What's Your Favorite Food Book of All Time and Why?
Lately I've been trying to answer that very question for myself, and then I thought it would be fun to pose that question to Serious Eaters everywhere. We're not talking about cookbooks here, though it can be a book (like Ruth Reichl's or Jeffrey Steingarten's) that has a few recipes in it. I'm talking about a book of prose (or poetry, for that matter) that is about food, the culture of food, or someone's experiences in the food world. It could be a memoir or a collection of essays or just a single nonfiction narrative. Possibilities include The Tummy Trilogy by Calvin Trillin (American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings), The Man Who Ate Everything by Steingarten, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Heat by Bill Buford, Reichl's three memoirs (Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires), Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, any number of books by M. F. K. Fisher. The possibilities are practically endless.
So let us know what your favorite food book is and why. I can't wait to see what Serious Eaters have to say on this subject.
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37 Comments:
I think my favorite food book would be NEAR A THOUSAND TABLES: A HISTORY OF FOOD by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. It's a lively history of food that illustrates the paramount role it has played in the development of our society. chefjp
chefjp at 9:04AM on 06/07/07
My favorite is The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, because it told me so many things I didn't know about where our food comes from, and because it makes me think more about what I eat and what I feed my family. It hasn't changed how I eat, but then, I've always been somewhat picky.
I also enjoy Ruhlman's and Steingarten's books.
Lou at 9:09AM on 06/07/07
I'm currently working my way through the authorized bio of Alice Waters. (Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas McNamee). I liked Buford's Heat and Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was an eye opener to say the least. Jacques Pepin's The Apprentice was very interesting, too. And Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef by Ian Kelly is well worth reading, too.
DaveFaris at 9:10AM on 06/07/07
Eating Up Italy by Matthew Fort is a great read- the perfect combination of food and travel. Be prepared to salvate.
Ditto the Ruth Reichl trilogy. I'm hungry for more.
cheesehead at 9:24AM on 06/07/07
Kitchen Confidential, of course.
The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is excellent...
Pizza: Slice of Heaven by Ed Levine opened my eyes up to a lot of places I never would have found, thanks for that.
Prairie at 9:34AM on 06/07/07
My Life in France by Julia Child and Paul Prud'Homme is one of the best books I've read ever -- food-related or not. After that, Ruthie's Tender at the Bone.
hereandthe at 9:52AM on 06/07/07
I love all those you listed, Ed, especially Calvin Trillin's books. Have you read Alan Richman's Fork it Over? Another fun one is an essay by David Rakoff in his book Don't Get Too Comfortable. The essay is called "What is the Sound of One Hand Shopping? Ooo - and Julie & Julia .
Phoebe Damrosch at 9:57AM on 06/07/07
The Conspirator's Cookbook by Century Downing, published in 1967. Similar in vein to Steingarten, Century Downing writes opinionatedly about diverse food related matters. The book also has one of the best (and easiest) poached egg, garlic and beef broth soups ever.
frontstudio at 10:01AM on 06/07/07
I love Ruth Reichl's, Garlic and Sapphires. She made me hungry with every single chapter. And her story made me crave for it to be made into a movie because I could almost picture her experiences. For a girl who's been a lot of places but NYC, it was nice to visit there through the eyes of a top food critic!
I am also a fan of books with recipes, they just make me happy!
bobcatsteph3 at 10:26AM on 06/07/07
The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth by Roy Andries de Groot. It is part travel memoir, part history lesson, and part cookbook, written in the 1970's during a quest to find the origins of Chartreuse in France. His descriptions of each meal at the Auberge where he stayed are absolutely mouthwatering, and the book takes you to a time and place where food is prepared based on what is fresh and available seasonally from the region, and every course is paired with wine. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet but I plan to!
And Kitchen Confidential. Also I'm currently reading The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher and really enjoying it.
Jeana at 10:30AM on 06/07/07
I love Laurie Colwin. I also liked Judith Moore's Never Eat Your Heart Out. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy is also a book that is pretty much all about food. Delicious!
jennycheck at 10:41AM on 06/07/07
I second Jeana's vote for DeGroot's Auberge of the Flowering Hearth. It's an enlightening book, and I've actually cooked from it!
