5 Books for Foodies
Food writing is a diverse genre that explores food-related topics and goes far beyond recipes and cooking techniques. In literary works, food can, for example, be used as a metaphor, a thematic element, to explore identities or relationships. In this listicle we recommend 5 great books for foodies, including food fiction and food memoirs. We promise that these books will make you hungry. (All of them include meat.)
Francesca Ekwuyasi’s Butter Honey Pig Bread
Francesca Ekwuyasi’s debut novel tells the story of three women, a mother and her twin daughters. After years of living on different continents, they meet again in Lagos. Taiye cooks tirelessly for her mother and sister, at first to avoid serious conversations, later to help them address past traumas. Their shared meals nurture their relationships and bring them closer together.
Claire Kohda’s Woman, Eating
In Claire Kohda’s novel, mixed-race vampire Lydia, a recent art school graduate, is very hungry – in London it is difficult to get pig’s blood. Lydia, who cannot eat human food, is nonetheless obsessed with food and cooking. In the dark safety of her windowless studio, she spends hours on the hard concrete floor, watching cooking series, scrolling through food posts until her anxiety and jumbled thoughts are numbed by the repetition. Nourishment and consumption are at the core of this story.
Nina Mingya Powles’ Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai
This slim volume is based on blog entries written by Nina Mingya Powles when she went to Shanghai, China, for a year to improve her Chinese. During her stay, she lived on the university campus. Whether it’s pouring rain or it’s actually too hot to leave the air-conditioned dorm room, her love for dumplings and all kinds of noodle dishes drives her outside. Powles‘ lyrical short texts are infused with a sense of loneliness and a search for her own identity.
Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H-Mart
In her moving memoir, Michelle Zauner recounts the death of her mother Chongmi and her subsequent grieving process, a time during which cooking brought her great comfort. Her mother was a strict perfectionist and Zauner describes herself more as a chaotic, dreamy artist. As different as mother and daughter always were, their love for Korean food – food from the mother’s country of origin – remained a unifying bond.
Angela Hui’s Takeaway
Food journalist Angela Hui takes us behind the counter of her family’s takeaway, Lucky Star, which operated for thirty years in the rural village of Beddau in South Wales. For Angela, growing up as a “takeaway kid” was both a haven and a hellhole. After school and on the weekends, the three Hui siblings suffered through “lid duty,” took orders, and packed bags of freshly fried prawn crackers (“one for the bag, one for us”). But Lucky Star’s front room was also a place for celebrations, holidays, and family gatherings.