Death Comes As The End – Spelt Salad with Duck

Hello crime readers and food lovers! I will admit that I was not looking forward to reading Death Comes As The End.  Whilst I have read a few historical mysteries, it is not my preferred genre of mystery reading.  The 150 years from the late 19th century (Sherlock Holmes) to now a pretty much my reading wheelhouse, mysteries included.  So, the prospect of a story set in Ancient Egypt didn’t fill me with joy.   And, who on earth knows what people in ancient Egypt ate?  And would I be able to replicate something even remotely similar?  

Luckily for me, Death Comes as The End is littered with references to items of food and so I was able to form an idea of what ingredients may have been available to someone in that time.  Esa, references her favourite dish of reedbirds with leek and celery a few times so that formed the basis of the meal I wanted to make.  Cooked celery makes me gag so that was out.  But leek and duck…that sounded like something good!

I’m going to shake things up this time and list the foods mentioned first instead of last because I think that will help explain how “I” came to devise this dish.  

Food & Drink Mentioned in Death Comes As The End

• Roast Duck
• Spelt
• Barley
• Dates
• Syrian Wine
• Honey
• Triangular loaves of bread
• Grapes
• Quail
• Cakes with Honey
• Reed birds with leeks and celery
• Olives
• Pomegranate juice
• Wine

From that  list of ingredients, I chose duck, spelt or barley and leeks as the things I wanted in my recipe.  I then searched through my cookbooks.  I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted so I turned to technology to help.  “Find me a recipe with duck, leek and spelt”  I typed into an AI Chatbot.  It delivered two recipes, one a barley risotto type thing and one a Spelt Salad with Duck, Leeks and Pomegranates.  Bingo!  A bonus is that the recipe also contains honey which is in the above list!  

I also love the combination of using modern tech helping me to solve a problem of food from 4000 years ago! 

I wasn’t sure if cheese was a thing in Ancient Egypt.   Turns out, that Egyptians were making cheese 5000 years ago!  How cool is that?  I mean, they were also making the pyramids and the Sphinx which for most people probably trumps the fact that they were also making a bit of feta on the side.  But for me, that is the funnest fact I have learned all year (13th January at the time of writing).  

And, after all that,  I forgot to add the cheese to my salad anyway!  🤦🏽‍♀️

Some Fun Facts About Death Comes As The End

• This was the FIRST EVER historical whodunnit novel.  Even if you dislike the book (I really liked it but I may be in the minority here) that is something!  
• It is the only Agatha Christie novel not set in the 20th Century
• The novel is based on real letters written in Ancient Egypt from a man complaining about how badly his family treated his concubine
• The book came about when Christie’s and Egyptologist Stephen Glanville suggested Agatha write a book set in ancient Egypt
• It  is one of the few Christie novels not (yet) adapted for the screen

Death Comes As The End – The Plot

Because you are truly Egyptian – because you love life, because, sometimes – you feel the shadow of death very near…

Agatha Christie – Death Comes as The End

Renisenb has returned to her father’s home with her young daughter after the death of her husband.  Also living in Imhotep’s house are other members of his family including:

• His eldest son Yamose, his wife Satipy and their family. Yahmose is diligent but also diffident.  His wife constantly henpecks and belittles him.  
• Middle son Sobek and his wife Kait.  Sobek is as hot-headed and rash as Yahmose is careful.  Kait is the typical tiger mother, absorbed by and protective of her children
• The youngest son, Ipy is arrogant and boastful.  He is eager to be seen as an intelligent adult and no longer a child.
• Semi blind, Imhotep’s mother Esa rounds out the members of the family however there are two others also living with the family. 
• Henet is a poor relative of Imhotep’s deceased wife who remains in the family to take care of them.  She is obsequious gossip and a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 
• Finally there is Hori who is Imhotep’s scribe. Later, Kameni, another scribe joins the household.  

There is some tension between the brothers and the wives bicker with each other but these troubles are nothing compared to what happens when, after a trip to the North, Imhotep brings Nofret, his new concubine, to live with them.  The family is not happy about this. and are even less happy when Nofret begins to drive wedges between Imhotep and family members.

Nofret then falls to her death from a cliff.  Accident?  Or did someone in the family take matters into their own hands?

And then, there were nearly none!

Several more deaths follow leaving the remaining members of the family terrified.  (A lot of people die in Death Comes As The End.  The death count in this novel is second only to And Then There Were None! )

Are they being cursed by Nofret’s vengeful spirit or is the murderer far more corporeal?

Death Comes As The End- The Covers

I was able to find French, German, Czech and Portuguese covers along with some English ones for this novel.  They are all pretty much as you would expect for a novel set in Ancient Egypt.  

The Recipe – Spelt Salad with Duck

Print

Spelt Salad with Duck

Print Recipe

A delicious spelt salad with duck leeks and pomegranate inspired by Agatha Christie’s Death Comes As the End. 

• Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 100g spelt
• 2 duck breasts
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tbs duck seasoning (I didn’t know what this was so used 1/2  tbs ras el hanout for its Middle Eastern Flavours.  )
• 2 leeks thinly sliced
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 orange, segmented
• Handful of walnuts, toasted and chopped
• 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese (I forgot to add this and the salad was fine without it so consider it optional)
• Pomegranate Molasses

For The Dressing

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp honey
• Salt and pepper

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

The AI recipe had no method of cooking the leeks so I assume they had them raw.  I do not like the idea of raw leeks so I began by sauteeing the leeks in olive oil for around 20 minutes until they were soft and just starting to caramelise. 

Preheat the oven to 180C.  

Put the spelt in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.  Drain and cool for 5 minutes.

Score the duck breasts in a crisscross pattern.  Season with salt and pepper.  Then brush with oil and sprinkle with duck seasoning  / ras el hanout.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and fry the duck, skin side down for 5 minutes.  Then turn and cook on the flesh side for 2 minutes.  Transfer, skin side up to a small roasting tin and put in the oven for 15 minutes.  (I found this was too long, my duck was overcooked.  I would check for doneness after about 8 minutes in the over and then every 2 minutes from there.)

While the duck cooks, toss the cooked spelt with the leeks, orange segments, pomegranate seeds and walnuts.

For the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad.  Drizzle with the dressing and crumble the goat cheese over the top. / Mix the dressing with the spelt mixture.  Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad.  Drizzle some pomegranate molasses over the duck. 

Serve Immediately.

Enjoy!

Notes

Items in italics are those added by me, the rest is the recipe generated by AI

Fear is everywhere

Death Comes As The End – Agatha Christie

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find.

February’s read will be Towards Zero.