| Title | : | Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1479830216 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781479830213 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 |
| Publication | : | First published August 1, 2014 |
Each section offers a delectable assortment of poetry, prose, and essays, and the selections all include at least one tempting recipe to entice readers to cook this book. Including writing from such notables as Maya Angelou, James Beard, Alice B. Toklas, Sherman Alexie, Nora Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, and Alice Waters, among many others, Books that Cook reveals the range of ways authors incorporate recipes--whether the recipe flavors the story or the story serves to add spice to the recipe. Books that Cook is a collection to serve students and teachers of food studies as well as any epicure who enjoys a good meal alongside a good book.
Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal Reviews
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“Recipes are far more than a set of instructions on how to make a dish.” I love that is is this book in one sentence. The author takes moments with the chefs to listen to their memories, theories and development of their food philosophies. There are also some bit about food in famous novels. When you understand where the dish came from it means so much more that something you enjoy for a moment.
James Beard was on of my favorite contributors. His story was close to what I experienced growing up and I connected with his description of the love he had for seafood. Then there is the fact that he loathes milk as a drink, oh I can relate.
The book is filled with inspiration, of cooking yes, but also of living life and enjoying what is around you. There are stories. lessons, advice, histories and even nutritional information. What it offers the most, which I think immensely valuable is the connection between the substance and the people. This is book to read slow, one chef at a time, listen to their words and perhaps make one of their dishes.
I loved this book, it is on my gift list for the holiday season for all my foodie friends. I found it relaxing and felt my small grinch like heart grow bigger with every dish. Okay, yes that was somewhat exaggerated, but I did feel like I did when I was in my Grandmother’s kitchen surrounded by family friends and good food -
The subtitle is The Making of a Literary Meal. I need to make something transparent so that you can decide if this is a book you would enjoy or not. Yes, it does have recipes, so technically, it is a cookbook. No, it is not like any cookbook you have ever perused. I would guess it is literature 80%, recipes 20%. This book has poetry, essays on how food and cookbooks can serve as a commentary on the times of that era, slice of life stories such as how to go mushroom hunting, and all sorts of lovely reading about food, cooking and how we feel about those aspects of our lives.
I love to cook and I have two shelves of cookbooks. I enjoy Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver cookbooks where they also share about entertaining and how they feel about food. I also love mysteries and have a Nero Wolfe and Nancy Drew cookbook. These books tie in with the characters of the mystery novels. So I was fairly certain this would be a book I would enjoy. If that rings a bell, you will probably love this book as much as I do.
This book is literature about cooking. Scholarly without being stuffy. It highlights other wonderful books that include food as part of their theme such as Green Fried Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Café and Pass the Polenta: And Other Writings from the Kitchen.
It also discusses how food infuses our language and vocabulary.
‘In addition to bread’s place as a food staple in most homes, it has also entered our language as a powerful metaphor. A person who supports a family economically is referred to as a ‘breadwinner,’ and ‘bread and butter’ is a phrase that refers to a person’s source of regular income.”
There was even a section on food and funerals.
“When words fail us, we offer food. A platter of fried chicken says, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ A chocolate layer cake whispers, I know you feel that life has soured, so here is something sweet.”
There are no photographs, but there are a few illustrations. At the end of the work there is a section entitled ‘Contributors.’ Each one is given a paragraph of biography and some of their book titles or works may be mentioned. Next are listings of the citations for excerpts in the work if you wish to seek out the entire work.
This book may not have a wide reaching audience, but the folks that it was meant for will absolutely ‘eat it up’ with a smile on their face.
I was provided this book through NetGalley to provide an honest review -
A cookbook like no other. Upon reading the subtitle, The Making of a Literary Meal, I thought that it might be like the other literary based cookbooks that I own. Book were a clever literary foodie enthusiast recreates a meal from Dickens, Dr. Seuss or makes a menu out of Kerouac. Books that Cook is slightly different and I loved reading every page.
Poetry, prose, recipe, memoir, cookbook, the line is blurred in this collection that brings together an assortment of authors of different backgrounds. The common subject, food. Their approaches as different as their palates and experiences. I read recipes turned into poems, and children stories turned into recipes. I was invited into someone's kitchen and briefed on the family secret recipe. The collection of gastronomical and culinary literature is inspiring, now I will go out and buy cookbooks for their poetry and literature for its recipes.
