Too Many Cooks

infobox Book |
name = Too Many Cooks
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Rex Stout
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Nero Wolfe
genre = Detective fiction
publisher = Farrar & Rinehart
release_date = August 17, 1938
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 303 pp. (first edition)
isbn = NA
preceded_by = The Red Box
followed_by = Some Buried Caesar

"Too Many Cooks" is the fifth Nero Wolfe detective novel by American mystery writer Rex Stout. The story was serialized in "The American Magazine" (March–August 1938) before its publication in book form in 1938 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. The novel was collected in the omnibus volume "Kings Full of Aces," published in 1969 by the Viking Press.

Plot introduction

Wolfe, a knowledgeable gourmet as well as a detective, attends a meeting of great chefs, "The Fifteen Masters", at a resort in West Virginia, and jealousies among them soon lead to strife; then, one of the chefs is murdered. Wolfe sustains his own injury in the course of finding the culprit but also obtains the secret recipe for "saucisse minuit".

Plot summary

Wolfe accepts an invitation to address Les Quinze Maîtres, an international group of master chefs that is holding its quinquennial meeting in West Virginia. The Kanawha Spa resort (which may have been based on the famous actual resort The Greenbrier) is located there, and the current dean of the group, Louis Servan, is the resort's chef de cuisine. Wolfe has been invited by Servan to speak on the subject of "Contributions Américaines à la Haute Cuisine". As a courtesy to Wolfe, his oldest friend, Marko Vukcic, has invited Archie to the gathering so that he can accompany Wolfe.

Wolfe is siderodromophobic, but suppresses his anxiety enough to take the 14-hour train ride from New York to Kanawha Spa. [See, for example, "And Be a Villain", where Wolfe states, "As you know, I do not trust trains either to start or, once started, to stop." (Chapter 10.)] On the way, Vukcik visits Wolfe's Pullman compartment, to introduce him to Jerome Berin, another member of the group. Berin is the originator of "saucisse minuit", a sausage whose closely guarded recipe Wolfe covets.

But things do not go smoothly with Berin. It comes out that Berin is hostile to Wolfe because he lives in the US, where Phillip Laszio also lives. Laszio, another member of Les Quinze Maîtres, seems to have made theft a habit. According to Berin, Laszio stole the secret of kidneys mountain style [An adaptation of the recipe appears in "The Nero Wolfe Cookbook".] from a friend of Berin's and claimed it as his own. Laszio stole his wife Dina from Marko Vukcic and he disparages Vukcic's roast duck Mr. Richards. He stole his position at New York's Hotel Churchill from Leon Blanc, another of the master chefs. He serves something that he calls "saucisse minuit" at the Churchill. Berin, in full flood, threatens to kill Laszio.

Hoping to acquire Berin's secret, Wolfe adopts with Berin the obsequious line that he uses some years later in an attempt to wheedle a black orchid plant from Lewis Hewitt. Berin regards Wolfe's proposal that he sell the recipe to Wolfe with astonishment and scorn. Disgusted by Wolfe's behavior, Archie leaves the Pullman for the club car, where he finds Berin's beautiful daughter Constanza.

Things progress nicely with Constanza until Archie perceives that his acquisitive instinct has been awakened, and he decides to call a halt to the progress. He gives Constanza to understand that he is married with several children. Constanza's attitude toward Archie shifts, and she manages to acquaint herself with another man in the club car by spilling her ginger ale on him. The man is Barry Tolman, the prosecuting attorney for the county where Kanawha Spa is located. Archie leaves the two in the club car to get better acquainted. (Their budding relationship continues as a minor subplot throughout the book.)

The next night, at the resort, Archie mingles with the chefs and their guests in a parlor off the dining room and adjacent kitchen. He notices that Laszio does appear to inspire hard feelings. First Rossi comes running into the parlor, carrying a steaming dish and shrieking that it had curdled – Laszio suggests that the eggs might have been old, thus insulting both Rossi and their host. Then he stares with disapproval at his wife, who is dancing with another chef. Blanc deals with Laszio by avoiding him, and Berin does so by glaring at him.

That night, after dinner, a taste test takes place. A properly prepared Printemps dressing must contain a variety of seasonings: chervil, tarragon, chives, shallots, and so on. Laszio prepares nine dishes of it, each missing a different ingredient. The masters, and Wolfe, are to taste from each dish and mark down which seasoning is missing from that dish. The tasting takes place in the dining room, with only Laszio and the current taster present.

