Let's Talk with Maggie Toussaint
Cozy Mystery Foods
July 24, 2025
I recently realized I tend to share the love of my favorite foods with my amateur sleuths. The choice was purposeful. I loved those foods, their texture, taste, and aroma, and thus had firsthand knowledge of them. In fact, I gave all my main characters of my previous 29 books a similar palate to mine.
Because I am from the South, there are some things formerly known as Southern that crop up in the books, foods that are enjoyed across the country, maybe across the world. I don’t think a single main character drinks soda—they all prefer iced tea, hot tea, or coffee. And grits. That’s definitely southern, though I think a few of the fast-food chains now offer grits for breakfast. I love shrimp and grits and also fish and grits. In coastal Georgia, they serve these combos with butter, cheese, and bacon bits. Yum.
Biscuits. Double Yum. My mouth is watering right now for homemade biscuits. I’ve tried to make them like the ones I remember from my childhood. They never come out looking quite the same but still rate as delicious.
Roasted veggies, anything with avocados on it, salad, and egg dishes are favs and are often featured in my series mysteries.
All my sleuths (Cleopatra Jones, Mary Beth Cashour, Lindsey McKay, Molly Darter, Zeke Landry, River Holloway, Baxley Powell, and Tabby Winslow) love fruit, ice cream, and most desserts (pecan pie, lemon meringue, key lime pie, butter pecan ice cream, and ginger cookies). I haven’t foisted my mostly pescatarian (vegetarian who also eats seafood) diet on any of my sleuths, much to their delight!
I avoid the issue by having them eat lasagna and pizza at home and eat out a lot. I don’t specify if their Italian food has meat in it, so readers likely assume it’s got meat in it if they eat it that way. Isn’t lasagna a perfect food though? It’s tasty, filling, hits most of the food groups, and there are usually leftovers.
There is one notable exception of sharing my favorites. When I was writing about catering sleuth River Holloway (Seafood Caper Mysteries), I signed up to provide a recipe for a blog stop on SHRIMPLY DEAD’s virtual book tour. The scheduler encouraged me to provide a dessert recipe, so I decided to make something new to me, Oreo Ice Cream Cake (source of recipe is https://iwashyoudry.com/homemade-oreo-ice-cream-cake/). Boy oh boy, was this delicious!
Is there a food group recipe you prefer to read about in your mysteries? Comment with your thoughts, and you’ll be in the mix for an ebook or print copy of SNUFFED OUT, book 1 of A Magic Candle Mystery Series.(print copy to those with US mailing addresses only)
Would you like to know more about our author Maggie Toussaint (aka Valona Jones and Rigel Carson)? Visit her WEBSITE.
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Posted in with Maggie Toussaint • Tags: Amateur Sleuths, Cozy Mystery Foods, Maggie Toussaint, Oreo Ice Cream Cake, recipe, Valona Jones | 17 Comments
It sounds like a really interesting book. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your comment, Diana
Maggie, what a great photo of you!
As for food, I always have a hard time reading about characters eating peanut butter because even the smell of it makes me gag. Other than that, bring on the coffee, chocolate, and wine!
People shy away from peanut butter for so many reasons nowadays. A writer friend I know has a serious nut allergy. If you touch nuts and then touch anything she might touch, say a refrigerator handle, she can go into anaphylactic shock. Because of this friend, I label everything I take to social events that has any kind of nuts in it, even cookies. Better to be safe than sorry.
Thanks for your comment about the photo. Just a random cell phone pic at a cafe near here. I’ve always loved that shirt and that hat, so it was easy to have a natural smile, for a change.
I hate to say it because the VAST MAJORITY of human beings are not in the same boat I am!… I love to read about characters that eat vegan, sugar-free foods! I know that sounds very un-exciting to most people, but that’s how I eat and I love characters who eat that way too! 😛
That’s so refreshing for me to read, Maria, as someone who is in a close dietary boat to you. I tend to decline potlucks and such because I’m such a picky eater. It is also hard to have people over because they want the type of food they are used to, not my stuff. We all do what we have to do!
I rarely bake anymore so I’m more interested in main dishes, snacks, and drinks!
I love those interests. It is often very easy to modify something that everyone else eats to my choices of foods. For me snacks are trending toward apple slices and carrot sticks, but I stray from the straight and narrow too.
I am not a good cook or baker but I love food! I grew up with kids of different nationalities and like almost any type of food. I myself like meat dishes but if the people inviting me are serving seafood or having vegetarian at their home that’s ok with me also. P.S. Love your photo – it’s so nice and colorful.
Thanks, Helen. Your childhood seems to have prepared you well for all the diversity of today!
What else, Maggie? Chocolate!!! We’re going to Idyllwild for Kathy’s birthday soon and there’s a dedicated gluten-free chocolate shop. I intend to spend some serious time there—and yes, I’ll even let Kathy tag along even though she has to watch her sugar intake these days.
Wow. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as GF chocolate! Learn something new every day, and I would love to visit that shop myself.
Maggie, you are very photogenic! Love this picture of you and your hat! Love this Oreo Ice Cream cake! I would love to read about bakery in cozy mysteries because I have sweet tooth!! Cakes, pastries, sweet bread and recipes for bakery or pancakes or French toast appear in the cozy, then I am sold!!
Emily, you certainly got my sweet tooth fired up with your comment! Thanks for the comment about my photo. That was a chance image while eating out. The light was good, and my face cooperated and looked natural and not tight like it can get if there are multiple images… I am now thinking that I want French Toast for breakfast, and I may have to work it into my current novel. I love French toast and don’t know why I haven’t bothered to make it since the kids were young. I don’t think they were that enamored with the egg battered bread, but with enough syrup they would eat anything!
I always like to read about food in mysteries and recipes are a bonus. Healthy but filling entrees are challenging so I’d be interested in this food group. I also like to know what the sleuth is eating when she goes out to dine.
Healthy and filling entrees are indeed challenging. I’ve found that since I don’t eat much meat , I tend to substitute rice or pasta for the meat portion, instead of cooking another veggie or having two kinds of fruit. Not a way to lose weight and its challenging to maintain your weight doing that. I need to figure out another way of having the best me and cutting out the worst of the foods that hinder me.
My winner of Shrimply Dead is Diana Hardt. Congratulations, Diana! I will contact you via email.