Slaves of Spiegel is a 1982 novel by Daniel Pinkwater

Daniel Pinkwater

Daniel Manus Pinkwater is an author of mostly children's books and is an occasional commentator on National Public Radio. He attended Bard College. Well-known books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange...

. The book is about the Space Pirates from Spiegel and an interplanetary cook-off

Cook-off

A cook-off is a cooking competition where the contestants each prepare dishes for judging either by a select group of judges or by the general public...

.

Plot summary

Sargon the Great is the leader of planet

Planet

A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...

 Spiegel. Fat space pirates inhabit the planet Spiegel and they travel around the galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

 collecting fattening and unhealthy food. To discover new types of food they search for the greatest cooks

Cook (profession)

A cook is a person who prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Canada this profession requires government approval ....

 in the galaxy. They bring cooks from two distant planets and one cook from Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

. The cook's name is Steve. He and his assistant Norman are brought to Spiegel along with their restaurant, The Magic Moscow. The Earth cooks are pitted against the cooks from other planets. Steve and Norman cook a dish which consists of melons from Venus

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

, ham, radishes, pears, kosher salami, maple syrup, raw oats and olives. The competition to cook the greatest dish is fierce, but in the end Steve and Norman come in second. They are allowed to take 600 pounds of Spiegelian blue garlic

Garlic

Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...

, a prize Steve is quite satisfied with. He later uses it to create a new "bright blue" pizza.

Continuity

The character of Rolzup, the Martian High Commissioner from Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars is a novel by Daniel Pinkwater, published in 1979.-Plot summary:The story is about a portly kid named Leonard Neeble moving from his old neighborhood to West Kangaroo Park, Hogboro. There Leonard goes to a new school, Bat Masterson Junior High...

is mentioned.

Availability

While this book is no longer in print, it can be found in Pinkwater's 1997 compilation 5 Novels.