Chitra Divakaruni's Mistress Of Spices, besides be a fun novel, inspired me to delve into the world of Indian cuisine as well.
theheadhen at 11:37AM on 06/07/07
My not-to-be-surpassed-in-any-way favorite book for many years was MFK Fisher's "The Art of Eating". I've read or scanned all of the books above, and though each one is a marvel of its own sort, none could match how I felt about this collection of MFKF's.
I'm not sure whether it had to do with reading her bio, or whether it had to do with just changing, myself, somehow - but on my last (recent) reading of "The Art of Eating" I could not find the same feelings I'd had previously.
It was like falling out of love.
Really, a terrible thing.
And as I look at my shelves of books and think and think, I still can't find a "favorite book of all time" that would come close to the feeling I had about this book.
So, the opening for "favorite food book of all time", for me, is open and seeking applicants. :)
Hard to top MFKF, though. Really really difficult, to my mind. Magic resided there.
Karen Resta at 11:44AM on 06/07/07
Death by Pad Thai and Food and Booze are two collections of food essays I also adore. Some of the authors are food writers and some just good writers talking chow.
Phoebe Damrosch at 12:19PM on 06/07/07
"Like Water For Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel
If you have not read this novel, you must, it's stunning.
MML at 12:21PM on 06/07/07
I've read a bunch of the books mentioned above, and have enjoyed them all, but I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and was thoroughly charmed by it. A really, really good read.
Jennifer Hess at 12:46PM on 06/07/07
Reading "Beach Music" by Pat Conroy always makes me hungry. There is so much good food in that book. But, it's not a food book. I loved "Kitchen Confidential" & "Julie & Julia." I will have to read all Ruth Reichl's books soon. They have been on my list forever. I am sure you want to know my favorite wine book: "The Accidental Connoisseur" by Lawrence Osborne.
gwenpentland at 12:46PM on 06/07/07
When I think of great food writing, M.F.K Fisher automatically comes to mind but it would be impossible to pick a "favorite." I read her work long ago and need to go back to it. She mingles food, life and recipes so eloquently. In fact all of my favorite authors do the same and I am a great fan of Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and the sequel. More recently I adored Amanda Hesser's, Cooking For Mr. Latte. All of these works have been my inspiration.
Kitchen Confidential is certainly hilarious but I don't see it on the same plane as the aforementioned works.
izzy's mama at 12:48PM on 06/07/07
Well, I'm another huge fan of MFK Fisher. For me the one single book that started my love affair with food was Fisher's 1970 "Among Friends." This story of Fisher growing up in a Quaker community as a non-Quaker coupled with the amazing descriptions of her experiences eating with her family is just the perfect book.
Livetotravel at 2:19PM on 06/07/07
The first that comes immediately to mind is Clementine in the Kitchen by Phineas Beck (Samuel Chamberlain) first published by Hasting House in 1943. My mother had the book but it was not until I got my own copy that I actually read it. It is wonderful fun--imagine Clementine chasing escaped garden snails around the kitchen. The recipes are written in a style long gone. Sadly. "Take a piece of butter the size of an egg." Isn't that easier than measuring tablespoons?
Second is The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book: a random excerpt "When in 1916 Gertrude Stein commenced driving Aunt Pauline. . .She knew how to do everything except go in reverse."
Penni W at 2:25PM on 06/07/07
I'd have to say "Julie & Julia". Not that it's the best book I've ever read but it made me realize that even I can make some really great food in my itty bitty apartment, with no training. It gave me some courage to try out some recipes and techniqes I would never have tried otherwise.
ceforrester at 2:52PM on 06/07/07
I don't know for sure if it was a book before it was a movie (I think it was), but if it was, indeed, a book, "Babette's Feast" is a dandy!
1stmakearoux at 2:55PM on 06/07/07
I'm still making my way through a lot of the classics, so to pick a favorite would be silly... But I have to say I think about the French Laundry meal/chapter in Bourdain's "A Cook Tour" more than anything else I've ever read. The reverence he had for that meal made me more excited to go eat at a particular place than anything else I've ever read.
Zach Brooks at 3:33PM on 06/07/07
I love all the books you listed plus plenty of others mentioned here.
This is a great idea! Perhaps you could compile the top 100 foodie books?
Is that a silly idea?
I don't want to lose this list.
