Food Writing
Enjoy this variety of recently published food writing recommended by librarians at The Seattle Public Library. Descriptions by staff or adapted from review sources as noted. (updated November 2023)
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The Magick of Food
Raven combines a light historicism, sensual kitchen-themed rituals, and easy-to-follow recipes in his bright, affable ode to cooking and eating. Each chapter contains an overview based on a location or theme (such as Rome or "Food and Grief") and a final section collects recipes from all the regions and traditions Raven covers. - Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Year of Miracles
With exuberant, evocative prose, Risbridger describes the sweetness and the mess of cooking through grief.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Flavor Thesaurus
With the Flavor Thesaurus, Segnit, a self-taught flavor expert, has created a reference for cooks who have ventured beyond recipes into the world of intuitive and inventive cooking. This edition focuses on plant-based dishes.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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Taste Makers
This intimate and thoroughly researched collection presents biographies of immigrant women chefs who shared their cultural foodways with Americans while overcoming the marginalization of cooking as “women’s work.”
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Black Food
Inspired by The Black Book [edited by Toni Morrison], this soulful, food-focused extravaganza is built upon a similar scrapbook structure, calling upon scores of contributors to provide recipes along with a whirlwind of essays, poetry, photos, and paintings that celebrate Black culture through its food. - Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Taste
Tucci grew up in an Italian family that put great import on food: the quality of ingredients, the careful preparation, the passing on of family recipes and cultural culinary traditions. This is Tucci's memoir of his life in and out of the kitchen, of good times and bad, of five-star meals and burned dishes. - Publisher description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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KosherSoul
Twitty describes food as an archive of a diaspora's memories, and, in this book, writes about the parallels between Jewish and Black foodways.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Processed Meats
Throughout the richly layered essays of Processed Meats, Walker ponders food choices and life choices, dissecting how we process disaster, repackage it, and turn it into something edible. - Publisher description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Getting What We Need Ourselves
Emphasizing the diversity of African Americans and their palates, Wallach explores the African roots and historical routes of black food traditions. A must-read for all seriously interested in concepts of black identities and the significance of food in shaping those concepts. - Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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We Are What We Eat
Waters, legendary chef and founder of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, delivers an impassioned manifesto on how food and its quality impacts society and the planet. Highly convincing and incredibly inspiring, Water's fervent entreaty is sure to open eyes and change minds. - Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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