Happy Tuesday! I took the weekend off from….most everything, including reading unless you count an audiobook (still tolerating Red Dead’s History), but now I’m back in the saddle. Today’s theme is books involving food, so I’m going to split it between fiction and nonfiction. But first, a tease! In honor of the week’s theme, I’m going to fish around Kindle Highlights for a food-related tease. Or..I was. got to reading Wendell Berry highlights and oooooooo, it’s Jayber Crow.
Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. As almost any barber can testify, there is also more than needs to be told, and more than anybody wants to hear.
(1) Lord of the Rings, obviously. But what about second breakfast?
(2) While We Were Watching Downton Abbey. The plot is built off weekly Downton screenings a condo, where British food & drinks are served.
(3) Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser. Read this book 15 years ago and I am still creeped out by the chapter on how these foods are loaded with synthetic chemicals to fool our tastebuds. We don’t seem to care, judging by the …..biscuits and gravy-flavored Pringles in the store.
(4) The Best Cook in the World, Sean Dietrich. Writing on his mama and the culinary traditions of the south. My intro to Dietrich and I have not stopped reading him. Bonus tease!
She does not cook chitlin’s, because she knows what God made them to do.
(5) In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan. A skeptical take on “nutritional science” and an argument for eating food, not processed food products — mostly plants, and not too much.
(6) The Secret History of Groceries, Benjamin Lorr. Equally fascinating and disturbing. I did not know that some of the Southeast Asian fish market is essentially built on slavery: there are ships at sea that stay at sea, with no opportunity for the captive workers to escape, because the ship’s goods are off-loaded to support vessels. Chilling, and a reason I now only buy local fish which is why I…don’t tend to buy fish anymore. 
(Alabama does catfish and mud-bugs. I will eat mud-bugs (craw-dads) at a social event but the appeal of them baffles me.)
(7) ANY WENDELL BERRY. His nonfiction essays touch on food and agriculture, and conversations over food are a staple in his novels. A quote from What are People For:
Like industrial sex, industrial eating has become a degraded, poor, and paltry thing. Our kitchens and other eating places more and more resemble filling stations, as our homes more and more resemble motels. ‘Life is not very interesting,’ we seem to have decided. ‘Let its satisfactions be minimal, perfunctory, and fast’. We hurry through our meals to go to work and hurry through our work to ‘recreate’ ourselves in the evenings and on weekends and vacations. And then we hurry, with the greatest possible speed and noise and violence, through our recreation — for what? To eat the billionth hamburger at some fast-food joint hellbent on increasing the ‘quality’ of our life? And all this is carried out in a remarkable obliviousness to the causes and effects, the possibilities and the purposes, of the life of the body in this world.”
(8 & 9) French Kids Eat Everything. Read this at a very strange period in my life where I was obsessed with France. It passed, but the book still makes me feel weird if I eat walking down the sidewalk. Oh, non, that was French Women Don’t Get Fat. It’s been some years…..
(10) The Year of No Sugar, Eve Schaub. Until I watched a lecture called “Sugar: the Bitter Truth”, I had no idea how much sugar is in everything, at least in American supermarkets. It’s useful as preservative. (also check out Salt, Sugar, Fat).
Reading Freely 
What a comprehensive list. Thanks for your insights.
<a href=”https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2024/09/ttt-food-in-books.html“>Food in Books</a>
I must read more Wendell Berry. Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Why don’t we enjoy it more here in America?!
That’s a good question. I suppose we’ve chosen ease over quality.
In Defense of Food w as a good read.
Lydia
A few of these books sound quite interesting.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/foodies-in-books-ten-books-featuring-food/
I really need to read your #7!
https://wordsandpeace.com/2024/09/03/top-ten-books-involving-food/
The French eating rules book subgenre can really mess with your mind.
If you read any more books featuring food, I run a monthly link up for reviews. https://www.spiritblog.net/september-2024-foodies-read/
Ooh, thanks! Will definitely keep that in mind.
Fab list!
An interesting looking list. I find finding out about our food enlightening and not always in a good way!!
Have a great week!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
My post:
This is an amazing list. I feel like I’m missing out having never gone to France. Reading nonfiction books about food scares me though, like I feel like I’d be happier just not knowing what’s in it 😅😅 thanks for dropping by my post!
That’s certainly sure. Once one start reading the nutritional info and seeing what kinds of weird stuff is put into food products it’s never quite possible to close those eyes again…
The Lord of the Rings is a great choice! Here is our <a href=”https://www.longandshortreviews.com/miscellaneous-musings/top-ten-tuesday-books-involving-food-that-arent-cookbooks/“>Top Ten Tuesday.</a> Thanks!
Oooh yes! I’d forgotten about Wendell Berry. His books were among the recommended reading for my nutrition courses as well. Love your list!
Haze
https://thebookhaze.com/
I thought about including The Lord of the Rings too, but I decided to try and go for some less obvious choices than the ones I always reach for, ahaha. It does jump to mind when thinking about food!
I’ve found sometimes with TTT prompts that it’s best to just shoot from the hip and report whatever comes to mind!
I can’t remember if I’ve seen Fast Food Nation, but back in the day, my family watched a documentary called King Corn, and another one about a farmer going up against Monsanto. My mom also read the French Women book(s). 😀 I’ve been thinking about diet again recently as I’ve been struggling to improve some areas of my health, and high processed food is nigh impossible to avoid. It’s one of those things that’s easy to get obsessed/paranoid over (at least for someone like me), so my thought is to focus on making small improvements.
I saw King Corn as well, around the same time. Never saw “The World According to Monstanto”, but Pollan’s “Food, Inc” was sufficent to make me hate them.
My dream is to try lembas bread, it looks so yummy
I haven’t delved too far into nonfiction or documentaries about food, but The Secret History of Groceries does sound really interesting. Great list this week.