Hot food gets real bite

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Any reader who enters this sinister story-room will be taken back to Craceland, last visited in Being Dead, where the menu featured such ?heavy specialities? as ?the crab and suet casserole, the lardy nut quadroon, the egg liqueur, the blue-cheese sauce?.

The food may repeat but Monsieur Crace does not serve up the same thing over and over again. The Devil?s Larder is stocked with new dishes: ?Fainting Priest?, ?Boysie Tart? and ?Tutor-on-Two-Wheels? (a pancake stuffed with fried lamb?s liver, fish and pineapple, served with a dash of onion relish and ?a dramatic shake of Boulevard Cream Liqueur?, and garnished with ?hissop leaves?). The result takes some swallowing.

The echo of Roald Dahl?s Revolting Recipes may be deliberate. Crace?s humour is certainly juvenile. The spunk omelette would make anyone gag. His 64 courses are said to comprise ?a cumulative novel?. Some stretch for several pages, others for just a few lines.

The common ingredient is food: growing it, hunting it, cooking it and consuming it. Whether itemising a condemned man?s last supper (?oysters, milkshake, chocolate, nectarines and beef?, plus ?George?s Magic Cookies?) or a bachelor boy?s purchases at a supermarket checkout, the focus is on oral gratification or revenge.

The chef of The Yellow Basket, for example, does not punch ugly customers in the mouth, he presents them with a plate of dodgy mussels.

The end product of conspicuous consumption looms large. A doctor grows ?bland and floury? Jerusalem artichokes from tubers in an old man?s bowel; ?sewer truffles? are said to be the secret ingredient of a celebrated soup; however, late Mrs Schunn?s neighbour dare not eat a melon grown in her nightsoil patch. It brings a whole new meaning to the bottom of the garden.

If man is half manure, there is only one letter difference between diet and died. The subject of titbit number 37 ate ?pumpkin seeds to protect the prostate. Bran for bowels?. The last of its 13 lines informs us: ?He kept his diet up, without a break, until the day he died.? The Devil?s Larder is a can of words and Crace plays with them to reveal all sorts of awkward and embarrassing matters.

The tenth titbit reveals that disgruntled wives are feeding their husband mythical ?manac beans? (also grown in Being Dead) which, just like alcoholic drinks, increase sexual desire while reducing the ability to perform: ?Even though their testes might swell to twice their normal size and the penis could enlarge appreciably, they would have problems with presenting an erection.?

Crace has difficulty making his pride and joy stand up too. It seems half-baked. All the basic ingredients are here ? three distinct narrators in three distinct settings, one tasty theme ? but the confection fails to rise. Being Dead spelled out the facts of death with startling precision. The Devil?s Larder also rubs the reader?s nose in dirt and decay but to no obvious purpose.

The cult of food, the appetite for gastroporn, the deification of foulmouthed chefs are all part of an obsession that is ripe for satire. As Peter the Great said: ?One should eat to live not live to eat.? Crace, though, is too busy drooling over ?the split, chestnut turban of a finished loaf ? to sink his teeth into TV cooks. He observes but does not condemn. Even famine is good for a laugh: a historic siege is marked by ?the little statue of the city prefect chewing on a shoe?.

Individually, the titbits are amusing, disgusting, witty and clever. Together they form a banquet of canapes, bloating but dissatisfying.