Welcome back to the Read With Us Lounge!
This week, I have a question that's been simmering in the back of my mind:
Why does food writing affect us so deeply?
Or maybe it doesn't affect you that way at all. That's part of what makes these conversations interesting.
Food shows up everywhere in literature. Sometimes it's a lavish feast. Part of why I loved reading Redwall with my kids was because of the vivid descriptions of the feasts. Sometimes it's a simple cup of tea, a sandwich, or a bowl of soup. Yet those scenes often linger in our memories long after we've forgotten other details of the story.
Why is that?
Food is one of the most universal experiences we share. We all eat. We all have favorite foods, comfort foods, foods tied to celebrations, and foods connected to people we've loved. A description of a meal can evoke memories, emotions, and even physical sensations. Reading about cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven or tomatoes warm from the garden can make us feel as though we're right there at the table.
Food also tells us something about people. What they cook, what they crave, what they refuse to eat, and who they share meals with can reveal character in ways that pages of exposition never could. A family dinner can expose tensions, a holiday meal can reveal traditions, and a simple act of cooking for someone can become an expression of love.
Some of my favorite food writing comes from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. They're not cookbooks in the traditional sense. They're collections of essays about food, cooking, family, friendship, hospitality, and everyday life. Colwin understood that cooking is rarely just about the food itself. It's about caring for people, creating a home, making mistakes, celebrating successes, and gathering around a table. Reading her essays often feels like sitting in a kitchen with a wise and funny friend.
The best food writing seems to understand that meals are rarely just meals. They carry memories, relationships, hopes, disappointments, traditions, and sometimes entire histories. Food becomes a language all its own.
So this week's questions are:
What books, memoirs, essays, or stories contain food scenes that have stayed with you?
Is there a particular meal in a book that you still remember?
Why do you think food writing can feel so intimate?
Have you ever cooked something because you read about it in a book?
Or are you completely unmoved by food writing and prefer your books with as little discussion of meals as possible?
As always, there are no right answers here. Read what you want, think what you think, and tell us about it. I'm looking forward to hearing what books and meals have found a place at your table this summer.
I think this prompt fits especially well with the Lounge's spirit of exploring how reading connects to everyday life and personal experience. It invites people to talk about books, but also about memory, family, and the stories we carry with us.
Well, you know I love to cook and I love to eat, so it should be no surprise that I love reading about food. I'm particularly fond of memoirs that involve food (and often have recipes). Some of my favorites are Under The Tuscan Sun, On Rue Tatin, My Kitchen Year, A Homemade Life, Trail of Crumbs. I've tried recipes from all of those and many have become standards in our home. Reading cookbooks is another hobby of mine. I love them!
ReplyDeleteOh, this is a great topic Bonny! I think the books that the food has struck me are the Martin Walker series with Chief Bruno (who I would absolutely love to have a meal with!!) The cooking is as important as the mystery solving in the series! I think that there is something intimate about a meal, I mean we all eat!! And it is a common denominator and an easy way for a writer to draw the reader into the story. Have I ever cooked a meal? I am not certain about that but I have made hot chocolate for the kids as we read The Polar Express dozens of times! And we even had a good number of Pooh Bear Tea Parties (with lots of hunny! haha). For myself, I remember the day my kids got me Jaques Pépin's: Essential Pépin. It is more than a cookbook... it includes stories of his growing up, stories of his mother, and how to make simple food... amazing. I have cooked his egg dishes so many times I have memorized the recipes.
ReplyDeleteI love to read, love to eat, and love to cook, so naturally I also love to read books that talk about cooking and food. A book I loved as a teenager was Like Water for Chocolate. It uses magical realism, but I think the idea that what we cook for people can have an effect on them is very realistic. I always want the people I love to love what I cook for them -- it's a way of showing them how I feel about them. I also enjoy collecting cookbooks, even if I never cook from them!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading about food from shopping to cooking to eating! Laurie Colwin's books are favorites, but I also loved Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone memoir about how food and cooking shaped her childhood. I think food creates an emotional experience for me, particularly if it includes people I care about. I have started a Sunday dinner tradition with my brother and SIL in the last few months and have found it is more satisfying than just a "visit". I mutter to myself sometimes about menu decisions and the cooking involved, but I have found it is a very satisfying way to maintain a connection with them. I lost the joy of cooking when I found myself alone, and it has been helpful in reviving it. Yes, I own over 100 cookbooks (even after the last purge) and have made many meals from fiction reads. Great topic!
ReplyDeleteI loved the meals described in Still Life by Sarah Winman. I read this book years ago and still think about how much I wanted to sit at table with those characters! I also enjoyed Stanley Tucci's books.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the meals in Still Life so it's clearly time for a reread! And Stanley Tucci's books always make me hungry.
DeleteI was obsessed with reading cookbooks when I was a kid. I was fascinated by the tattered cookbooks of my mother and grandmother. I still have them. It wasn't the recipes. It was the short paragraphs that came before the recipes that I loved. I would read them over and over again. I do say that modern food bloggers take it too far. I find myself hitting the "jump to recipe" button far too often these days.
ReplyDeleteI would agree! I have two of my grandmother's cookbooks and still use the recipe for "cottage pudding" for strawberry shortcake. Modern food bloggers do go on way TOO MUCH!
DeleteI recently finished Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood and I had no idea what it was about when I got as I just like to read Ann Hood books but I probably thought the Yarns was going to be knitting related as she has written about that and I met her at a Knitting camp when she came with one of her books. It was interesting and I know what to try some of the recipes in the book.
ReplyDeleteI've also enjoyed some of Ann Hood's books, but haven't read this one. I'm going to see if I can find it at the library. Thanks for the recommendation!
DeleteOh, my . . .what a terrific topic, Bonny! You are so right . . . food descriptions absolutely stick with me as a reader, and often more than the stories themselves! I loved Like Water for Chocolate, which I read decards ago now. Can't remember a thing about the book -- but I DO remember being entranced by the food descriptions! I think the things that initially drew me to Louise Penny's Three Pines series . . .were the food desciptions! Food memoirs, like so many commenters have already mentioned, are excellent sources of mouth-watering writing. I'd add Elissa Altman's Poor Man's Feast, both an excellent memoir AND excellent food descriptions. Fun topic!
ReplyDeleteThis is a tough post to read right before lunch! When I think about food, I think about Ruth Reichl's memoir Tender at the Bone or Stanley Tucci's memoir Taste. I also love the way Louise Penny describes food in her books, those cozy scenes at the bistro or the friends around the table at the Gamache home. I'm sure there are many others but these are the ones that come to mind immediately. Great topic!
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