In 'Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook,' recipes become tools for espionage

Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees (July 2020, Harper Collins) isn’t what the title suggests. This is not a cookbook — not in the strictest sense, anyway.

Though an actual cookbook called "The Radiation Cookery Book" (first published in 1927) is featured prominently in the story, you should probably look elsewhere if you're looking for recipes for borscht or beef wellington, shashlik or shepherd’s pie.

But if you’re looking for gratifying post-World War II historical fiction however, or even an absorbing, creative, female-centric and character-driven spy novel, then you’ve come to the right place.

Set in that tumultuous period immediately following the close of World War II 75 years ago, the novel traces the beginnings of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Allied forces. 

The Axis Powers’ defeat in Europe brought on the dismemberment of Germany. The Americans, the British and the Russians each set up their own “zones of occupation,” areas for which they were responsible in terms of post-war reconstruction. 

The Berlin Wall was still years away, though the seeds of more than two decades of the physical, social, and ideological divide that characterized the Cold War was already being sown.

Amidst this backdrop is Edith Graham, a British teacher deployed as the new school supervisor for the UK’s Control Commission-Education Division in the British Zone of Occupation.

Edith’s primary task was to oversee the reconstruction of schools and the education of children in the norther German town of Lübeck, the first to suffer substantial damage from Royal Air Force bombing runs during the war. 

This in itself is a great challenge, owing to the lack of the most basic necessities and compounded by the fact that all the German textbooks available – and a good amount of the local teachers – retained Nazi leanings in varying degrees. “Dreaming of the rise of a Fourth Reich,” observed a ranking American military intelligence officer.

But Edith also had a more dangerous, covert task. Under the supervision of British intelligence services, she was to locate her former lover Kurt von Stavenow, a medical doctor and high-ranking Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who was responsible for the Nazi Euthanasia Program.

He oversaw the "termination" of those deemed "impure," including people with disabilities, people whom the regime referred to as Lebensunwertes Leben, or life unworthy of life. The Program’s sinister end-goal was to ensure the purity of the Aryan race by purging it of those deemed unworthy. 

The Nuremberg Trials and the confiscation of Nazi records enabled Allied forces to unearth these horrors. They also discovered the extent to which the Third Reich progressed in its development of "creative" ways to inflict pain on humans: nerve agents, systematic starvation, and other "medical experiments," which by modern standards would already constitute torture. 

This sparked a race among the British, Americans and Russians to locate SS officers and scientists involved in these programs and to bring them to justice — or more insidiously, to co-opt their expertise. 

Code-name operations such the United States’ Paperclip sought to find and employ former Nazi scientists in support of Washington’s push to gain strategic advantage over the Soviet Union amidst the brewing Cold War. More than 1,600 Nazi scientists, including Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, were spirited away from Germany into classified military projects in the United States. None of them faced trial for war crimes.

Miss Graham was deployed to Germany in support of Haystack, the British equivalent of Paperclip. Locating and extracting Kurt von Stavenow and putting him to work in secret laboratories in the UK was the overarching mission. 

Unknown to her handlers, Edith didn't plan on giving von Stavenow a cushy lab job or a new lease on life. She wanted to bring von Stavenow to justice and worked in secret with Hungarian-born spy Dori Stansfield, intelligence officer Vera Atkins, and American photo-journalist Adeline Hunter.

They were driven by a deeper motivation: von Stavenow was responsible for the horrific deaths of four female British intelligence operatives. Four agents who disappeared soon after landing in Nazi-occupied France, and whose grim fates were traced back to the Natzweiler-Struthof ‘medical’ facility which he supervised.

In order to ensure the secrecy of their real mission, the four women devised an ingenious system of ciphers. Using pre-arranged references from the pages of "The Radiation Cookery Book," Edith used recipes to send coded messages about her progress in tracking their quarry.  Messages could appear perfectly innocent to the uninitiated but was rife with meaning for those in the loop.  “Speaking of regional dishes – I might have something Prussian for you soon,” Edith wrote to Dori, signaling that she may have uncovered a trail that would lead them to von Stavenow.

What follows is a gripping tale of espionage and deceit, clothed in deceptively amiable culinary travelogue-like texture. Lush descriptions of scenery, clothing and of course, food, provide both setting and historical context for the novel. 

Ms. Rees paints striking landscapes of pre- and post-war Germany, deftly using various filters with the skill of a cinematographer. She takes her time to flesh out the characters, their motivations and their histories before plunging them into the murky waters of espionage, making "Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook" a slow burn.

But the intimate portraits of Edith Graham, her compatriots and opponents ensure that readers are emotionally invested in the story, allowing us to feel more acutely the sting of betrayal or the pain of loss.

"Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook" is a story of deception. The characters’ veiled motivations and uncertain loyalties propel the narrative, ensuring that neither Edith nor we could easily find sure footing. At every turn, Edith peels away the layers to get to the truth, fearing that in the world of high-stakes espionage it may not be possible to possess such immutable facts.  As one of the characters compellingly related, “I refused to see what was right in front of me. I just saw what I wanted to see; believed what I wanted to believe. The acceptable version of things.”

This is also a tale of redemption. Edith had always resented her inactivity during the War. As the spinster in the family, she stayed home to look after their aging mother and watched as her siblings meaningfully contributed to the war effort. She sought release from a dull and unfulfilled life by volunteering for the Control Commission in Germany and the secret mission to ferret out von Stavenow.

Dori and Vera, on the other hand, were both running away from the ghosts of their past. One sent female operatives behind enemy lines and, tragically, to their deaths.  The other was the sole survivor of that fateful covert mission.  Both saw this new mission as the path to some form of absolution:  Vera needed closure to still her nightmares; Dori required justice for her fallen comrades.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War 2 in 1945. It has also been almost three decades since the Cold War ended in 1991. But 30 years later, the Cold War continues to attract the keen interest of historians, political scientists, and novelists.  It is perhaps the only moment thus far in humankind’s narrative when the world teetered on the edge of the abyss without an actual conflict on the scale of World War 2. Mutual Assured Destruction hung like Damocles’ Sword over our collective heads.

The Cold War also had a profound effect on human relationships. Tina Rosenberg’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism" recounted the harrowing experiences of ordinary people behind the Iron Curtain and the deep psychological scars these engendered.

Novels like "Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook" remind us of the immense psychological toll that war has on people and communities. We would do well to avoid the mistakes of the Cold War and bridge political, social and cultural rifts instead of putting up Iron Curtains or Berlin Walls which artificially divide us. — LA, GMA News
 

About the author: Rory J. Bolivar is a registered microbiologist with years of experience in industry, research and teaching.  This book review was co-written with her husband, career diplomat, former Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, and fellow book lover Robespierre L. Bolivar. Email them at ideas.conversation@gmail.com