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The food deserts of Memphis: inside America's hunger capital | Divided Cities

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Why grocery stores are avoiding Black neighborhoods

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Why grocery stores are avoiding Black neighborhoods

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Why Grocery Stores Are Avoiding Black Neighborhoods

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Food insecurity can result from climate change, urban development, population growth, and oil price shifts that are interconnected and rarely confined by borders. Pulitzer Center grantees explore the connected causes and effects of food insecurity including efforts being to secure the physical and economic access to food in countries most in need.

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A community of seed savers has a recipe to revive rare varieties of collard greens

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Collards were once as diverse as the Southern families they fed, but countless varieties have vanished. The race is on to preserve and propagate. That’s where the Heirloom Collard Project comes in.

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The Heirloom Collard Project is a collaboration between Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seed Savers Exchange, Working Food, and The Utopian Seed Project. This project aims to build a coalition of seed stewards, gardeners, farmers, chefs, and seed companies working to preserve heirloom collard varieties and their culinary heritage.

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The Heirloom Collard Project is a collaboration between Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seed Savers Exchange, Working Food, and The Utopian Seed Project. This project aims to build a coalition of seed stewards, gardeners, farmers, chefs, and seed companies working to preserve heirloom collard varieties and their culinary heritage.

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Dadisi Olutosin grew up in Atlanta. His mother is "a southern belle," he says, "and growing up in her household, I was exposed to a lot of very, very good food," he says. She cooked classic southern American dishes like collard greens (which he made for us in this video).

It was only later, when traveling around the world as an adult, that he understood the African roots of his culinary heritage.

In West Africa, Olutosin saw women cooking a range of green leafy vegetables in soups and stews. The food - and how they made it -- reminded him of his own mother. And he also found the roots of southern dishes. His dad grew up in Nigeria."In Nigeria you find a very popular dish called egusi," says Dadisi. It's a thick soup made with green leafy vegetables like pumpkin leaves or something called bitter leaf as well as melon seeds.

He began to understand his culinary ties to this part of the world - that much of the food he grewup with was brought from West Africa by enslaved Africans. (The Atlantic slave trade also carried these food traditions to Caribbean islands. A dish called callaloo "is really the Caribbean version of collard greens," says Olutosin, who now lives in Washington, D.C., where he's an IT professional and a pop-up chef.)

Now when Olutosin cooks his collard greens, he pays tribute to these historical connections by adding Caribbean and West African ingredients. For example, he adds peanuts to his collards dish - peanuts are a big part of the diet in West Africa.And he adds coconut milk, popular in the Caribbean.
Jump to the recipe.

These days, many southerners like Olutosin are honoring and preserving these food traditions. But back in West Africa, the opposite trend is in force:More and more people are abandoning traditional foods for a westernized diet.

"People are moving into urban areas and you're seeing higher consumption of foods of convenience, things you never found in Africa before like pasta," says Edward Mabaya, an agriculture and food expert at Cornell University.

And so, foods made with refined ingredients like pasta, noodles and bread are replacing traditional sources of carbohydrates like yams, cassava and millet.

The reason is often just convenience. Many old-time recipes call for long hours of preparation and cooking - overnight soaking, grinding by hand, fermenting. These tasks fell to the women in the household. But today, many West African women also have jobs, making it hard for them to spend long hours in the kitchen.

"I think the modern Ghanaian woman wants to eat healthy indigenous foods but the preparation time is what puts most of them off," says Yaganoma Baatoulkou, a food entrepreneur based in Accra, Ghana.

Western vegetables like cabbage and lettuce are replacing a variety oflocal (and nutritious) green leafy vegetables. Farmers find it more profitable to grow the western varieties.

And as incomes rise in cities, people are drawn to western fast food chains. "We have quite a few American fast food brands," says Baatoulkou. Fast food chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut are popular, she says, and eating at these places is seen as "prestigious" and great for family outings.

As NPR's The Salt reported last year, these dietary changes have dire health consequences - growing rates of obesity and diabetes.

But the old foods are starting to make a comeback. Baatoulkou is part of a new breed of food entrepreneurs who are reinventing themin packaged forms that are convenient for city people.

Her start-up company Wanjo, which means hibiscus in the regional language Wolof, sells juices and jams made from nativeplants like hibiscus, tamarind and baobab.

"Imagine if you wanted pounded yam," says Ogunranti Feyisara, a food safety consultantand entrepreneur in Nigeria. Pounded yam, is a Nigerian version of fufu - a starchy ball, popular in parts of Africa, that's commonly served with vegetable soups.To make it the traditional way, "you have to peel the yam, you have to cook it and then pound the yam."

Now you can buy premade pounded yam in supermarkets.

And there's definitely a market for these products. "As a career woman, I would like to walk into a supermarket and pick up well-packaged and clean indigenous food ingredients that will cut my cooking time in half," says Baatoulku of Ghana. "This way I spend less time in the kitchen and can still cook wholesome foods for my family."

The newly packaged traditional foods have helped cut down cooking time for women like Mojisola Ojebode, a Nigerian scientist based in Ibadan. One ingredient she is thrilled about is an instant spice mix for a popular pepper soup. Her mother used to make the mix from scratch by grinding each spice before cooking, she says. "I don't even know the names of all the spices in it," says Ojebode. But she does know that it includes nutmeg and pepper.

In theory, she'd happily buy precut vegetables at the supermarket - but right now, she says they cost three times as much as the produce sold at the outdoor market. So she just asks her vendor to chop and bag her fresh veggies.

Dadisi Olutosin's Recipe For Collard Greens

Collard greens was the first dish that Dadisi Olutosin learned to make, when he was a young boy. Today he adds some international touches. But it's still his go-to comfort food.

2 large bunches of collard greens

2 large red onions

1 ounce raw ginger

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

8 ounces baby portobello mushrooms

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon raw sugar 2 tablespoons sea salt (or to taste)

4 tablespoons medium yellow or red curry powder

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces (1 cup) coconut milk

4 ounces chopped roasted peanuts (optional for garnish)

2 Roma tomatoes (optional for garnish)

Optional meat to add: precooked pork belly, bacon, ham hocks or smoked turkey necks, chopped or left whole

Roughly chop both onions, mushrooms, garlic and ginger. Add olive oil to a 3-to-4 quart pot on medium heat. Let the oil heat up a little bit. (If it starts smoking it's too hot.) Then add chopped items - saute until they start to sweat and caramelize. Stir gently with a large wooden spoon while adding salt (to taste), black pepper and curry powder.

Wash and thoroughly clean the collard greens to remove any grit. Cut off the stems but don't throw them away. Stack the leaves in piles of three-to-four, then roll them tightly. Take your knife and chiffonade the rolls - that's a fancy verb that means to cut them into strips.

Slowly add the strips of collard greens to the pot, then fold the seasoned vegetables on top. If you're using meat, add it now. Cook over medium heat.

The moisture in the greens will evaporate from the heat of the water, decreasing their volume.

Once you see steam coming from the pot, your greens are ready for the final step. Gently stir in the coconut milk, then cover the pot and allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes, depending on how tender or tough you want your greens to be.