The test begins. After the first five chefs have finished tasting, it's Berin's turn. When he returns from the dining room to the parlor, Vukcic, who is up next, is dancing with Dina. He continues to do so for several minutes, interfering with the progress of the test. Servan finally convinces Vukcic to take his turn. Then, after Vallenko and Rossi, it's Wolfe's turn. After a few minutes, Wolfe calls Archie into the dining room. Archie enters, and Wolfe shows him Laszio's body, hidden behind a room divider with a knife in his back.

The authorities are called, including Barry Tolman, the prosecuting attorney who Archie and Constanza met on the train. After hours of inquiry, Tolman decides to arrest Berin, who has already expressed a motive to kill Laszio. Furthermore, all the chefs who preceded Berin in the test saw Laszio alive and well in the dining room, but Vukcic and the other chefs who followed Berin did not. And, at Wolfe's suggestion, Tolman compares the chefs' answers to the taste test. No one other than Berin got more than two of the nine seasonings wrong, but Berin missed seven: Tolman's inference is that the murder left Berin so distraught that he couldn't judge correctly.

Meantime, Wolfe has had a visit from Raymond Liggett, Laszio's employer at the Churchill, and Alberto Malfi, Laszio's first assistant. Liggett has read of the murder in New York's morning papers and flown, with Malfi, to West Virginia to consult with Wolfe. Liggett needs to replace Laszio as soon as possible with another culinary luminary – Berin, if at all possible. Wolfe refuses to intercede for Liggett, but the question is rendered moot when Tolman arrests Berin.

Wolfe decides to do what he can to find evidence exonerating Berin. He has two reasons: having seen Berin return from the dining room after taking his turn tasting the sauce, he does not believe that Berin could have just committed murder – his demeanor is too calm. And he sees a way to put Berin in his debt.

In one of the best known scenes in the series, Wolfe meets with 14 black men, each of them a member of either the kitchen or the wait staff. A witness to the crime's aftermath has told Wolfe that she saw a black man, dressed in the livery worn by the resort's workers, in the dining room at the time that the murder occurred. The man was holding a finger to his lips, hushing another black man who was peering through the door between the dining room and the pantry. Wolfe wants to explore that statement with the kitchen and wait staff.

In contrast to the treatment the men receive from the prosecuting attorney and, particularly, the sheriff, Wolfe offers them courtesy and civility. Even that approach is bootless, though, until Wolfe makes an appeal to their sense of equity. He is looking for the man who was seen in the dining room, and says:

This speech so impresses Paul Whipple [One of the wait staff, who memorizes Wolfe's speech and repeats it in the brownstone 25 years later.] that he blurts out what he saw in the dining room from his vantage point in the pantry: a "white" man in blackface, warning him to be silent.

This information is sufficient, when presented to Tolman, to get Berin released from custody. Having accomplished his objective – to put Berin in his debt – Wolfe turns his attention to the speech he is to give. While rehearsing the speech in his room, however, Wolfe is wounded by a bullet, shot through an open window. The bullet tears his cheek open but does no other damage, and a local doctor is able to stitch the wound. But now Wolfe, enraged, returns his attention to Laszio's murder: clearly, the same person who killed Laszio tried to kill Wolfe, and Wolfe intends to deliver the murderer to Tolman.

He initiates further inquiries, carried out mainly by Saul Panzer. Despite the handicap of the facial wound, Wolfe delivers his speech regarding American cuisine, and – to the surprise of the gathered masters – continues by delivering the evidence that will convict Laszio's murderer and Wolfe's assailant. And, on the train returning to New York, Wolfe shames Berin into disclosing to him the recipe for "saucisse minuit". [The recipe is given in "The Nero Wolfe Cookbook", but no proportions are provided: Berin says that "they should vary with the climate, the season, the temperaments involved, the dishes to be eaten before and after and the wine to be served."]

The unfamiliar word

In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. "Too Many Cooks" contains these six:

*Surprise. Chapter 1. Highly unusual in the context, but allowed by the "Random House Dictionary".
*Coquine. Chapter 2.
*Sinuosities. Chapter 4.
*Werowance. Chapter 5.
*Gyves. Chapter 5.
*Gibbosity. Chapter 13.

Cast of characters

*Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
*Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories

*The members of Les Quinze Maîtres:
**Jerome Berin — The originator of "saucisse minuit"
**Marko Vukcic — Wolfe's oldest and best friend
**Phillip Laszio — A villainous chef who steals others' creations, positions and wives; the murder victim
**Leon Blanc — From whom Laszio stole, by innuendo and chicanery, the position of chef de cuisine at the Hotel Churchill in Manhattan
**Louis Servan — Host of the gathering at Kanawha Spa
**Ramsey Keith, Domenico Rossi, Pierre Mondor, Sergei Vallenko, Lawrence Coyne — Master chefs all:(Of the 15 master chefs, three are now deceased and two were unable to attend the gathering.)

