Often considered the first of the current wave of culinary mystery series, The Baked Bean Supper Murders by Virginia Rich featuring amateur detective, rancher, and great cook Eugenia Potter attending a gourmet cooking class where students keep turning up dead.  Part of a series.  This series was continued after Virginia Rich’s death by Nancy Pickard.

Readers first met single mom and formidable cater Goldy Bear when her business is closed by the police because rat poison is found in the food at one of her buffets in Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson.  First in a series. 

In The Body in the Big Apple by Katherine Hall Page, caterer Faith Fairchild becomes involved in her first mystery when an old high school friend comes to her for help with a black mailer.  First in a series.

In Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, the dairy delivery man is found murdered behind Hannah Swensen’s bakery The Cookie Jar and he is surrounded by her famous Chocolate Chip Crunchers.  Worried that someone will think her cookies are to blame, Hannah tries to find out what really happened.  First in a series. 

Heaven Lee is a restaurant owner and chef in Kansas City.  In The Revenge of Barbeque Queens by Lou Jane Temple, Heaven Lee is competing in a fierce barbeque competition when her chief rival is found simmered to death.  Part of a series.

Former lawyer China Bayles runs a specialty herb shop in Pecan Springs, Texas.  In Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert, China investigates whether a friend’s death was really suicide or perhaps murder.  Part of a series.

The Gourmet Girl series by Susan Conant and Jessica Conant-Park features graduate social work student and gourmet food connoisseur Chloe Carter.  In Steamed, Chloe goes on a blind date and later finds him with his throat slashed on the restroom floor. First in a series.

Divorcee Maggie Thorsen decides to open a gourmet coffee shop in small town Wisconsin with the help of her friends. In Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo, Maggie finds the body of one of her partners behind the coffee machine and is determined to find out what happened to salvage her business. First in a series.

Death Dines at 8:30, a collection of short culinary mysteries edited by Diane Mott Davidson, features stories by Claudia Bishop, Barbara D’Amato, Bill Crider, and Tamar Myers, to name just a few.