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There is an epidemic at my house. My bookshelves are being taken over by food-lit. Books about food, about chefs, about the editor's of chefs, about gardening and everything food related are taking over my bookshelves. And I'm not the only one suffering this epidemic, I'm seeing it all over the blogosphere.
There are very few shelves in my house reserved for any special type of book because things are organized in a way to fit as many books per shelf as possible. But the food-lit? It gets its own shelf. So do cookbooks. Yes that's right, cookbooks and food-lit are not one and the same. While cookbooks are manuals for cooking and teach us how to make things, food-lit speaks to the experience of food and our relationships with it. Fast Food Nation? Food-lit. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? Food-lit. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Julie and Julia, and Gluten-Free Girl? Food-lit, food-lit and food-lit. Some books in the genre contain recipes, others do not - the same way that some cookbooks are dry user-manual types and others have personal anecdotes.
From a blogging point of view food-lit offers one of those great situations where birds of a different feather meet. We all eat and we all have relationships (though they may be vastly different from one another) with food. We all have feelings about food, be they good or they bad, and as such food-lit crosses boundaries in blogging. Food-lit shows up on all kinds of blogs but, unsurprisingly, predominantly on food and book blogs. Since the two groups of bloggers often approach the books from different angles it's interesting to read their reactions. Here are a few examples.
Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food is a pretty hot little book right now. Stefanie at So Many Books recommends it to everyone who eats, ie. she liked it. At Tigers and Strawberries Barbara, who enjoyed The Omnivore's Dilemma, didn't like it. She agreed with Pollan's main points but found that the book wasn't a cohesive unit and that it felt like "two long, investigative magazine articles."
Andi's post at Tripping Toward Lucidity about Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral pushed me into finally reading it after letting it gather dust on my shelf for a year. Andi loved it calling it one of her favourite reads of the year and I'm right the there with her. 1700 Miles of Cooking had this to say about it:
Firstly let me say that I realize the average person could never do an experiment like this and pull it off. However, after reading this book, I now think about my grocery purchasing and eating habits in a whole new light.
Tea and Cookies posted about the best books about food. 40 Forever, the singing librarian, offers some others.
If you are looking to take the plunge into food-lit The Perfect Pantry had some bookworms in her pantry and posted a fantastic list of 2007 food-lit. Remember that last year's hardcovers are usually this year's paperbacks and that makes them perfect for summer reading!
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
