Food writing — WHISK: Cookbooks at Volume
With so much of our personal and collective cultures revolving around a dinner plate, our appetite for reading about food (and its place in our lives and in the lives of others) is insatiable.
Essayist, poet, and pie lover Kate Lebo is inspired by twenty-six fruits. She expertly blends the culinary, medical, and personal in The Book of Difficult Fruit. A is for Aronia, M is for Medlar, and Q is for Quince. Claudia Roden describes it as “ A beautiful, fascinating read full of surprises – a real pleasure.”
What did we eat and when did we eat it? Over the ten chapters of Food: The history of taste, food historian covers the history of food from the hunter-gathers and first farmers to the evolution of the restaurant and the contemporary volume of choice from fast food to slow cooking. Want to know the food fashions of the Renaissance, what they ate during the Industrial Revolution, or the ancient diets of Greece and Rome, this is your book.
Ah, honey! Thinking about getting some bees? Read this delightful account of two men who decide to become beekeepers, learning about nature and about themselves in the process. Inspiring Liquid Gold . “A great book. Painstakingly researched, but humorous, sensitive and full of wisdom. I'm on the verge of getting some bees as a consequence of reading the book.” - Chris Stewart, author of Driving Over Lemons
My First Popsicle is as much an ode to food and emotion as it is to life. A collection of essays edited by actor Zosia Mamet. Contributors include David Sedaris, Patti Smith, Jia Tolentino, and Ruth Reichl. The Kirkus review gave it a thumbs up for gifting. “Most of the essays capture an isolated moment in time, making the book perfect for reading in short, leisurely spurts..the book is an appealing reminder of the power of food...A good gift for foodies." -Kirkus
First Catch is a beautifully written appreciation of making a meal. Stand next to Thom Eagle in the kitchen as he muses on the very best way to coax flavour out of an onion (slowly, and with more care than you might expect), or considers the crucial role of salt in the creation of the perfect assembly for early green shoots and leaves. “A one-off, the kind of food book that I believed was no longer being published ... when I reached the last page, I went back to the beginning.” —Bee Wilson, The Times
Bill Buford's Dirt is a vivid, hilarious, intimate account of his five-year odyssey in French cuisine. Never mind that he spoke no French, had no formal training, knew no one in Lyon, and his wife and twin toddlers lived in New York. A feast of a book. “Buford is excellent company - candid, self-deprecating and insatiably, omnivorously interested... [I] wolfed it down.“ - Orlando Bird, Telegraph
Cooking is thinking! Small Fires is an electrifying, innovative memoir. Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. Drawing on insights from ten years spent thinking through cooking, she explores the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings, and the transformative intimacies of shared meals. Excellent food writing. 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas.' - Olivia Laing
In The Kitchen is a thoughtful and inventive book of essays highlighting our personal relationships with food. Rachel Roddy traces an alternative personal history through the cookers in her life; Rebecca May Johnson considers the radical potential of finger food; Ruby Tandoh discovers a new way of thinking about flavour through the work of writer Doreen Fernandez; and Yemisi Aribisala remembers a love affair in which food failed as a language.