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. After using her jade-handled pistols to assassinate his employer, lord of the booming tea trade, she announces to the terrified cook that he will be spared 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 - weevil-infested cornmeal, salted meat he suspects was once a horse. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that Wedgwood 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 wine.
But Mabbot - who exerts a curious draw on the chef - is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer, plagued by a saboteur hidden among her devoted crew, and outnumbered in epic clashes with England's greatest ships of the line, Captain Mabbot pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious King of Thieves, the Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot's madness, he must rely on the bizarre crew members 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.
Genre: Historical
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. After using her jade-handled pistols to assassinate his employer, lord of the booming tea trade, she announces to the terrified cook that he will be spared 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 - weevil-infested cornmeal, salted meat he suspects was once a horse. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that Wedgwood 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 wine.
But Mabbot - who exerts a curious draw on the chef - is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer, plagued by a saboteur hidden among her devoted crew, and outnumbered in epic clashes with England's greatest ships of the line, Captain Mabbot pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious King of Thieves, the Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot's madness, he must rely on the bizarre crew members 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.
Genre: Historical
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