Serve greens with optional garnishes like sliced or diced raw onions and tomatoes and crushed peanuts. Don't forget, some good cast-iron skillet buttermilk cornbread goes great with greens.

Share Your Hot Pot Story
Tell us a memory you have about a dish you love. Post a video or photo on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #NPRHotPot, and we'll gather some of our favorites and post them on NPR.org. Get the details here.

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The African Roots Of A Classic Southern Dish

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Dadisi Olutosin grew up in Atlanta. His mother is "a southern belle," he says, "and growing up in her household, I was exposed to a lot of very, very good food," he says. She cooked classic southern American dishes like collard greens (which he made for us in this video).

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Join members of the Western Academy of Beijing community for conversations about innovative learning, activities, and community initiatives.

1. All Episodes

2. Students Explain how Culture & Construction Collide in MYP Design

For the Master Snack project in WAB's MYP Design class, students were asked to design a meal, as well as the plate it is served on, based on the fusion of two cultures of their choice.

On today's episode, we're joined by two Grade 10 students and two Design teachers who explain the inspiration and impact of one of WAB's favorite design units.

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Students Explain how Culture & Construction Collide in MYP Design

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For the Master Snack project in WAB's MYP Design class, students were asked to design a meal, as well as the plate it is served on, based on the fusion of two cultures of their choice. On today's episode, we're joined by two Grade 10 students and two Design teachers who explain the inspiration and impact of one of WAB's favorite design units.

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It started with an idea: Grade 6 students wanted to utilize the empty space behind their Middle School Building. Now, the ground has been broken on what will become a living legacy on campus of WAB's Class of 2028.

A group of Grade 6 students approached their teachers in mathematics, science, and humanities to collaborate on the creation of an inter-disciplinary unit that would result in the creation of a garden. Over the next several months in learning activities across the three subjects, students pitched layouts and designs for the space, researched and planned construction materials and care routines, and made connections with a local village to equip the school with the knowledge and tools necessary for a sustainable agriculture project.

The students divided into several focus groups -- Community Outreach, Environmental Sustainability, and Garden Design -- to put their garden plans into action. On April 11, WAB hosted a launch celebration featuring traditional Chinese dances and planting sessions for each of the different garden plots. They also thanked the residents of Jinpoluo Village, who helped them learn about sustainable agriculture, and who plan to use WAB as a model for other schools around China to carry out similar projects.

"The garden launch was amazing," Zachary Maxwell, who was the lead teacher on the project, said "This was the beginning of something much bigger, something that will become part of how we learn in Middle School and at WAB for many years to come. I'm excited to see where this takes us."

Check out the video above to hear more about the project from the students and teachers involved.

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Student-driven, Sustainable Garden Opens at WAB

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It started with an idea: Grade 6 students wanted to utilize the empty space behind their Middle School Building. Now, the ground has been broken on what will become a living legacy on campus of WAB's Class of 2028.

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Look for lesson plans from Johns Hopkins

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FoodSpan | Johns Hopkins | Center for a Livable Future

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This free, downloadable curriculum provides high school students with a deep understanding of critical food system issues, empowers them to make healthy and responsible food choices, and encourages them to become advocates for food system change.

What is the Food System?

The food system spans the activities, people and resources involved in getting food from field to plate. Along the way, it intersects with aspects of public health, equity and the environment.

Why Teach the Food System?

The public has shown a growing concern for food system issues. Widespread problems such as chronic illness, infectious disease, social inequality, animal welfare harms, environmental degradation, and the concentration of economic power have ties to the food system. Recognizing these connections can empower young people to become not only informed consumers, but also food citizens who can engage in many facets of the food system, from growing their own food to advocating for policies.

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FoodSpan | Johns Hopkins | Center for a Livable Future

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Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork

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Videos for Change Rockefeller foundation has a special prize for Food Related topics

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RockeFeller Foundation | Videos for Change

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Good food keeps us healthy. It helps us reach our potential. It strengthens our communities, powers our economies, and protects our planet. But not everyone gets good food every day - and the way we produce and market food is harming our environment. This has to change.

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A floating food market to invigorate rural culture Foodiea Market is a sustainable market proposal to invigorate community life in rural China. Through the process of urbanisation, many young people...

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A floating food market to invigorate rural culture Foodiea Market is a sustainable market proposal to invigorate community life in rural China. Through the process of urbanisation, many young people...

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The Utopian Seed Project is a hands in the earth non-profit committed to trialing crops and varieties in the Southeast to support and Celebrate diversity in food and farming. OUR VISION is an engaged community of growers, gardeners, farmers, foodies, cooks and chefs (actually, everyone) WHO embrace regional biodiversity for a resilient and delicious food and farming system.

We growing many different things in Western North Carolina to explore what could be grown in a more diverse food and farming system. In our farm work we explore emerging crops for this region as well as variety trials for traditional crops. Diversity and experimentation is at our core!

Crop Stories is our way of speaking about, educating and celebrating the crops that we are working with. Crop Stories includes a crop-specific event series, a crop-specific magazine and a supporting podcast, with a high degree of synergy between these three platforms.

The People's Seed allows us to keep seeds front and center of our work, knowing that seed sovereignty is critical to sustainable and equitable food systems. We engage in education and community outreach, as well as our own seed saving, plant breeding and regional adaptation work.

Our work is a collaborative effort of a growing network of farmers, foodies, pardners, chefs, breeders, growers, seed savers and hopefully, YOU!

Thanks to our Sustaining Sponsors

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Home - The Utopian Seed Project - Celebrating Crop and Varietal Diversity

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The Utopian Seed Project is a hands in the earth non-profit committed to trialing crops and varieties in the Southeast to support diversity in food and farming. Our utopian vision is create an engaged network of growers, gardeners, farmers, foodies, cooks and chefs to help educate and celebrate this diversity.

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The Biggest Little Farm Movie. Coming to theaters Spring 2019

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A testament to the immense complexity of nature, The Biggest Little Farm follows two dreamers and a dog on an odyssey to bring harmony to both their lives and the land. Search for screenings and book tickets on the official website brought to you by NEON

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As well as books such as "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food"

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Explored through the lenses of the four natural elements - fire, water, air and earth - Cooked is an enlightening and compelling look at the evolution of what food means to us through the history of food preparation and its universal ability to connect us. Highlighting our primal human need to cook, the series urges a return to the kitchen to reclaim our lost traditions and to forge a deeper, more meaningful connection to the ingredients and cooking techniques that we use to nourish ourselves.

Watch the Trailer

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Netflix Documentary Series: Cooked - Michael Pollan

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Explored through the lenses of the four natural elements - fire, water, air and earth - Cooked is an enlightening and compelling look at the evolution of what food means to us through the history of food preparation and its universal ability to connect us.

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Looking for the best novels about food? This foodie fiction reading list is sure to satiate your cravings, tacos included.
Did you ever notice how some of the best food fiction books are all out foodie wars between lovers, friends, and family - whether at a restaurant or among a city's hottest food truck scene?

