Sunday, September 4, 2016

Sherlockians are certainly blessed with food.

With the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek this week and the good Carter's particular proclivities, I found myself putting together a social event on that side of things for last night, and after all of that, the simple act of making myself breakfast brought me Sherlockian joy for one simple reason:

Our food and drink.

I poured myself a nice tall glass of iced tea this morning and thought, with a bad Russian accent, "Women not his glass of tea." I have that thought most times I pour a glass of tea, thanks to the movie The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

In the same way, I always find Arby's the most Canonical fast food, as it evokes the line from "The Beryl Coronet" that describes when Sherlock Holmes "cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and thrusting this rude meal into his pocket, he started off upon his expedition." The phrase "rude meal" is perfect for an Arby's drive-thru run.

My point in all this is, as a Sherlockian, the eating comes easy. And the drinking as well.

Trying to prepare a menu for a Star Trek function is pretty awful. Impossible liquors that nobody really wants to drink. Klingon live worm dishes. Something called "plomeek soup" which wouldn't be party food even if you could make it. There are no solid go-to menu items for Star Trek.

But for Sherlock Holmes?

Go to the liquor store, pick out a wine or three referred to in the Canon. Some may be a little trickier to find, but it can be done. Our list of staples includes enough things to make all sorts of edibles. Cheese, eggs, biscuits, butter, oranges, foie gras . . . even canned peaches fall within our Holmes range.

We've always had at least one restaurant in the world where you could eat where Sherlock Holmes ate, whether it was Simpson's or Speedy's. And even the American versions of British pubs can give a Sherlockian a little feeling of Holmes. Trekkers have had a few fabulous moments of dining glory, like that shining moment in history that was Quark's Bar in Las Vegas, but over all, the past is so much easier to mine for food than the future.

Want to start my day as Holmes and Watson did in "Priory School?" Cocoa is easy enough to prepare, even from scratch, and I do it often.

I will admit that my Sherlockian view of the world does prejudice me a little bit. I have been known to count delivery pizza as Canonical just because in "Noble Bachelor" dinner shows up at Baker Street in "a very large flat box." But Sherlockian dinners have been a part of our culture since day one.

Everybody likes food, sure. It's food. And we use it to celebrate a lot of things. It just seems like Sherlock Holmes might make it a little easier for us than some fandoms.

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