*Barry Tolman — Prosecuting attorney of Marlin County
*Constanza Berin — Jerome Berin's daughter
*Dina Laszio — Wife of Phillip Laszio and ex-wife of Marko Vukcic; daughter of Domenico Rossi
*Lio Coyne — A San Franciscan of Chinese heritage and wife of Lawrence Coyne
*Paul Whipple — A student at Howard University working a temporary job on the wait staff at Kanawha Spa
*Alberto Malfi — A Corsican discovered and groomed by Berin, now Laszio's first assistant at the Churchill
*Raymond Liggett — Manager and part owner of the Churchill
*Saul Panzer — A free-lance operative, Wolfe's first choice when he can't or won't spare Archie

How old is Laszio?

A puzzle is Laszio's age. His wife Dina is Domenico Rossi's daughter. In chapter 2, Rossi complains about his son-in-law and mentions that Laszio is twice his age. In chapter 9, Wolfe notes that Laszio is twice "Dina's" age. Stout was not known for consistency in minor matters of plot.

"The American Magazine" and the "Cooks" tour

To coincide with the serialization of "Too Many Cooks" in 1938, "The American Magazine" sent Rex Stout on a national tour, described by Stout's biographer John McAleer:

:The "American"'s spring tour was perhaps the most famous promotional show in publishing history. It was indeed a travelling road show, comprised of actors, actresses, and models as well as well-known writers or subjects of articles which had appeared in the magazine. The cast was transported in a chartered Pullman; there was a baggage car for the scenery, and a revolving stage — the first of its kind. The show was scripted by Borden Chase, the Hollywood writer and novelist.

Together with golf star Gene Sarazen, Stout visited a dozen U.S. cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland, Akron, Cincinnati, Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. An editorial luncheon was given in each of the cities, with the menu made up from "Too Many Cooks". As a keepsake for guests, "The American Magazine" created a small red box in the shape of a book, containing the menu of the "Living Issue Luncheon," a statement by Nero Wolfe, and the 35 recipes that appear in "Too Many Cooks". The recipe box was wrapped with a reproduction of the title page from the story's March 1938 debut. Made up in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, the recipe box is described by McAleer as "one of the most sought-after items of Stoutiana." [McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography (1977, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316553409), pp. 276–277, 556]

Reviews and commentary

* Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, "A Catalogue of Crime" — The masterpiece among three or four by Stout that deserve the name. In addition, it is the most amusing, thanks to such incidents as Nero's being shot in yellow pajamas, the altercation over "saucisse minuit", and the triangle of Archie, the young lawyer, and the beautiful girl.Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. "A Catalogue of Crime". New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8]

* Agatha Christie — I have enjoyed a great many of his books. Archie is a splendid character to have invented and his first person remarks and descriptions are always most entertaining to read. I must also reveal that greed and the general enjoyment of food is one of my main characteristics and the descriptions of the meals served and prepared by Nero Wolfe's cook have given me a lot of pleasure and a great wish to have occasionally tasted these suggestions myself. Perhaps for that reason, I particularly liked "Too Many Cooks". [McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography (1977, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316553409), p. 263]

* Clifton Fadiman, "The New Yorker" — Nero Wolfe, bigger and better than ever, is a guest of Les Quinze Maîtres, a society of world famous chefs, at a West Virginia spa. As murder is Mr. Wolfe's business, the polite chefs oblige. By far the best and funniest of Mr. Stout's books. ["The New Yorker", August 20, 1938, p. 63]

* Marcia Kiser, "Nero Wolfe: A Social Commentary on the U.S." — Referring to Wolfe's speech to the staff at the spa, " '... the ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded.' Please note Wolfe does not include 'sex' in his list." [http://www.thrillingdetective.com/non_fiction/e002.html]

* John McAleer, "Rex Stout: A Biography" — "Too Many Cooks" is one of the finest Wolfe stories. It is the closest thing to a locked-room mystery that Rex wrote. Accounting for his failure to work in this area, Rex said: "Since the interest is focused on one spot, Nero Wolfe would have to go there, and he wouldn't like that." [McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography (1977, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316553409), pp. 555–556]

* "Time" (August 29, 1938) — Of last month's 13 mysteries, five stood out as best bets: "Too Many Cooks" — Rex Stout — Farrar & Rinehart ($2). Smooth concoction of crime and cooking in which Nero Wolfe, assisted by faithful, wisecracking Archie Goodwin, solves the murder of one of the world's 15 best chefs. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,789200,00.html]

