15 food memoirs and nonfiction books

A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

by Anthony Bourdain

This travel and culinary memoir was inspired by the question, "What would be the perfect meal?” If you enjoyed Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations, you’ll love following him on his quest for the culinary holy grail. If you’ve read Bourdain before, you won’t be surprised to hear that his definition of “perfect” doesn’t have anything to do with fine dining or Michelin stars; instead, it’s about not only delicious food and fine ingredients but also context and memory. Here he takes the reader around the world—California, Cambodia, Portugal, Spain, Vietnam, Japan. No one writes about food or adventure quite like Bourdain.

The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

by Robert Farrar Capon

For foodies, faith-seekers, and fans of humor alike, Capon’s 1969 cookbook doubles as a meditation on temporal and eternal life, the sacred (but unstuffy) role of food, and how to bring a spirit of feasting to everyday meals. To give you a taste of Capon’s wry voice, he opens Chapter One with the words, “Let me begin without ceremony,” launches immediately into his first recipe for Leg of Lamb, whose ingredient list includes items such as “spinach (a lot),” and concludes the recipe with “If prepared correctly, it is all delicious.”

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

by Michelle Zauner

Indie rockstar Michelle Zauner delivers a heartfelt, poetic memoir about losing her mother and searching for her identity. “Ever since my mother died, I cry in H Mart.” So begins Zauner’s poignant story. After her mother received a grim cancer diagnosis, Zauner realized her mother’s death would also mean losing her only tie to her Korean heritage, so she sought to shore up stories while she still has time. Whether she writes about the intricacies of preparing traditional Korean dishes or a hurtful misunderstanding, she explores moments from her tumultuous mother-daughter relationship with tenderness and love, often returning to the idea that our experiences of home, family and culture are viscerally rooted in what we taste, see and hear. An honest, lyrical, and life-affirming memoir about grief, growing up, and making amends. I can’t say enough good things about Michelle Zauner’s tender memoir about love, loss, and her Korean heritage. Achingly poignant in the author’s own voice: I was grateful to hear every nuance of emotion, as well as her fluid voicing of the Korean phrases I would trip over in print. Simply beautiful.

Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide (Atlas Obscura)

by Gastro Obscura

This world tour of global cuisine is for anyone interested in explorations of food, history, and culture. It goes beyond traditional cookbook photography with eye-opening shots and unusual vantage points. It highlights hidden gems, unique ingredients, and the many ways what we eat affects and informs our lives. (Recommended by Andrea Jasmine from Main Street Books in WSIRN episode 355: Highly giftable picks for your favorite readers.)

Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew

by Michael W. Twitty

Michael Twitty explores the intersection of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine in the way only he can. With his distinctive prose, he explores the history and culture of these two food traditions and what they can tell us about memory, meaning-making, and identity. I would read anything by Twitty but I especially appreciated hearing his reflections about being Black and Jewish. Plus, recipes are included!

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir

by Ina Garten

Ina Garten’s much-anticipated memoir was certainly on my radar but wasn’t necessarily a priority read. But then I found myself in need of a new audiobook on October 1, the memoir’s actual release day. I downloaded the audiobook on a whim and couldn’t stop listening to Ina narrate her own story. I listened to much of it in the car on a rather stressful solo road trip, and found Ina to be the perfect traveling companion: chatty, engaging, and soothing all at once. Maybe you should take my words with a grain of salt because I’m by no means a superfan: I have a few Ina Garten cookbooks, I’ve had good luck with her recipes, I’ve seen a few snippets of her tv show while vacationing someplace with all the channels. I’m not a student of Everything Ina—but golly I loved this memoir.

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl is one of our greatest food writers and it all started with this 1998 coming-of-age memoir. She chronicles her chaotic upbringing, in the home of a workaholic father and a mother living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Her mother’s penchant for serving rotten food led to Reichl learning how to cook. She went on to become a part of the 1970s organic food revolution in Berkeley and document her continuing cooking adventures in memoirs, essays, and novels.

National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home

by Anya Von Bremzen

Not a conventional food history by any means but there’s enough food and history for my taste here (pun intended!). Where do our ideas come from about what constitutes certain cuisines? Von Bremzen sets out to answer that question about the history and future of food from France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey by visiting myriad, restaurants, bars, and family kitchens. Whether talking to Michelin-starred chefs or street vendors, National Dish tells the story of how food traditions are made. The beautiful illustrations really elevate this tasty read.

Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food

by Wendell Berry

In this thoughtful essay collection, Berry thoughtfully explores some of his favorite topics: the politics of food, mindful eating, and sustainable farming. He embodied—and wrote about—these practices for decades, laying out his philosophy in nonfiction works like this one and weaving it through his characters’ lives in his fiction. While a small percentage of Berry’s readers are likely to be farmers, we can still care about what and how we eat and make choices accordingly, and enjoy this peek into one of the great minds on these topics. If you’re new to Berry’s writings, this is a hospitable place to begin.

Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Poets writing prose just might be one of my favorite things, and this collection is a powerful example as to why. As she did in her debut prose collection World of Wonders, Nezhukumatathil combines poetry, science, and memoir in micro essays about food and its ability to delight, surprise, and connect. The collection, organized around foods and ingredients particularly meaningful to the author, is packed with both intimate stories and interesting facts, and written in prose so evocative you can practically taste and see the foods and dishes she describes. A love letter to food and family and a delight for the senses. The lavish illustrations by Fumi Nakamura also make this a gorgeous gift book.

Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good: A Memoir of Food and Love from an American Midwest Family

by Kathleen Flinn

In this follow-up to The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, Flinn dives deep on her family of origin, with special emphasis on her parent’s long courtship and marriage, but discussing her own childhood and teenage years as well. We learn about her parents’ San Francisco pizza parlor and the special family recipes for Swedish pancakes and birthday cinnamon rolls. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this as much as The Sharper Your Knife, but the thing that made the story for me was a coincidence of place: I was delighted to read in these pages how her family discovered Anna Maria Island, Florida and made it a cherished family vacation destination. My own family vacationed there for years when I was a kid, and the descriptions of the landscape and local destinations (does anyone else here know Duffy’s?) infused my reading experience with unanticipated nostalgic joy. I don’t have deep personal ties to Michigan, but I also enjoyed reading about that place on the page, as the state plays a key role in her family’s heritage.

Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand

by Jeff Chu

When Jeff Chu was in his late 30s, he left his job as a magazine writer in NYC and became a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. While there, he encounters the "Farminary," a 21-acre working farm where students work the land and ponder life’s toughest questions. This memoir was borne out of his experiences at the farm. It’s a midlife reflection and evolution about what it takes to create good soil, both literally and metaphorically, his identity as a first-generation Chinese American, and what he learns about harvesting food. This felt like a thoughtful, tender conversation with a trusted friend and would be a great companion for those pondering a more meaningful life.

Salt: A World History

by Mark Kurlansky

How does one take a look at their dining room table, find the most common item on it, and think “I’d like to write a book about that?” I marvel at the inquisitive minds and research capabilities of authors like Mark Kurlanksy, who’s written about oysters, paper, milk, and salt—common items that have shaped history. Salt seems basic and downright cheap today, but it once served as a valuable item in trades, inadvertently launched entire cities, funded wars, and shaped society as we know it. From world history to culinary techniques to cultural traditions, salt's influence is surprising and vast—and Kurlansky shapes it into an enjoyable read with incredible storytelling and journalism.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

by Harold McGee

Alton Brown once called this 1984 kitchen reference classic “the Rosetta Stone of the culinary world.” In it, McGee explains the science behind food, detailing where ingredients come from, what they’re made of, and how they can be transformed via cooking. His science-y descriptions will help you understand why some recipes work and why some are doomed to failure, and also more prosaic things like if blowing on hot soup truly cools it faster. (Yes—and he’ll tell you why.) When you understand the science behind a recipe, you’ll be able to tell at a glance which ones are likely to succeed and which will fail. This book will make you a smarter cook, and if you’re like me, you’ll enjoy the education.

L’Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home

by David Lebovitz

I've thoroughly enjoyed David Lebovitz's writings about Parisian expat life since falling in love with The Sweet Life in Paris many years ago. This 2018 memoir with recipes details his arduous journey to find, purchase, and renovate his very own Parisian apartment. In between renovation stories, he shares recipes from his kitchen. The curious traveler in me couldn’t help but map each and every real location in the book so I could accompany Lebovitz as he moved through Paris. As someone who used to work in the field of property law, I was fascinated by his descriptions of everything Parisian real estate: I ate up the details on how one searches for and acquires real estate in Paris. But I struggled to read about the massively time-consuming and expensive renovations: Lebovitz is a wonderful writer, but some of his renovation mishaps were so painful they verged on heartbreaking. Nevertheless I'm glad I picked it up, and thankful this book prompted me to revisit his blog and peruse the wonderful archives.

15 food memoirs and nonfiction books

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