My very favorite books about food

Not a cookbook in sight.

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About ten years ago, after realizing I needed a screen-free way to spend my time, I decided to become a reader of books. This is something you can just do, by the way. Attention spans are malleable, and a muscle like any other.

I read a wide range of genres to discover what I liked—romance novels, memoirs, and even self-help. During my reading walkabout, I started reading books about food, beginning with memoirs like An Everlasting Meal and Alone in the Kitchen with the Eggplant. At the time, I was a vegetarian, but I wouldn’t have described myself as a cook. I had no idea how to correctly cook pasta or what a pepper plant looked like. The romance novels didn’t stick around, but the food books did.

Over time, I developed an interest in histories of individual ingredients (like salt, legumes, or tomatoes), which eventually led to a broader interest in agriculture, anthropology, and the climate crisis. Food, I’ve learned, is a spectacular way to understand the world and its history. Colonization, slavery, and environmental racism were usually in service to food, its trade, and eventually its industrialization. To understand food is to understand systems, power, and, as we are seeing with the climate, the future.

If you like Home Food, I think you’ll love all nineteen recommendations I collected below. Did I miss anything seminal? Let me know in the comments.

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The links below direct you to bookshop.org, where I try to purchase books online. Once you create an account and save your billing information, it’s pretty much as convenient as the other app. I did include Amazon links to books on Bookshop that are currently backordered. If you prefer to e-read, I always recommend the Libby app with a library card. In fact, that’s how I read most of these books!

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Please note that I have included affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you purchase through the link.

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Memoir

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler
Described as a “meditation on cooking and eating,” this delightful book of stories and recipes will have you wandering over to the fridge to steal a single olive.

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
This charming 2007 essay collection about cooking and dining alone was my gateway into the world of food writing. With contributions from Laurie Colwin, M.F.K. Fischer, and Haruki Murakami, it’s a love letter to food, eating, and solitude.

Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin
A delightful memoir about a family restaurant, old New York, and growing up. If you need more Shopsin, I’d also recommend her late father’s cookbook and memoir, Eat Me.

My Life in France by Julia Child
Child’s enthusiasm is contagious; this is a fun and inspiring read.

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Single-ingredient histories

15 more book recommendations below the paywall. Thank you for supporting Home Food!