And, do you feel like some of the greatest love stories happen with the help of delicious and homecooked food? Plus, are you a lover of all of the cooking shows?

Here at The Uncorked Librarian, we love novels about food - romance, murder mysteries, historical fiction, indie, LGBTQ+, and so much more.

Combine food with our love of travel, and we've selected some of the best fiction books about food that will transport you across the globe.

Savor gelato in Italy, rusks in South Africa, and lumpia from a Filipino food truck in Maui. A few of our favorites include Recipes For Love And Murder, Simmer Down, and Love & Other Disasters.

Of course, "best" is subjective, and we'd love to know your favorite food fiction novels and even fantastic novels about restaurants in the comments.

There are so many foodie fiction books, we clearly struggled to narrow down this list. Let's get started!

Read around the world with all of our unique book lists.
Grab your favorite food fiction books here:
1. We get the month's hottest new and upcoming titles from Book of the Month.
2. Try Audible Plus.
3. Find books via Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans.
4. As a member of Amazon Prime, don't miss Amazon First Reads - early access to Kindle books.

29 Best Novels About Food

By Tori Curran

1. The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais

Popularized by the film adaptation, The Hundred-Foot Journey, was first one of the most poignant novels about food and culture.

After a family tragedy forces the Haji family out of India, they settle in the French Alps and open an inexpensive Indian restaurant.

One hundred feet across the street sits an esteemed French restaurant, run by Madame Mallory.

What starts as a feud between the two, blossoms into a beautiful apprenticeship between Hassan Haji and Madame Mallory.

Mallory agrees to mentor Hassan in French cuisine, sparking an adventure to Paris and beyond. Mallory is sure to learn a thing or two from Hassan and the glaring differences in their two cultures.

Discover even more books about India.
Read The Hundred-Foot Journey: Amazon | Goodreads
2. Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown

A culinary, sea-born take on the classic tale of Scheherazade.

Chef Owen Wedgwood is kidnapped by pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. His life will be spared as long as he delivers epic culinary creations to his captor each Sunday. Using minimal supplies on board, Owen cooks to save his life.

As Mabbot pushes the crew, and a pirate feud comes to a head, Owen begins to see the calculations behind his captor's actions. As everyone onboard reaches a near breaking point, the most unlikely relationships form.

A tad romantic and utterly unique, Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a literary feast for the senses.

3. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

In 1949, four immigrant Chinese women form The Joy Luck Club where they eat dim sum, play mah-jong, and invest in stocks. Forty years later, the tradition continues.

Connection sits at the heart of the meetings and in Tan's thought-provoking novel.

Highlighting the matriarchal ties, we learn the deepest secrets of four mothers, and four daughters, through the stories they "say" at the club meetings.

While The Joy Luck Club is more than just a tantalizing foodie fiction story, Tan utilizes food imagery to convey ideas of cultural identity and the generational bond made through memories of cooking and eating familial recipes.

If you love San Franciso-based stories, don't miss more books set in CA.

4. Delicious! By Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl, food writer and critic, chef, and television producer, lives and breathes all things culinary.

In her debut food fiction novel, Reichl presents a tantalizing, and somewhat mysterious, journey through both the present and the past.

Head to New York's food scene, as Billie Breslin accepts a job at Delicious!, one of the city's premier food magazines, maintaining call lines.

The solitary job becomes an epic adventure when Billie discovers a hidden room in the magazine's library containing letters written by a twelve-year-old girl to the legendary chef, James Beard.

When the building owner decides to sell, it's a race against time to uncover the clues leading to the rest of the letters. For devour-worthy New York novels, this one will leave you salivating.

5. Little Beach Street Bakery By Jenny Colgan

Jenny Colgan, a romantic comedy genius, delivers with her heartwarming foodie fiction series, Little Beach Street Bakery.

32-year-old Polly splits with her boyfriend amidst a financial crisis and heads to England's Cornish coast to start anew.

Amidst the quietness of a seaside town, Polly begins to lose herself in one of her favorite hobbies: baking bread. But when her distraction becomes a labor of love, a new business is born.

She begins to experiment with new, local ingredients - including honey from the handsome beekeeper.

6. The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand

Broke, single, and heartbroken, Adrienne Dealey decides to leave her career in resorts and hotels and head for Nantucket.

Thatcher Smith, the owner of the Blue Bistro - the hottest restaurant in town - offers her a job. His restaurant isn't the only thing catching her eye, and the attraction seems mutual.

But something is amiss.

Why does the restaurant seem like it's on the brink of closing? And what is going on with Fiona, Blue Bistro's mysterious chef, and Thatcher?

Will Adrienne have a chance to play out her new beginning and take a chance on love again, or will she be forced to start over, yet again?

For food fiction books set in Massachusetts, this island-read promises a sea breeze filled with romance and a look into the world of high-end restaurants.

7. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Ever since the eve of her ninth birthday - when Rose Edelstein bit into her mother's lemon chocolate cake - she's been able to taste the emotions of the food she's eating.

To her surprise, she tastes a particular sadness in her cheerful mother's cake. Her newfound ability turns into a curse, as Rose unwittingly discovers family secrets.

She avoids family meals, including her mother's cooking, and grows withdrawn until she discovers food she can taste normally: that of a chef merely focused on ingredients.

8. The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia

Set in the small town of Merinac, Kansas, a century's old fried chicken feud comes to a head in one of the most fun and hilarious southern novels about food.

Amanda Moore, who grew up working for her mother at Chicken Mimi's, is forced by marriage and scandal to switch sides and work for a rival family at Chicken Frannie's.

Fed up with being caught in the middle, she reaches out to a reality cooking competition, Food Wars.

When Amanda's sister heads back to Kansas for the competition, siding with her family at Chicken Mimi's, the rift between families grows larger.

9. The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

The Baker's Secret is where tantalizing food fiction meets a captivating and courageous World War Two historical fiction tale.

Emma has been baking alongside master baker Ezra Kuchen since she was thirteen. She watches with horror as he's pulled away from his shop for being Jewish.

Tasked now with baking a dozen daily loaves of bread for the German troops, she finds a way to use her extra flour rations to sneak in a couple of extra loaves for her neighbors.

Not only does Emma nourish their hungry stomachs, but she finds a way to feed hope.

10. The Little French Bistro by Nina George

A heartwarming story of second chances, set against the backdrop of charming coastal France, Nina George delivers more of what her readers came to love in The Little Paris Bookshop.

After a dramatic moment on the banks of the Seine, Marianne, who speaks no French and is stuck in a loveless marriage, heads to Brittany. She accepts a job in a small French Bistro, hoping for a quaint but fresh start.

There, and around town, she meets and is charmed by welcoming locals, each with their own stories to tell.

Ultimately, Marianne begins to rediscover all of life's little joys and learns that it's truly never too late to live the life you've always wanted.

For novels about food, France is the perfect setting.

11. Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li

For multigenerational food fiction, encounter a dark and comedic tale about family dynamics set alongside the inner workings and relationships of a popular Chinese restaurant.

Owner Jimmy Han desires to scale the homey and lovable Beijing Duckhouse to something more high-end.

