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There are two places I would highly recommend in Venice -- one we ate at last summer, Taverna San Lio (www.tavernasanlio.com/en/restaurant.htm); and a very pleasant surprise we found just last week in the Castello district, Hostaria da Franz! The latter is a little place, in a quiet part of Venice, far from the tourist crowds, but the food and the service was amazing! I assume their guests find them through word-of-mouth and hotel recommendations, because one would never find them walking around the usual places in Venice. We happened upon it because we were staying in an apartment nearby within the neighborhood. The former, Taverna San Lio, was also a great find,when we visited in 2006. It is an unusual retaurant in Venice -- more like something you would find in Amsterdam -- very modern, stylish, and with EXCELLANT food and service!

Trattoria Alla Madonna. That's the first place we went to when we got to Venice and it was fantastic and totally memorable. Really fresh seafood--I still remember the seafood risotto I had--and not touristy at all. Also, don't miss the Peggy Guggenheim museum when you're there. It's off the beaten track, but really cool. Another tip is to go to Mario Batali's site and check out his Italy picks--I'm sure he has a section on Venice.

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.

My top books are Reichel's Garlic and Sapphires, Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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."

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.

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.