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Serious Reads: The Best Food Writing of 2011, edited by Holly Hughes

Posted by Leah Douglas, October 9, 2011 at 9:00 AM

Now is a great time to be interested in learning about food production and food culture. You'll find more about the subject in blogs, magazines, newspapers, and bookstores than ever before. But so much good work can be hard to sift through. For the past 10 years, Holly Hughes has been editing The Best Food Writing series, which provides a nice selection of food coverage from the year in a convenient softcover package. This year's compilation is definitely worth a read.

Restaurant reviews, industry exposes, personal culinary experiences, updates on food policy—all of these topics and more could be included in such a collection. Hughes separates the short essays, generally about five or six pages in length, into several categories. Guilty Pleasures contains tales of eating childhood favorites or late-night snacks that don't do much good for the waistline; Food Fights highlights some pertinent food debates of the day; and Personal Tastes includes sentimental stories of meaningful eating experiences.

The contributors to the collection range from established names in the restaurant world (Jay Rayner, Deborah Madison), to less-well-known bloggers and journalists. Some of the pieces are chapters from books written by authors we've highlighted on this site, such as Barry Estabrook, Lisa Abend, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Christopher Kimball. The variety of names is welcome, especially if you, like I do, tire of hearing the same familiar voices dictate food discourse across all media.

Some of the stories are on the more serious or technical side, such as "Shark's Fin: Understanding the Political Soup," by Jonathan Kauffman, which details the cultural and political struggle surrounding the traditional Chinese dish of shark's fin soup. Others, such as "I Believe I Can Fry," by Katy Vine, are more lighthearted (she profiles a frying champion who works the state fair circuit and demonstrates fried lettuce in his state-of-the-art home kitchen). There's a wide range of writing in this book and all of it is excellent. With Best Food Writing not only will you pick up some great stories, but you will also be exposed to a range of writers who otherwise might get lost in the expansive field of food writing.

About the Author: A student in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Douglas loves learning about, talking about, reading about, and consuming food. Her work has also been featured in Rhode Island Monthly Magazine.

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Tags: book reviews, books, Holly Hughes, reviews, Serious Reads, The Best Food Writing of 2011