Cinnamon and gunpowder

Title:

Author:

Brown, Eli, 1975-

Personal Author:

Brown, Eli, 1975-

ISBN:

9780374123666

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Physical Description:

x, 318 p. ; 25 cm

Abstract:

Kidnapped by a ruthless early 19th-century woman pirate and ordered to serve exquisite Sunday dinners or forfeit his life, renowned chef Owen Wedgwood transforms meager shipboard supplies into sumptuous meals while the pirate queen pushes her exhausted crew to track down a deadly privateer.

Subject Term:

Women pirates -- Fiction.

Kidnapping -- Fiction.

Genre:

Adventure fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION BROWN	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A gripping adventure, a seaborne romance, and a twist on the tale of Scheherazade--with the best food ever served aboard a pirate's ship

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.
To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he's making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.
But Mabbot--who exerts a curious draw on the chef--is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot's madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.
Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure's adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story--with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.
An NPR Best Book of 2013

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A novel of pirates in 1819. Owen Wedgwood has a good job as a chef for Lord Ramsey when the latter's house is broken into by Hannah Mabbot, captain of the Flying Rose. For obscure reasons--obscure at least to Wedgewood, who narrates the story--she murders Ramsey in cold blood and has her pirate minion Mr. Apples kidnap Wedgewood, for she's thrilled to discover he's a cook; it's been difficult to have fine dining aboard a pirate ship. While distressed to have been captured, Wedgwood is even more upset to discover he's expected every Sunday to create culinary masterpieces from the thin gruel (as it were) of the ship's store, but somehow he manages. For example, he's able to create yeast bread by holding the rising dough against the warmth of his belly. At first, he ekes out acceptable meals, but as he's able to raid the ship's larder and occasionally get provisions in untoward ways, his Sunday meals become ever more creative and spectacular. Eventually, he turns out delicacies such as "Herring pt with rosemary on walnut bread. Tea-smoked eel ravioli seared with caramelized garlic and bay leaf...and rum-poached figs stuffed with Pilfered Blue cheese and drizzled with honey." But Captain Mabbot is not interested solely in fine cuisine: She's on a quest to track down the Brass Fox, another villainous pirate who turns out to be her son--and whose father is none other than Lord Ramsey. It seems that Ramsey's business concern, the Pendleton Trading Company, is deeply involved in the opium trade, hauling the illicit drug from India to China, and Captain Mabbot wants to put a stop to it. Brown is able to make his narrative both sizzling and swashbuckling.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.