I was given this book by NetGalley. -
Full review at
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal is a delightful book that is meant to be savored. But not literally. You can’t actually eat it. Well, if you have the paper version, I guess you could, but I highly recommend that you read it instead. It’s an anthology with the premise that cookbooks are a form of literature, and it combines selections from cookbooks with passages from fiction, memoir, and poetry to create a lovely meditation on the meaning of food and food writing.
One thing I like about this book is that there are so many ways to read it. I read it casually – I had it by my bed and I would read a section here or there in no particular order, with no real agenda except enjoyment. But you can also read the Introduction and get a good sense of why the book is organized the way it is, and use this organization to get a good academic sense of how cookbooks have changed our culture, and vice versa, and what role food plays in literature. Basically, you can enjoy this as casually as you might enjoy a glass of wine at a party or as seriously as if you are the judge of a wine competition. It’s up to you.
I loved how the structure of this book made me think and how the content made me feel. It’s a lovely book for any foodie or for anyone with an interest in how we write and talk about food. And if, unlike me, you do like to cook, this book will give you plenty of ideas. Can I come over for dinner?
- Carrie S. -
I liked this book, it was well-written and had an intriguing premise. I confess I could not get through all of it. Sometimes the research becomes a main character of the book, proving that you did all of it and learned so much ... and this may be the case with this book, I'm not sure. I started it, then skimmed the rest. Worth a look!
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This is a pretty good set of lectures, not dealing with recipes, exactly, but rather with the stories behind stories about cooking.
Dr Cognard-Black speaks clearly and directly...but obviously from a professorial position. Hers would be a course I would take just for fun...well, I guess I did! -
Food books from an academic point of view. Each chapter or section was informative and rather succinct. If anything, I came away with a list of books and movies to read/watch, plus plenty of bon mots and food-for-thought (pun fully intended.)
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I loved these short stories and poems all about food! Even better were the recipes told in each story given at the end. Gave me so many new recipes to try!
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A collection of essays and poems on food from various cookbooks and other authors. Recipes are also included. The book focuses on the importance of food in our lives. A fun read.
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While kitchens and ingredients have shifted throughout America's history, our fundamental relationship with food and food writing remain surprisingly unchanged. We are concerned, to varying degrees, with taste, economy, health, and conviviality. And when in need of inspiration, we turn to words: annotated recipes, chatty cookbooks, foodie memoirs, and illuminating essays.
Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal blends these elements of America's food and food-writing culture. Part cookbook, part history, part anthology, Books That Cook offers both literary and gustatory delight.
Editors Jennifer Cognard-Black, a professor of English at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and Melissa Goldthwaite, a professor of English at Saint Joseph's University, based Books That Cook on their upper-level seminars of the same name. Cognard-Black, who is also an editor with Literary Mama, says that seminar invites students to explore the culture, symbolism, and history of food-related literature—and to cook at least one recipe to share with the class.
Books That Cook is organized as a full-course meal, beginning with an invocation and starters, taking readers through various side and main dishes, and ending with dessert and a toast. Cognard-Black and Goldthwaite open each section by setting the mood. They describe the evolution of main courses, for instance, from local, seasonal fare caught or harvested pre-colonization, to the "mighty mountain of muscular beef," which often served as dinner through the 19th century, to the more cosmopolitan fare of the 20th century and the return to local, seasonal fare we now see in American kitchens and restaurants.
Following such an introduction, each section presents an excerpt from a cookbook that has shaped American food and families over the past 200 years—those books mentioned above, as well as The American Frugal Housewife (1829), Joy of Cooking (1931), and Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook (1982), all of which were written by women.
The meat, if you will, of each section includes fiction, essays, and poems of varying proportions and flavors. Many authors will be familiar to Literary Mama readers: Maya Angelou, Terry Tempest Williams, and Nora Ephron, for instance; and some, such as James Beard and M.F.K. Fisher, are well known among foodies and food writers.
Almost all contributions to Books That Cook embrace food as relationship—to one another, to home, to history, to ourselves. Many pieces, however, are explicitly about mothers and motherhood. For instance, "In Nancy's Kitchen," by former Literary Mama Editor-in-Chief Caroline M. Grant, recalls an unsettled time of life: her firstborn was only one and the health of her mother-in-law, Nancy, was beginning to fail. That transition became anchored in food and, literally, in Nancy's kitchen. Grant writes of the ingredients she found in the cupboards (including 19 pounds of pasta), and how she and Nancy shared a love of cookbooks and cooking—despite vastly different methods of stocking and organizing a kitchen.
