Food Writing, Literary

Food Writing, Literary Cookbooks
Cookbooks We Love presents reviews of “Food Writing & Literary Cookbooks”, a selection of outstanding food, cooking, cookery and culinary-related books, literature and food writing. Included are cooking fiction, food stories and recipes by food writers.

Michael Pollan begins his book with a seemingly simple question, “What should we have for dinner?”. We soon discover the path towards an answer to be more indirect and complex than would first appear. Pollan delves into the simple premise of ‘you are what you eat’, and unearths some illuminating and at times chilling truths. Read the full article...

First published in Canada as 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, Plenty is the first hand tale of two city dwellers who attempt (and ultimately succeed) to eat only food produced within a 100 mile radius of their home in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although blessed with a cornucopia of food choice that comes […] Read the full article...

“If I have a single virtue it’s curiosity. It’s a big world. Far bigger than I’d ever imagined – even as a boy reading adventure stories about pirates and castaways. I don’t know where I’m going or when I’ll stop. But I know what I’ve seen. I saw this…” Read the full article...

Fast approaching 30 (and therefore official adulthood) and disenchanted with both her lousy job and stale personal life, New York wanna-be writer Julie Powell embarks on a mission to kick-start her life by cooking (or at least attempting to cook) every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, […] Read the full article...

After a late night soiree with celebrated chef and bad boy Mario Batali, journalist Bill Buford offers himself up as kitchen slave in the kitchen of Batali’s New York City 3-star eatery Babbo. What begins as a back of the house expose of a famed restaurant, and how-to manual for wannabe chefs, Read the full article...

Wonderfully poetic writing and food reminiscences come together seamlessly in this collection of recipes and meal memories from poet Maya Angelou. Renowned in her wide and generous circle of friends (some of them famous… Oprah, Jessica Mitford, Rosa Guy) as a marvelous chef, Read the full article...

Cod

The subtitle of Mark Kurlansky’s Cod, “A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World” offers a clue to the scope of the story readers have in store for them. Opening on the headlands of Newfoundland, Cod spans a thousand years and four continents. Read the full article...

In Letters to a Young Chef, master chef Daniel Boulud gives new and aspiring chefs insight into a life’s worth of experience in the kitchen in the form of personal letters. From the beginning, he writes to us on Where to Start, What You Need to Learn based on how he did it, and wisely […] Read the full article...

French women love chocolate, especially the dark, slightly bitter, silky stuff with its nutty aroma French women balance their food, drink, and movement on a week-by-week basis French women eat more vegetables French women eat smaller portions of things French women eat for pleasure French women don’t diet French women don’t get fat Read the full article...

In Kitchen Confidential, author and professional chef Anthony Bourdain gives a no-holes-barred account of life behind the stoves. Filled with wry observations, fragrant characters, self-depreciating humor and peppered in spicy language, Read the full article...