His brother, Johnny, is preoccupied with their aging father, while his relationship with his own daughter, Annie, grows more difficult.

Two long-term Duckhouse employees, Nan and Ah-Jack, decide to take their friendship in a new direction, while Nan's son Pat finds himself, along with Annie, in a messy situation.

12. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

One of the original novels about restaurants, Flagg's beloved 80s novel deserves a place on any foodie list, as it paved the way for so many others.

Alternating between past and present, the novel surrounds the growing friendship between middle-aged housewife, Evelyn Couch, and Ninny Threadgoode, a nursing home resident.

Evelyn visits Ninny weekly, listening to her stories about growing up in Whistle Stop, Alabama, and the cafe run by family and friends.

Ninny's stories largely focus on Idge Threadgoode and often deal with food imagery, LGBTQ+ themes, domestic violence, racism, and aging.

13. Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Yummy food fiction meets a modern take on the enemies to lovers trope in Tweet Cute.

Pepper and Jack have absolutely nothing in common, but their paths will cross in an all-out Twitter war.

A self-proclaimed overachiever, Pepper is secretly running the Twitter account for her family's burger chain, Big League Burger.

Jack, who works at his family's small New York deli, takes to Twitter himself when he learns Big League Burger stole his family's famous grilled cheese recipe. The rivalry goes viral.

But amidst their very public Twitter war, and not to their knowledge, Pepper and Jack have connected elsewhere on a chat app Jack built. And this time, the conversations have taken a different turn.

14. The Ingredients of Us by Jennifer Gold

What's an accomplished baker to do when she discovers her husband's infidelity?

Elle starts by making jam. Then, she begins to revisit old recipes, and the not-so-sweet memories alongside. Readers will enjoy the recipes peppered throughout this mouthwatering novel about food.

But Elle starts to cope in other ways, too, including a rebound romance. She struggles to keep her baking business afloat or to maintain important relationships close to her.

15. The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken

Translated into English by Alice Menzies: Sophisticated and eccentric, The Waiter, is perfect for anyone with a penchant for fine food, wine, and European ambiance.

The Hills Restaurant in Oslo, Norway, despite its run-down conditions, is riddled with Old World flair. For more than a decade, a middle-aged waiter has routinely made everything at The Hills just right.

His uniform, the tablecloths, and even the guests all have a predictability about them until a beautiful new guest arrives and disrupts the delicate silent balance of the restaurant.

And the waiter, this time, cannot keep his poker face. The unexpected happens when we've learned to only cope with what's expected.

For food fiction books set in Norway, The Waiter is clever but may also not be for everyone.

16. The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Tilo is an immortal spice shopkeeper from India who is also trained in magic. She uses the properties of her spices to help customers with their ailments, wants, and desires.

When she meets and falls for Raven, she breaks the rules of her training and seeks out a customer outside of the shop. Her spices retaliate with punishment inflicted on her and her loved ones.

Tilo must decide between accepting punishment for her decision and immortal life. And will either of those choices leave room for Raven?

17. The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert

Lou is already struggling to get her French restaurant, Luella's, off of the ground when she discovers her fiancé with an intern. It can't get much worse...until it does.

Al, who keeps himself afloat by writing scathing restaurant reviews - under a pseudonym, of course - for a Milwaukee newspaper, walks into Luella's on the worst day possible.

On the day that Al's review runs, he meets Lou in a local pub. Conjuring up a conversation, Al challenges Lou to show him the best spots around town.

There's only one rule: they can't talk about their work. But as they galavant around town, sampling the best local delicacies, will their true identities surface?

One of our favorite novels about food, The Coincidence of Coconut Cake is a story of a chance meeting and what happens when things aren't as they seem. Read across the U.S. with these books.

18. A Pho Love Story by Loan Le

For more rom-com fiction books about food, Le juxtaposes Vietnamese culture and a family rivalry with a heartwarming and unexpected love story.

Bao Nguyen and Linh Mai strike up a romance after avoiding each other for years. They are each employed at their families competing pho restaurants and suspect that the feud is far greater than a neighborhood restaurant rivalry.

As they grow closer, Bao and Linh discover that the roots of the family conflict trace back to their history in Vietnam.

Amidst career concerns, pressure from their parents, and family conflict, Bao and Linh become exactly what the other needs.

19. The Chocolate Lovers' Club by Carole Matthews

We all turn to chocolate to cope...

At least Lucy Lombard does. She and fellow chocolate lovers, Autumn, Nadia, and Chantal, create an intimate group - The Chocolate Lovers' Club - to discuss life's trials and tribulations at a chocolate café.

From a cheating boyfriend to a loveless marriage, there's plenty of reason to meet.

20. Sourdough: or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan

San Fransisco-based software engineer Lois codes during the day and limits human contact by night, with the exception of the brothers who own a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant. She orders takeout from them nightly.

When the restaurant is forced to close, Lois receives an unexpected delivery: the brothers' sourdough starter. They want her to keep it alive and bake with it.

Lois soon finds herself enjoying her own bread and sharing it with coworkers. In true techie start-up-esque fashion, they encourage her to take her bread to the farmer's market, where a whole new world of opportunities awaits.

If only Sloan could've guessed how popular making homemade sourdough would become.

More Food Fiction Books To Read

From Christine, TUL

21. Recipes For Love And Murder by Sally Andrew

Our new favorite cozy mystery series and one of the best South African novels about food, we devoured Recipes For Love And Murder.

The Tannie Marie Mystery series is perfect for fans of Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. A largely feel-good mystery awaits you - minus the murder aspect.

Tannie Maria is a passionate recipe columnist when her boss asks her to switch to love advice. Cleverly, Tannie Maria combines the two subjects for one hit of an advice column.

The lightheartedness of her job takes a turn when Tannie Maria receives a letter from a victim of domestic violence asking for help.

When the letter's author is soon found murdered, Tannie Maria is determined to catch her killer.

Is the murderer her abusive husband or the woman who was crushing on her? This recipe for murder involves ducks, a fireplace poker, biscuits, milk tarts, and pomegranate juice.

Along with her journalistic friends and colleagues, the women investigate, putting their lives on the line while also finding love.

Food fiction lovers will especially enjoy the South African recipes written out at the back of the book. After reading Recipes For Love And Murder, we can only fuel our book lists with tea and biscuits.

Read Recipes For Love And Murder: Amazon|

22. Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

One of our favorite new 2022 LGBTQ+ books set in Los Angeles, California, Love & Other Disasters is the ultimate romance for foodie fiction lovers.

Plus, if you watch Top Chef and The Great British Bake Off, we promise, this one is for you.

Dahlia Woodson is recently divorced and heading to L.A. to participate in a competitive cooking show, Chef's Special.

Not wanting kids of her own, she feels as though she has let everyone down, including her ex-husband and parents.

While on Chef's Special, Dahlia finds herself falling for London, a pansexual, nonbinary contestant - who is hot AF. It doesn't matter that they are competitors.

Unfortunately, Dahlia and London never discuss what will happen when one of them is kicked off the show; they live in different states, and someone will eventually have to go.

