Books About Food

By Vicki Reich, from the May 2003 Newsletter

I have two great loves in life (not counting my husband and dog and mom and…). They are food and books. It is always a treat for me when I can combine the two. I was surprised at how many books I’d read in the past year or so that had to do with food. Almost all of them were worth passing on, so with no other subject coming to mind as the newsletter deadline approaches, I thought I’d talk about books.

The first food-related book I remember reading is “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel. This beautiful and delicious book is one where you need a good snack by your side while you’re reading. Her descriptions of food are so wonderful and the plot so moving that I wished to jump in the pages and taste everything being created.

“Aphrodite—A Memoir of the Senses” by Isabel Allende is a moving and erotic collection of stories and personal memories about the relationship between love and food. I had to force myself to read this book slowly so it would last. Like a good meal, it was immensely satisfying.

A recent and much more serious book, but an excellent read nonetheless, is “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser. Not only will this book not make you hungry but it may make you never want to eat fast food again. Impeccably researched and disturbing in the information it uncovers, the book is still easy to read and made me glad I know where my beef comes from.

Another well-researched and entertaining read is “Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollan. Not truly a book about food, it will appeal to foodies everywhere. Pollan’s premise that plants have shaped us as well as we have shaped them is fascinating. His history of the apple and potato were particularly interesting to me.

“Stuffed—The Story of a Restaurant Family” by Patricia Volk is the only disappointing food book I’ve read. Even though the title inferred the book has something to do with food, mostly she talks about her not-so-interesting relatives and talks very little about her family’s restaurant, which is what I really wanted to know about.

“Tender at the Bone” and “Comfort me with Apples” by Ruth Reichl are the two book memoirs of Reichl’s life. They are funny, wonderful reads. I read them back-to-back and wished for more. There are delicious-sounding recipes throughout both books that I wanted to make right away so I could eat along with the story. Definitely have a snack close by as you read these.

For an in-depth look into the world of professional cooking, I highly recommend Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.” Bourdain’s life as a four-star chef is exciting and exhausting and made me realize I never want to be a chef. He is very opinionated about food and food preparation, which may offend some people. In fact, after reading about his disdain for garlic presses, I started mincing garlic and appreciate the difference. This is a great read but not for the faint of heart.

As do all book lovers I know, I have a long list of books I want to read. The food book list is short at the moment and includes “Salt—A World History” and “Cod—A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World” both by Mark Kurlansky; “The Man Who Ate Everything” by Jeffrey Stengarten; “Chocolate” and "Five Quarters of the Orange” by Joanne Harris; “Coming Home to Eat” by Gary Paul Nabhan; and “Crescent” by Diana Abu-Jaber. However, while researching this article on the powellbooks.com Web site, I found, under the cooking and food section, a subsection called Gastronomic Literature and my list just got longer.

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