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The National Humanities Medal-winning author of The Poisonwood Bible follows the author’s family’s efforts to live on locally and home-grown foods, an endeavor through which they learned lighthearted truths about food production and the connection between health and diet.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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An ecological and anthropological study of eating offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, explaining how an abundance of unlimited food varieties reveals the responsibilities of everyday consumers to protect their health and the environment.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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A compendium of the first five books by the famous food and autobiographical writer, filled with her mixture of insights into gastronomy and life in general. Her dry humor seasons the experience, as when she noted during the food shortages of World War II “when the wolf is at the door, one should invite him in and have him for dinner.”
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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This polemic about American cooking grabs the food establishment by the back of the neck and gives it a good shake. It does this partly by setting the historical record straight and partly by exposing the conceits, lazy thinking, and nutritional gobbledegook of so many food writers. Karen Hess was a food historian, John L. Hess was a reporter with a nose for the telling detail, and together they have written a book that is eye-opening, deliciously mean, and, unexpectedly, affectingly evocative. Sadly, it is just as pertinent today as it was in 1977, when it first appeared.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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Katherine O’Fallon, of Boston, marries a Canadian Mountie named Mike Flanagan. Together they live a large life in the wilderness dealing with hardship and loss with their neighbors, both white and native, in an engaging and bighearted way.
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Brooklyn is a beautifully written novel about an Irish girl who moves to Brooklyn in the 1950s to find work. Toibin sensitively relates the protagonist’s ambivalence about both Ireland and Brooklyn and her inability to reconcile the two different worlds.
Tagged: Fiction, Immigration
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This is the start of a series that was originally published in Australia that are now being republished here. Phryne (rhymes with brine-y) Fisher is an independent 1920s female sleuth, who solves a jewel theft while bored in England, and then moves to Melbourne to investigate the mysterious illness of the daughter of a family friend. Meet the interesting cast of characters that you will come to know and love in subsequent books. Phryne is feisty, wealthy, and enjoys fine clothing, fine food, and fine men.
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The first in the series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Brunetti is called in when a famous conductor dies of poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice. The city of Venice is the backdrop to an abundance of suspects, as Brunetti, with little help from his superior or the other policemen assigned to him, deftly investigates.
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The aptly named Almond has a jones for almost any kind of candy, especially if it’s made by the smaller and quirkier manufacturers. Part rant, part social history, part confession, this funny and bittersweet book will not only tell you a lot you didn’t know about candy itself but reveal show you the role it plays in all our lives as a source of pleasure and an escape from pain.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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The “Great Subcontinent” is the land mass that embraces Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and, most obviously, India. This handsomely produced volume, full of stunning photographs, personal, crisply descriptive text, and authentic, often simple recipes, takes the reader on a serendipitous voyage of discovery. As in their other inviting books on Asian themes, the authors, a husband-and-wife team, wander through outdoor markets, sample street food, and chat to all manner of cooks, inviting the reader to come explore with them a world of pungent spice and stunning flavor.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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This extraordinary reference work (350 entries, 275 full-color photographs, 500 recipes) provides nearly everything you might want to know about an unusual vegetable (she doesn’t deal with the familiar ones)—where it comes from and where in the world it is especially treasured (not always the same place), what other names it has, what it tastes like, what to look for when you buy it, and how it can be cooked. Schneider approached chefs, cooking teachers, and native cooks for exemplary recipes, but she also gives clear basic cooking techniques so that you can just bring your find home, prepare it, and serve it with supper.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction
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Cites the reasons why people have become so confused about their dietary choices and discusses the importance of enjoyable moderate eating of mostly traditional plant foods.
Tagged: Food, Non-fiction