Will they stay together? Will their families love them for who they are? Will they learn to love themselves?

This is a sizzling hot novel with food featuring dynamic characters and strong representation.

CWs: Misgendering, homophobia, nonbinary-phobia, transphobia, sexism, sexual content

Read Love & Other Disasters: | | Book Information

23. Simmer Down by Sarah Smith

Escape to the shores of Maui in Sarah Smith's steamy multicultural romance Simmer Down. Foodies will love watching Nikki and Callum compete in the Maui Food Truck Festival.

Plus, Simmer Down has our favorite things: cursing, cats, abs, and pink champagne. No kitties are hurt, either.

Hottie Callum and his brother Finn park their food truck next to Nikki and her mom, ignoring all proper etiquette. This could mean the end of their business.

While Nikki plans to bring it, she doesn't expect to start falling for Callum, who throws her stubborn and cautious life's plan into utter chaos.

Will Niki realize that there is more to life than work? Can she learn to love again after losing her father?

For fiction books about food, Callum and Nikki's relationship will make your heart smile and your tummy growl for delicious eats. Simmer Down was one of our favorite romances of 2020.

24. The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox

Charlie's one baking superpower is her sense of smell, which is why when she gets a concussion at work, she's worried that she's ruined her one chance to host her own baking show.

Luckily for Charlie, she has an equally talented twin sister, Cass, who agrees to swap places with her. Charlie heads to her family's small hometown bakery while Cass takes over for her in L.A.

What could possibly go wrong? Pretty much everything, especially when they both start falling in love.

The Holiday Swap is the perfect read if you love novels about food and baking, devour The Great British Bake Off, or are looking for a story set around Christmastime.

Plus, you'll enjoy the sisters' bond along with the juxtaposition of big city life versus smalltown roots. Find feminism, heart, finding yourself, and lovable friends and family.

Foodie fiction doesn't get more feel-good than this.

25. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Translated into English by Carol and Thomas Christensen: For kick-butt women in historical fiction and one of the most well-known books set in Mexico, every foodie fiction list should include Like Water For Chocolate.

Meet Tita De La Garza. She is the youngest daughter in her Mexican family, which means that she is forbidden to marry.

Her true love, Pedro Muzquiz, marries her older sister to stay closer to her. Tita, meanwhile, takes to the kitchen where her storm of emotions becomes trapped in her food.

A story filled with forbidden love, magical recipes, and heartbreak during the Mexican Revolution, Tita and Pedro must find each other over the course of a lifetime through marriages, children, and death.

If you enjoy magical realism, this also makes for a fantastic Mexican movie.

26. North of Happy by Adi Alsaid

Craving tacos? That's the story of our lives here at TUL.

One of our favorite Anti-Valentine's books, North of Happy is a novel about restaurants.

Carlos and his older brother, Felix, decide to taste test their way through the food stands of Mexico City. They are in search of the perfect taco.

When a stray bullet kills the free-spirited, nomadic Felix, Carlos desperately needs to recover his own happiness.

During his high school graduation party, Carlos runs away from his privileged and pre-determined life, heading to a small island off of Washington State. His brother's ghost follows him.

Carlos visits Provecho, a bucket list restaurant in his brother's diary. Needing a job and place to stay, the restaurant's master chef takes in Carlos.

With the threatening promise of termination, if he does not stop dating the chef's daughter, Emma, Carlos is in a bind.

One of the best YA novels about food, love, and life, North of Happy makes readers feel as though they are experiencing life for the first time.

Encounter enchanting backdrops and heartfelt, raw emotions.

27. Arsenic And Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

Arsenic And Adobo is endearing and light multicultural foodie fiction for readers looking for a suspenseful Filipino-American mystery.

While we enjoyed this more unique story, some of our Uncorked Readers felt lukewarm about the plot. If you enjoyed Jesse Q. Sutanto's Dial A For Aunties, though, Arsenic And Adobo makes for a great read-alike.

Head to Illinois where Lila Macapagal moves back home to save her aunt's failing restaurant. She has an adorable dog.

Unfortunately, Lila's loathsome food critic ex-boyfriend dies after another terrible restaurant review and confrontation with Lila.

Of course, this leaves Lila as the number one murder suspect even though he's the most despised man in town.

Can Lila solve the mystery before anyone else ends up hurt? Is something else going on here?

You'll love Lila's nosy aunties, and you'll find bits of romance and entrepreneurship. Can you truly go home again?

Plus, if you are craving food fiction books and cozy mysteries, this story promises a bit of everything. Discover even more books about the Philippines and Filipino culture.

28. Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich

Here at TUL, we are pretty Janet Evanovich obsessed. She is the perfect author if you are looking for a junk-foody series. Stephanie Plum anyone?

For food fiction, however, Evanovich's Lizzy & Diesel series is where you want to start, especially if you enjoy magical books set in Salem and cupcakes.

The first in the series, Wicked Appetite is one of the best novels about food and baking incorporating magic, mystery, and cupcakes.

Elizabeth Tucker is a new pastry chef at Dazzle's Bakery, and her colleague, Gloria Binkly, is an aspiring witch on a quest to find stones that hold the seven deadly sins.

Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon were just a few of the previous treasure hunters after these stones along with present-day and dangerous Gerwulf Grimoire.

When Diesel shows up, offering to protect Lizzy, she's not so sure what to make of him. Find an enchantingly cozy culinary mystery with a monkey, an old house, and a cat.

Full disclosure that we love Stephanie a tad more, and just be aware that Evanovich's books are formulaic and predictable - which is sometimes needed in our reading lives.

29. The Extended Summer Of Anna And Jeremy by Jennifer Ann Shore

Although a bit more of a stretch into food fiction books, if you love cereal, you'll devour Shore's The Extended Summer Of Anna And Jeremy.

A young adult indie romance set in PA, Anna is entering her junior year of high school and looking for a change of pace. A list-maker and strong student, Anna is a play-it-safe and practical kind of woman.

Anna enlists her brother's handsome friend, Jeremy, to help her fulfill a mini-bucket list filled with brave adventures outside of her comfort zone throughout the summer.
Get a tattoo. Cross the state border. Be romantically intimate.
Throughout the summer, readers watch as Anna and Jeremy's relationship blossoms. Worried about making her family situation more awkward and ruining her brother's friendship, though, Anna has a tough decision to make.

Should she follow her heart or her brain?

Shore is infamous for her love of snacks, candy, and treats. If you follow her TikTok and IG accounts, you know that she is always commissioning incredible bakes and ice cream cakes to market her books.

Each book offers a nod to desserts and snacks, and you can find Shore snacking for writing inspiration - in fact, she coined the term 'snacksgiving.' Bless her vampire black heart.

Save Your Favorite Food Fiction Novels For Later
Grab your favorite fiction books about food:
1. We get the month's hottest new and upcoming titles from Book of the Month.
2. Try Audible Plus.
3. Find books via Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans.
4. As a member of Amazon Prime, don't miss Amazon First Reads - early access to Kindle books.