Read Literary Mama's full review here:
http://www.literarymama.com/reviews/a... -
I love food! I love eating it and I love reading about it, so I was really excited to read this new release- it sounded like it would prove that not only is food important to us for survival, but also of the impact it makes within the world of literature. Food unites people, whether through sharing a great meal together, passing across recipes or merely reading a really terrific piece of food writing in a novel. Even now, recipes books are no longer considered as just that- they contain background to foods and a wealth of information as to how those particular dishes came to be. Food evolves- recipes evolve as they are shared. Cookbooks aren’t just taken to be for reference purposes any longer.
Through this collection of essays, recipes and poetry, this important and indispensible book demonstrates that the common subject of food has such a strong impact on culture and society. There is useful historical information imparted as to the backgrounds of dishes- where they came from and how they have changed- and some gorgeous prose used that proves just how vital certain dishes and experiences can be to families, societies and communities. I recognised some of the passages used in support of such statements- Fannie Flagg’s for one, but some of the books that were referenced I haven’t heard of, so they will make a great edition to my reading list in future as there was some really beautiful, sensory food-writing used. I wasn’t as fond of the poetry aspects, but that’s merely down to personal preference- I’m not a big lover of poetry.
This book is cleverly arranged like a cookbook- familiar in its threads running through it of appetizers, soups etc, but each section imparts so much information to the reader that I really found it fascinating. I loved some of the recipes used and I will certainly consider trying them in future- they left me salivating. I think for me, the only downside is that it being an American publication, I did have to look up some of the terminology used (being British), but that was to be expected and this is often the case if I buy American-published cookbooks anyway. The Netgalley formatting was also pretty abysmal, which probably added to some of the confusion!
I would not hesitate in recommending this book to anyone with a strong interest in the history of food, the development of recipes or food-writing. -
Books that Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal edited by Jennifer Cognard-Black and Melissa A. Goldthwaite is a perfect book for readers seriously interested in food, its history, and enjoy this information in several literary forms. It’s definitely a marriage of food and literature with the notion that cookbooks and recipes are “culture keepers and culture makers” and worthy of literary analysis.
The editors offer an excellent and innovative approach to reading the book straight through and that is according to a set of menus, works arranged and enjoyed accordingly. Since I was reading the book in PDF form, it was inconvenient for me so I read it straight through, making it no less enjoyable, but I think it would have been more “fun” to read in menu form.
Some of my favorites include: The exceedingly lovely poem, “Full Moon Soup with Snow” by April Lindner, “In Nancy’s Kitchen” by Caroline M. Grant, primarily because her pantry reminded me of mine; a very poignant “How to Cook Moong Dal, Bengali Style,” by Deborah Thompson; “From Chez Panisse Cookbook” by Alice Waters, which shows her words still stand the test of time; “Poet in the Kitchen and Poem of Chicken Breast” by David Citino,” making me nostalgic for Cleveland, and “How to Make Rhubarb Wine” by Ted Kooser because who wouldn’t want to after reading it.
There is something for every cook and reader in Books That Cook. I think it warms the soul like it would warm a hearth. -
I would like to thank NYU Press and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review and feedback.
This book is meant to be savored and enjoyed as if you were ruminating on each course of a fine dining experience. The contributors were stellar and the essays a delight to read for any foodie. I enjoyed the fact that I could set it down and reflect on what I read. It was easy to pick up and take in another essay and find yourself transported on another culinary adventure. Discussions on food in literature, food in our prose and vocabulary, food in our cultures pervade this book inspiring thoughts and a bit of nostalgia. Recipes are sprinkled throughout the book; but the words are really the food for thought and the mind. This is the perfect gift to share with those in your life that love to read and love to eat. -
I liked almost everything in this collection. It's arranged by "course" - entrees, desserts, and whatnot - with writing selections that tie into them. I preferred the essays and cookbook selections to the fiction and poetry, but that's just a function of my preferences in general.
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I love the whole concept of this book. It's just fun. There are recipes, stories, and poems laid out into courses. I think this is one of the few cases when having desert first is completely acceptable. (For which I recommend "Baking for Sylvia")
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Cindy's Pick
Call #: 641.5 Boo -
sadly disappointing
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A collections of poems, stories, excerpts from novels and snippets from cookbooks, all of which containe one or more recipes. Most of them are good reading.
