Too Many Cooks (novel)
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| Author | Rex Stout |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar & Rinehart |
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Publication date
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August 17, 1938 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 303 pp. (first edition) |
| OCLC | 3103529 |
| Preceded by | The Red Box |
| Followed by | Some Buried Caesar |
Too Many Cooks is the fifth Nero Wolfe detective novel by American mystery writer Rex Stout. The story was serialized in The American Magazine (March–August 1938) before its publication in book form in 1938 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. The novel was collected in the omnibus volume Kings Full of Aces, published in 1969 by the Viking Press.
"It is not decent to induce the cocaine habit in a man, but it is monstrous to do so and then suddenly withdraw his supply of the drug. Nature plainly intends that a man should nourish a woman, and a woman a man, physically and spiritually, but there is no nourishment in you for anybody; the vapor that comes from you, from your eyes, your lips, your soft skin, your contours, your movements, is not beneficent but malignant."
Wolfe, a knowledgeable gourmet as well as a detective, attends a meeting of great chefs, The Fifteen Masters, at a resort in West Virginia, and jealousies among them soon lead to strife; then, one of the chefs is murdered. Wolfe sustains his own injury in the course of finding the culprit but also obtains the secret recipe for saucisse minuit.
Nero Wolfe accepts an invitation to address Les Quinze Maîtres, an international group of master chefs, on the subject of American contributions to fine cuisine. The group is holding its quinquennial meeting at the Kanawha Spa resort (possibly based on the famous actual resort The Greenbrier) in West Virginia, which forces Wolfe to suppress his loathing of travel and trains on the 14-hour train ride from New York City. As a courtesy to Wolfe, Archie has been invited to the gathering by Marko Vukcic, Wolfe's oldest friend and one of Les Quinze Maîtres, so that he can accompany Wolfe.
On the way, Vukcic visits Wolfe's Pullman compartment to introduce him to Jerome Berin, another member of Les Quinze Maîtres. Berin is the originator of saucisse minuit, a sausage whose closely guarded recipe Wolfe covets. Berin, however, is scornful of Wolfe’s request, and the resulting discussion leads him to an angry denouncement of Philip Laszio, another member of the group who serves an inferior substitute for saucisse minuit in his restaurant. Laszio also stole Vukcic’s ex-wife Dina from him and the position of Head Chef at New York’s Hotel Churchill from Leon Blanc, another of the master chefs. His passion inflamed, Berin threatens to kill Laszio.
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