Thank you to TUL contributor, Tori Curran from Explore With Tori

Tori (pronouns: she/her) is a former children's librarian turned stay-at-home mom to two boys, living in Dallas. She's an avid traveler, nature enthusiast, and writer encouraging families to get outside and start exploring the world. When she's not hiking or traveling, you can find her lost in a historical fiction book, watching Bravo reruns, or obsessively decluttering her home.

What are your favorite fiction books about food to read?

Did this foodie fiction reading list make you hungry? What are your favorite novels about food? How about novels about restaurants and baking shows? Let us know in the comments.

You may also enjoy:
Books About Wine
This reading list is originally part of our 2022 Uncorked Reading Challenge.

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29 Best Devour-Worthy Novels About Food | The Uncorked Librarian

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Looking for the best novels about food? This foodie fiction reading list is sure to satiate your cravings, tacos included. Did you ever notice how some of the best food fiction books are all out foodie wars between lovers, friends, and family - whether at a restaurant or among a city's hottest food truck scene?

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We used to eat so many different varieties of corn

Maize or corn is now grown in greater volume than any crop in history, and is still the staple food for about 1.2 billion people in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.

A farmer in spreads recently harvested maize for drying in Bangalore, India, where maize is the third most important cereal after wheat and rice. Photograph: Getty Images

But the maize most of us eat today is quite different from what our ancestors consumed.

Maize spread around the world because of its ability to evolve and adapt to different climates, altitudes and day lengths. Left to mother nature in an open field, diversity flourishes as wind carries pollen from one plant to a female flower of another plant, creating a slightly different maize baby every time.

According to USDA research geneticist Sherry Flint-Garcia, "open love pollination" enabled maize to adapt to different environments as intrepid humans took it further and further from its centre of origin in southwest Mexico, where it crossed with other wild and cultivated varieties.

From there, farmers would save and replant the seeds of the best plants - the hardiest, tastiest, and easiest to harvest - to create locally adapted varieties, which are called landraces or heirlooms. By the early 20th century, there were thousands of distinct landraces being cultivated from Canada to Chile, each one adapted to the local ecosystem with its own good and bad quirks.

Diverse maize varieties stored at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center's genebank in Texcoco, Mexico. Photograph: CIMMYT Germplasm Bank

This story is true for most of our staple crops.

For thousands of years, families and communities relied on these local landraces which over time had developed helpful traits for their particular ecosystems. These landraces would also have not-so-good traits, but farmers saved, shared, and bought and sold seeds locally which helped the best varieties evolve and thrive. Different crops like maize, beans and squashes were planted in the same field to help control pests, fertilize the soil and provide a nutritionally balanced diet.

For maize, this changed radically around the 1920s, after scientists discovered they could take a landrace and self-pollinate the plant, creating a genetically identical inbred, and if they did this several times its characteristics would change - perhaps the plant would be taller or have a big ear of corn. These inbreds were then crossed with each other, again and again, to create hybrids.

Hybrid seeds, which farmers have to replace every year, contributed to a huge increase in yield but at the expense of genetic diversity and qualities like taste, nutrition and climate adaptability. In the blink of an evolutionary eye, Mexico lost 80% of its varieties, and 99% of corn grown in the US today is from hybrid seeds.

As agriculture became increasingly industrial and corporate, many farmers were incentivized or pushed into monocropping homogenous high-yield varieties that depend on expensive and greenhouse gas generating synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and machines. Over the last century, modern genetically narrow varieties have taken over much of the world's farmland.

As a result we lost countless varieties of grains, fruits, vegetables and spices better equipped - thanks to their genetic makeup which evolved over generations - to withstand certain pathogens, drought, heat, and humidity.

History shows us that diversity really matters. In 1970, a new fungus called southern corn leaf blight wiped out 15% of maize crops in the US and southern Canada, as susceptibility was tied to a genetic sequence used in all popular hybrids. Today around 43% of maize grown in America is still derived from just six inbred lines.

Like an investor with stocks, savings and real estate, diversity in the field spreads the risk: if an early season drought wipes out one crop, there will be others which mature later or are naturally more drought tolerant, so farmers aren't left with nothing.

Wheat feeds billions - but it's vulnerable to climate changes too

We can tell a similar story about wheat, the most widely consumed grain globally which is grown in every continent (apart from the Antarctic) to make bread, chapattis, pasta, noodles, pizza and biscuits eaten by billions of people.

A farmer bales up straw after harvesting a field of wheat in Northamptonshire, England in September 2021 when the country experienced a heatwave. Photograph: PA Wire

Global wheat production tripled thanks to the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century after an American scientist in Mexico, Norman Borlaug, developed a short-stemmed variety which could withstand the weight of fertilizers. This changed the way the world farmed: uniformity, yield and technology became the gold standard, and malnutrition declined substantially despite population growth. But this came at a huge cost, namely the loss of wheat diversity, natural ecosystems and traditional knowledge, and climate change is now making us pay.

Last year prices for durum (pasta) wheat soared by 90% after widespread drought and unprecedented heatwaves in Canada, one of the world's biggest grain producers, followed a few months later by record rainfall. Over the last century, Canadian farmers have increasingly relied on genetically similar high yield wheat varieties, elbowing out crucial diversity.

Luigi Guarino, director of science of the Crop Trust, said: "Climate change is the greatest threat to food security, there is nothing bigger. Under very unpredictable conditions, the more diversity in farmers' fields the better."

Our favorite coffee is threatened by hurricanes and rain storms

The first US coffee house opened in Boston in 1689, and today Americans drink about 400m cups every day. Coffee is produced in 80 or so tropical countries, so one might think diversity is inevitable.

But whether you prefer espresso or instant, it comes from just two species: smooth tasting, high quality arabica accounts for about two thirds of consumption and is struggling to cope with the changing climate; and Robusta, which is hardier with more caffeine and higher yields but has a bitter, grainy flavor.

The Green Dragon Tavern was one of Boston's first and most celebrated coffee house taverns, opened in 1697. Photograph: Boston Public Library

Wild arabica coffee is native to the forested mountains of Ethiopia and South Sudan, but the coffee we enjoy in our lattes and flat whites today can be traced back to just two sets of arabica plants snuck out of Yemen in the early 17th Century.

Its future now hangs in the balance.

Arabica grows at 1,300 to 2,000 meters above sea level and is very fussy about temperature, rainfall and humidity. When it's too hot and dry, coffee ripens too quickly which diminishes yield and quality. Our arabica doesn't like it to be too wet or too windy either - which is a major problem for coffee growing regions prone to hurricanes like the Caribbean, Hawaii and Vietnam. As the climate rapidly changes, higher temperatures and more erratic rainfall could render 50% of current arabica growing regions unsuitable by 2050.

"It's like a monocrop, and the low genetic diversity is a huge part of its vulnerability," said Sarada Krishnan, a coffee scientist and grower.

The global coffee industry, valued at $465bn in 2020, has so far failed to come up with $25m to protect the world's four most important gene banks which hold many of the known 131 species.

It's not just heat. Pathogens threatening coffee include insects, moths, worms and coffee leaf rust - a fungus now found in every single coffee-growing country, and which removes the ability to produce beans.

