every food in: Nancy Drew #19: The Quest of the Missing Map
The Quest of the Missing Map by Carolyn Keene
Revised 1969, originally published 1942 (would love an original copy, but it’s hard to track them down as ebooks and my personal physical collection is mostly 60s rereleases)
Originally posted on Tumblr in 2018, reposted here in 2026 and revised slightly.
I debated including this one, as it’s only got three instances of food in the entire book, but figured I should. I’m a completionist. I also feel like I write the type of food blog where I’ll assume nobody noticed I missed one, and then I’ll find out that it was someone else’s favorite book 2 months later and feel endlessly guilty for skipping it.
This is another kind of silly Nancy book, plot wise - in fairness to the series, not all of them are this contrived and tropey, but this one involves Nancy literally searching for missing pirate treasure. For example, on the very first page, Nancy meets a young woman whose father was a ship captain, whose long lost twin was presumed dead at sea. Incredible.
Oh, and also Nancy somehow is a skilled trained forensic sketch artist, which has never been mentioned before and will never be mentioned again as far as I know. It is interesting that, to my memory, this is the only time Carson Drew encourages an interest in his daughter other than “MYSTERY????” though. Don’t worry though, Nancy is also, according to other books, a professional ice skater, assistant insurance investigator, translator of medieval French, and a skilled antique forgeries expert. She’s a lady of many improbable talents.
As a sidebar, I know in theory that these mysteries mostly take place on her school breaks, but I fully forget most of the time that Nancy is still in school of some variety for nearly all of the original run books. That is not only incredibly improbable just in terms of timelines and schedules, but also the amount of murders and thefts that happen around her is a borderline Jessica Fletcher level of absurdity. (It says a lot that this particular book was so dull and devoid of food content that I started kind of going down side avenues of thought and starting to wonder how any of this could possibly logically make sense. )
Don’t worry, though. The author may not have included nearly any food in this book, but we still have to know that Bess ate all of it. Sigh.
Chapter 14: Sneak Attack
A picnic lunch (”Bess reached for a second helping of potato salad”)
Chapter 18: Treachery
“a large pan of potatoes”
“a bowl of split pea soup”
