Food has always been a distraction for me. Not always a comfort (um, cupcake catastrophe at high altitude is all I'm gonna say) but a definite distraction. And while I don't read much in the way of non fiction, food related stuff is pretty much always an exception.I subscribe to quite a few different venues and read a lot of food essays, when the topic piques my interest: food trends, food culture, histories of various recipes...Usually resulting in my trying my hand at a new dish or trying a different cuisine or checking out a restaurant I haven't yet been to.
Of course the last of that list is only possible as take out these days. And cooking at home is made difficult by food hoarding and empty shelves. But this is supposed to be a distraction!
Houghton Mifflin has been releasing their best of series for years now and officially added The Best American Food Writing to their list in 2018 with Ruth Reichl as the debut guest editor. (Note, this is not to be confused with the previously published Best Food Writing series.)
Last year, Samin Nosrat was chosen to edit (this year it's J. Kenji López-Alt!). And after combing a selection of food writing from a massive selection of publications, she winnowed it down to 25 pieces running the gamut of profiles on specialty food vendors like Rancho Gordo Beans to profiles on the Pom Wonderful folks! There's a piece on Anthony Bourdain and another on Jonathan Gold. There's a piece from Priya Krishna about food safety inspectors and one from Michael W. Twitty on eating in Ghana. The selection ranges from fun to political and cheeky to somewhat depressing, depending on how you feel about some issues.
But the pieces are all fascinating. Every one of them offered up something I previously knew nothing about. And inspired me to try some things I'd never tried (I'm looking at you, scary salty licorice!).
This collection was so much fun to dive into that I picked up the 2018 edition and already have the 2020 in my must have list.
Order a copy from BookBar!
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