A coffee plant infested with the deadly fungus roya - also known as coffee rust - in Heredia, Costa Ric, in 2015, which has spread across the region over the past decade due to inadequate prevention and the climate crisis. Photograph: Getty Images

About 125 million people depend on it for their livelihoods in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. But coffee leaf rust has destroyed crops in around 70% of farms in Central and South America over the past decade, contributing to a rise in poverty, child malnutrition and forced migration. The rust is not new but scientists think that unpredictable rainfall and rising temperatures are causing the fungus to reproduce more quickly - and spread more widely across plantations.

These kinds of climate threats will likely drive up prices.

The race to save genetic diversity

Every apple eaten today can be traced back to the Tian Shan forested mountains between China and Kazakhstan, where every tree produces unique fruit in shape, size and flavor. The wild orchard has dizzying diversity, according to food journalist Dan Saldino, and hidden in the trees are drought and disease resistant traits we will need as the climate crisis increasingly puts pressure on food production.

But this living gene bank is under threat, with huge swathes already culled to make space for cash crops, cattle ranches, and housing developments. Malus sieversii, the wild apple which is the primary ancestor of all our favorite apples, has been on the IUCN red list of threatened species since 2007.

It's not just apples. Vanilla is native to Mexico and Central America, but the region's eight wild species are listed as endangered or critically endangered on the red list.

Not all is lost.

As the Green Revolution fueled the erosion of genetic biodiversity this triggered an organized global effort to find and conserve diversity in gene or seed banks.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built inside a mountain on a remote island halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole for safety, contains the world's largest collection of crop diversity. Photograph: Global Crop Diversity Trust

Thanks to these genetic goldmines, researchers are looking to wild relatives, forgotten landraces and obsolete commercial varieties to breed climate-resistant or more adaptive varieties which can withstand more unpredictability. "We'll never get back all the diversity we had before, but the diversity we need is out there," said Matthew Reynolds, head of wheat physiology at Cimmyt, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center outside Mexico City.

The gene bank approach has been pretty successful for saving staple grains, but far less so for vegetables and fruits. And while storing seeds is no easy feat (you need carefully controlled conditions), lots of foods including coffee, apples, peaches and vanilla need to be conserved as plants or trees, which is even more complex and expensive.

In the end, we need to see greater diversity in farmers' fields, where old varieties can once again be part of the evolutionary story.

A wild banana variety native to south-east Asia, where bananas were domesticated thousands of years ago. Photograph: Fernando Garcia-Bastidas

As the clock ticks, the private sector is forging ahead with developing biotech solutions like gene editing and transgenics, which rely on genetic resources in publicly funded gene banks and naturally occurring biodiversity to provide the raw material. Just four agrochemical companies control 60% of the global seed market (and 75% of the pesticides market), and so have a vested interest in making farmers dependent on them for the full shebang.

In contrast, agroecologists and regenerative farmers argue that the most efficient and sustainable food systems are those which use techniques that mimic nature, rather than try to dominate it with artificial ones. "It's about understanding what farmers have done for millenia to draw on traditional knowledge - and support that with current science - to deal with evolving environmental stressors including climate change," said Alexis Racelis, agroecology professor at the University of Texas.

No matter what the approach, valuing diversity and saving endangered foods like wild arabica coffee in Ethiopian forests, vanilla orchids in Guatemala, and the apple trees in Kazakhstan is key to improving the nutritional quality of our diets, more sustainable farming, and climate adaptation, according to Dan Saladino.

"It's not about going back, it's about looking back with a bit of humility at the diversity and food systems that kept humans alive for thousands of years in greater harmony with nature - and looking at what can be applied in the 21st century food system."

This article is the first in a series about the diversity crisis in our food, with more coverage coming in the next few days and weeks

This article was amended on 19 April 2022 to correct Luigi Guarino's job title.

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Our food system isn't ready for the climate crisis

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The world's farms produce only a handful of varieties of bananas, avocados, coffee and other foods - leaving them vulnerable to the climate breakdown

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In this game, students level up the farm with green technology to meet the space and water needs of their crops.

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Find out what food miles are and how the food we eat affects the environment with 1st level Health and Wellbeing on Bitesize.

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Food Tank is focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters.

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MYP students meshed Empathy to Impact with food design, using this process to help generate ideas and final food concepts that were grounded in research, culture, sustainability and community action. The influence of decisions taken in a design stage radiates throughout the whole food system, from f

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The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think by Julian Baggini – review

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Philosopher-cook Julian Baggini roams far and wide in his discourse on food, writes Alex Renton

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H Auden's famous observation on the writer MFK Fisher - "I do not know of anyone in the States who writes better prose" - has been pressed into service on the cover of this reprint of Fisher's most beloved book The Gastronomical Me (1943). The power of the puff lies in the fact that Auden wasn't praising another poet or even a novelist but a food writer, a species conceived at that time as a domestic science teacher with a fail-safe recipe for meatloaf. Implicit in Auden's praise was the suggestion that Fisher should be removed from this category and set alongside Hemingway or Faulkner as a literary practitioner in her own right. These days we would get around the whole vexed business by saying that Fisher's hybrid of culinary and memoir writing falls into the category of the personal essay, the kind of thing that has launched a thousand blogs and become a staple of the New Yorker's annual food issue.

The only hitch with this is that Fisher - or, to be formal, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher - was on record as hating the idea of the personal essay. To the proud daughter of a California newspaper man, the term signalled self-importance and, worse, over-writing. Fisher prided herself on never doing more than one draft which, if true, means she was a genius. Here she is on the food she encountered in Burgundy as a newlywed in the 1930s: "We ate terrines of pâté ten years old under their tight crusts of mildewed fat. We addled our palates with snipes hung so long they fell from their hooks, to be roasted then on cushions of toast softened with the paste of their rotted innards and fine brandy."

What Fisher is doing here is far more than simply describing a rich meal in even richer prose. As she explains on the first page of The Gastronomical Me, "Our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others." Or, as Bee Wilson glosses it in her short, admiring introduction, "There is a liberating generosity to the way she exposes those private appetites that most of us struggle to hide. No one was ever so confident in her own hungers or so determined in her quest to satisfy them."

We addled our palates with snipes on cushions of toast softened with the paste of their rotted innards and fine brandy

This might sound a bit lush, a bit Eat, Pray, Love, which is surely one of The Gastronomical Me 's bastard descendants. But there is an important difference. For Fisher proceeds from the assumption that everything and everyone she encounters in her odyssey is explicitly and graphically on the point of revealing their own "rotted innards". A helpful chauffeur flips his lapel accidentally to reveal an enamel fascist party pin; the heavy drapes in a smart restaurant turn everyone's faces mauve and mustard; while eating a delicious bouillabaisse involves "sucking a hundred strange dead creatures from their shells". On a train to Switzerland, Fisher's beloved husband, who has recently lost a leg, weaves unsteadily down the corridor to the dining car where once he strode like a strongman at the circus.

