that coalesce in the gargantuan figure of the (politically unencumbered) doctor and connoisseur of Vietnamese cuisine. Whereas the process of ‘solving the crime’ can be read as an attempt to seek answers and restore order in the wake of senseless bloodshed, it is food, we contend, that emerges, not only as a source of pleasure, succour and stability, but as a cultural heritage that war and upheaval failed to destroy

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Food culture · Linguistics · Pleasure · Political science · Sociology · Tourism · Vietnamese · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

• Le Palais du mandarin (2009) de Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut

  Open Access•Tess Do•French Cultural Studies•2015

  Incluir item

• The Pursuit of Crime

  John Michael, Dennis Porter•Modern Language Notes•1982

  Incluir item

• Investigating Identities

  Robert A Rushing•Comparative Literature Studies•2012

  Incluir item

• Mythologiques. Le cru et le cuit

  F-A Isambert, François André Isambert et al.•Revue Française de Sociologie•1965

  Incluir item