ParisBreakfasts at 4:58PM on 06/07/07
Babette's Feast is my choice. If you don't have time to read the book, watch the movie, it is terrific in a European way. Babette's Feast was written by Isak Dinesen the pen name of Karen Blixen who also wrote Out of Africa.
elaine at 4:59PM on 06/07/07
I was about to say either Calvin Trillin's Tummy Trilogy or Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone, but then I saw the comment about Farmer Boy by jennycheck above and remembered reading Little House in the Big Woods as a child. Even almost three decades later, my dim memories of Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of all the foods they gathered, butchered and put up make my mouth water--I can't imagine ever wanting to leave those woods!
msmla at 5:09PM on 06/07/07
"Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss
JEP at 6:12PM on 06/07/07
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs- Irvine Welsh
United Stated of Arugula- David Kamp
Climbing The Mango Trees- Madhur Jaffrey
Wrestling With Gravy-Jonathan Reynolds
If You Can Stand The Heat- Dawn Davis
Talking With My Mouth Full- Bonny Smith
Death By Pad Thai- Douglas Bauer
Heat- Bill Buford
Kitchen Confidential- Anthony Bourdain
The Oxford Companion To American Food & Drink
Erinay77 at 6:22PM on 06/07/07
I don't see them mentioned (but at this late hour and with this much pasta rolling in my belly I might have missed them) but homespun, church-lady cookbooks are fantastic.
Sure, there's always lots of casseroles and 'quick'-mix foods, but if you delve deep enough you're almost guaranteed to run up on a gem or two - the one thing that someone's Aunt or Grandmother used to cook and could become your next big dish!
I have a collection of these cookbooks - some are strictly recipe based and some are more narrative - and I find them at garage sales, flea markets, relatives.
rbryants at 10:25PM on 06/07/07
I am a huge Jim Harrison fan, and I love his collection of food-related essays called The Raw and the Cooked. Harrison is the literary gourmand for hunters, scroungers, philosophers, down and dirty cooks, intrepid travelers, unabashed partyers and anyone who is prone to excessive eating and drinking. If you want a better idea of the charming insanity of Mr. Harrison, the Times did a great feature on him a few months ago that also has a video - it shows him cooking grouse or something, while sucking on a cigarette and talking about his gout. He's the character of characters, with the appetite of a thousand kings.
janelerner at 10:45AM on 06/08/07
"Serious Pig" by John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne. It has much intelligent, literary writing and recipes and if for no other reason is worth having for the essay on the (possible) history of chili.
louisralph at 12:48PM on 06/08/07
Ohh-- there are so many. The Steingarten, Trillin, and Reichl books are all amazing, but I wouldn't say my favorite ( although I never want their books to end). I'm also glad someone else mentioned the Thornes. Their book "Pot on the Fire" was my first food related book that I read and I am looking forward to reading it again. I really enjoyed the Julia Child and Paul Prud'Homme "My Life in France". As someone else mentioned, not so much about food, but a beautifully written story about/ by such a beloved woman. I am currently enjoying both "the United States of Arugula" by David Kamp, and "How I Learned to Cook" edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan. Both are really interesting in their own ways. I started both "Heat" and "the Perfectionist" in the past year, and really need to get back to them soon.
adeaner at 1:19PM on 06/09/07
I've read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking approximately 154,453 times apiece. Some of the recipes are pretty good, but it's the wit, depth, and immediacy of her writing that get me every time. I've enjoyed most of the books mentioned here, especially Tender at the Bone and Mr. Latte. Colette Rossant's three memoirs of growing up in Paris and Egypt were quite engaging.
cybercita at 10:50PM on 06/10/07
My top books are Reichel's Garlic and Sapphires, Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef.
EatWisconsin at 2:38PM on 06/11/07
As I posted above, my top books are Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef.
I forgot to explain why.....
I like Garlic and Sapphires because it is every food-junkies fantasy to be a restaurant reviewer. What could possibly be better? Reichl provides great insight and access into a world most of us only dream of.
I like Kitchen Confidential because of Bourdain's unique "voice." He uncovers the behind-the-scene stuff as well as his personal demons. It is one of the first non-cookbook food books I read.
Ruhlman paints a nice picture of what it is like to attend the CIA. I found the book very engaging and would read it for hours at a time.
EatWisconsin at 2:48PM on 06/11/07
Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West - she's a great fiction writer and wrote this food memoir that focuses on Southern cooking. Really funny too.
bookgirl234 at 11:29PM on 06/14/07
John Lanchester's THE DEBT TO PLEASURE - part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. (Thanks Amazon)
ParisBreakfasts at 6:47PM on 06/19/07