By the time Fisher wrote her book she was no longer devouring lunches made from "those big white beans, the kind Italians peel and eat with salt when they are fresh and tender", or sitting in a post-house marvelling at how delicious potatoes can be if you gave them half a chance. The girl whom Man Ray yearned to photograph because of her bone structure was holed up in a boarding house in Altadena, California. Recently widowed - her terminally ill husband had shot himself - Fisher was heavily pregnant by a man she never named. The war which she had seen coming in Europe had now finally arrived in America and was consuming the nation's young men. As Wilson rightly points out, The Gastronomical Me makes you shiver at its deep familiarity with death.

Reading it again in this handsome new edition I am struck by the fact that it is, above all, a queer book. I mean the term not so much as Fisher used it colloquially and carelessly in the middle of the last century but how we employ it today, to mark a work in which sex and gender and everything that is built from them - the whole world in other words - is on a tilt. Nowhere is this better summarised than in Fisher's trenchant inversion of the usual pap about liking to cook for her friends because it makes them feel at home. On the contrary, she explains gleefully, her goal is to give her guests something that will make them "forget Home and all it stood for".

In a series of dazzling table turns, Fisher proceeds to demonstrate her own queerness in action. Boarding at Miss Huntingdon's School for Girls in the 1920s, she swallows her first oyster while simultaneously dancing deliriously in the arms of Olmsted, an older girl of Prince Charming proportions. Later, as that most soupy of things, a honeymooning bride, she finds herself scooping grape skins out of a girl's navel while her new husband waits for her next door. Finally, when dining alone on the way to Avallon in France, Fisher is kidnapped by a waitress who treats her "like a slave", forcing her to choke down pickled herring "as meaty as fresh nuts" before leaning in, with her "odd pale voluptuous mouth", as if for a kiss.

Fisher scorns the idea of liking to cook for her friends because it makes them feel 'at home'. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/The Guardian

And then there is the queerest of queer chapters, "Feminine Ending". By now Fisher has wound up in Mexico where her younger brother, David, and his wife are living. David has become obsessed with the lead singer in a local mariachi band, a small monkeyish man with a "wild, cracked" voice who seems equally breathless for David. The moment Fisher sees Juanito she knows that he is biologically a woman. It is the second time that she has felt called on to perform such an unmasking. She tells us how, as a teenager taken to her father's newspaper office, she pointed out that the star typesetter was not a regular guy but a cross-dressing woman. Mary Frances (the run-together Christian names by which she was always known hint at her own doubleness) is clearly drawn to the inbetween.

This inbetweenness extends to the structure of the book. Fisher's technique is to proceed obliquely so that the bones of her story - who is married to whom, who is living where, how many babies are in residence - hardly figure at all. Instead we are given a series of interludes, gaps in the timeline where feeling and experience gather in deep pools. This narrative ellipsis can come across as a bit take it or leave it, as if Fisher can't be bothered to spell things out for her readers, which is why, in recent years, there has been something of a backlash against her perceived snootiness. But this is missing the point.

Fisher always said that her greatest achievement in life was learning how to walk into a restaurant and treat herself as her own honoured guest, ignoring the hostile stares of resentful men and the covertly admiring glances of other women. And this is exactly what she achieves in The Gastronomical Me. To read Fisher is to feel, in Wilson's words, that "we too should be a bit bolder in feeding ourselves" and a little less bothered by what the world, with its rotten innards, thinks about it all.

The Gastronomical Me is published by Daunt. To order a copy for £8.49 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

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The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher review - a food writing classic

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H Auden's famous observation on the writer MFK Fisher - "I do not know of anyone in the States who writes better prose" - has been pressed into service on the cover of this reprint of Fisher's most beloved book The Gastronomical Me (1943).

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https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/

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Using Restaurant Reviews to enhance sensory language.

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Using Sensory Images: Restaurant Reviews (Published 2019)

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Learning how to spice up your descriptive writing, with help from The Times and a student-written review.

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Bringing together NGOs, agricultural networks, nutritionists, campaigners, civil society, the private sector and UN agencies to co-ordinate advocacy efforts and achieve SDG2 by 2030.

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Each year, the World Food Prize Youth Institutes convene high school students, teachers, and experts to explore and solve local, national and global hunger and food security issues. To apply to the Institute, students research and write a paper on a global challenge related to hunger and food insecurity. Registration for the event is free. Currently, 24 U.S. states, and The Netherlands and Honduras host Youth Institutes, at which students can be selected to be a delegate to the Global Youth Institute. Students who do not live in a country or U.S. state with a Youth Institute can apply as at-large delegates to the Global Youth Institute.

SELECT YOUR REGION for information on how you can get involved!
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Global Reach Internet Productions, LLC - Ames, IA - globalreach.com

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Each year, the World Food Prize State Youth Institutes convene high school students, teachers and hunger fighters for a one-day symposium on local, national and global hunger and food insecurity issues. To apply to the Institute, students write a research paper on a global issue related to hunger and food insecurity.

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Could these foods reverse climate change? - BBC Reel

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The way we produce food has accelerated climate change, but can sustainable production methods help to reverse it? Follow the Food is an eight-part documentary series that questions where our food comes from and how this will change in the near future, thanks to new technologies and innovative ways of farming.

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TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading - through TED.com, our annual conferences, the annual TED Prize and local TEDx events.

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Our mission is to achieve a world where all young people have the opportunity to be healthy, no matter where they live.

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Thank you to all who visited this season and took part in our gatherings as we learned about healing the land, our food and ourselves! We are busy planning our 2022 so stay tuned for the line up! In the meantime...Virginia is a beautiful place to visit in the fall! We are very grateful for [...]

❄️ W I N T E R H O U R S ❄️ It's hard to believe it's this time of year again! A huge thank you to all who visited the season and/or took part in our gatherings as we learned about healing the land, our food and ourselves! We are looking forward to #alongwintersnap and [...]

The homesteader tsunami sweeping the nation is wonderful, but new self-reliant folks need a guidebook for livestock. Taking his family's lifetime experience with pastured livestock, portable infrastructure, soil fertility, water system design and much more, in his practical and humorous style Joel Salatin miniaturizes the principles and potentials for small scale production. From small acreages [...]

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Thank you to all who visited this season and took part in our gatherings as we learned about healing the land, our food and ourselves! We are busy planning our 2022 so stay tuned for the line up! In the meantime...Virginia is a beautiful place to visit in the fall!

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Compass Education – Sustainability and Systems Thinking for Education

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Food, Inc. - Documentary Film Trailer | POV on PBS

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How about having students do a restaurant review?

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The Winners of Our Seventh Annual Student Review Contest (Published 2022)

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Read critical commentary by teenagers on “West Side Story,” Crumbl Cookies, Baby Keem’s new album and more.

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Contests in a number of formats to amplify student voice

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Empowering Educators, Inspiring Changemakers: Unleash the Power of Award-Winning Global Short-Documentaries. FOR GROUP/ INSTITUTION MEMBERSHIPS Please contact us at hello@simaacademy.com for more information.

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0:00 / 35:58•Watch full video

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Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future