* J. Kenneth Van Dover, "At Wolfe's Door" — The occasion of Wolfe's brief foray beyond the walls of his brownstone produces an unusual variety of characters and a very unusual non-urban setting. It also results in the fullest portrait of his gastronomical interests. The chefs are all temperamental artists, and there is much incidental discussion of the fine points of gourmet cooking. Wolfe delivers a formal address on the supremacy of native American cuisine. Race relations become an issue. Archie, prosecutor Tolman, and Sheriff Pettigrew casually employ denigrative epithets ... Wolfe condescends to the black service staff no more than he does to anyone else, and he even surprises one of the waiters, Paul Whipple, by citing a line from Paul Laurence Dunbar. Tolman and Pettigrew protest Wolfe's misguided decency. ... [Van Dover, J. Kenneth, "At Wolfe's Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout" (1991, Borgo Press, Mitford Series; second edition 2003, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers; Hardcover ISBN 091873651X / Paperback ISBN 0918736528); p. 11]

Adaptations

"Salsicce 'Mezzanotte"' (Radiotelevisione Italiana)

"Too Many Cooks" was adapted for a series of Nero Wolfe films produced by the Italian television network RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana). Directed by Giuliana Berlinguer from a teleplay by Belisario L. Randone, "Nero Wolfe: Salsicce 'Mezzanotte"' first aired February 23, 1971.

The series of black-and-white telemovies stars Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner), Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer), Roberto Pistone (Saul Panzer), Mario Righetti (Orrie Cather) and Gianfranco Varetto (Fred Durkin). Other members of the cast of "Salsicce 'Mezzanotte"' include Corrado Annicelli (Servan), Carlo Bagno (Berin), Gianni Galavotti (Liggett), Loris Gizzi (Blanc), Evelina Gori (La signora Mondor), Guido Lazzarini (Mondor), Tana Li (Lio Coyne), Walter Maestosi (Vukcic), Giuseppe Mancini (Laszio), Enrico Osterman (Coyne), Luciana Scalise (Constance Berin), Paolo Todisco (Procuratore Tolman) and Halina Zalewska (Dina Laszio).

"Zu viele Köche" (NWRV)

The North and West German Broadcasting Association adapted "Too Many Cooks" for a black-and-white telefilm that first aired February 27, 1961. Heinz Klevenow starred as Nero Wolfe, and Joachim Fuchsberger portrayed Archie Goodwin. After he protested that his story was used without permission, Rex Stout received a $3,500 settlement. [McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography (1977, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316553409), p. 488]

Publication history

*1938, "The American Magazine", serialized in six issues (March–August 1938)
*1938, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, August 17, 1938, hardcover:In his limited-edition pamphlet, "Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I", Otto Penzler describes the first edition of "Too Many Cooks": "Red cloth, front cover and spine printed with black; rear cover blank. Issued in a full-color pictorial dust wrapper … The first edition has the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page. The second printing, in October 1938, is identical to the first except that the logo was dropped." [Penzler, Otto, "Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I" (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), pp. 12–13] :In April 2006, "Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine" estimated that the first edition of "Too Many Cooks" had a value of between $2,500 and $5,000. [Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." "Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine" (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 32]
*1938, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1938, hardcover
*1939, London: Collins Crime Club, September 12, 1938, hardcover
*1940, New York: Grosset and Dunlap 1940, hardcover
*1941, New York: Triangle #180, June 1941, hardcover
*1941, Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1941, hardcover
*1944, New York: Dell (mapback by Gerald Gregg) #45, 1944, paperback; new edition (with new mapback by Robert Stanley) #540, 1951, paperback
*New York: Lawrence E. Spivak, Jonathan Press #J-2, not dated, abridged, paperback
*1951, London: Pan, 1951, paperback
*1963, New York: Pyramid (Green Door) #R-894, August 1963, paperback
*1969, New York: The Viking Press, "Kings Full of Aces: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus" (with "Plot It Yourself" and "Triple Jeopardy"), January 28, 1969, hardcover
*1972, London: Fontana, 1972, paperback
*1973, London: Tom Stacey, 1973, hardcover
*1976, New York: Garland, "Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction 1900–1950", #45, 1976, hardcover
*1979, New York: Jove #M4866, February 1979, paperback
*1995, New York: Bantam Books ISBN 0553763067 November 1995, trade paperback
*2004, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 157270392X May 2004, audio CD (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0288131|title=Nero Wolfe: Salsicce 'Mezzanotte'
*imdb title|id=0055641|title=Zu viele Köche
* [http://avenarius.sk/Quotations:Too_Many_Cooks wiki collection of quotations from "Too Many Cooks"]