I am looking for some good books relating to food that are not cookbooks. I really liked the two Jeffrey Steingarten books along with the Ruhlman books I have read. I have read and liked Heat, Kitchen Confidential, and Medium Raw as well. What are some other good books in this genre?
You could look into “Salt: A World History”, if you are also interested in history that is…
http://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/0142001619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329725692&sr=8-1
I liked Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires; David Kamp’s The United States of Arugula; and not sure if you want to go in this direction, but Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton.
The Momofuku Cookbook is about the best “reading” cookbook I’ve ever had. Though Boudain’s cookbook is a hoot, too - though he’s just a funny instruction writer - you learn a lot from Chang’s book - a lot of how he got to where he is and the development of his food philosophy.
MFK Fisher was a terrific writer about food and eating.
If you like the science of cooking, books by Shirley Corriher (CookWise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed and BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking) and Harold McGee (On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen and Keys to Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes)
If you like food history, Food in History, Reay Tannahill.
If you like anthropology and sociology, The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture, Marvin Harris - an examination of why different cultures eat (and don’t eat) certain foods.
Marco Pierre White’s Devil in the Kitchen is a pretty entertaining read, particularly if you’re fascinated by the perfectionist, obsessive nature of some top chefs.
The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, Rudolph Chelminski.
I’m reading The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola now. Not a culinary book, per se, but among the principal characters are a family of charcutiers and the setting is the then-new Les Halles market in Paris, with some mid-19th century French political machinations thrown in
Everyone should read the most famous book about food ever written: The Physiology of Taste, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (translated by M.F.K. Fisher).
Ditto for A.J. Liebling’s classic memoir of his student days in Paris, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris. Excerpt:
I was a student, in a highly generalized way, at the Sorbonne. Eating soon developed into one of my major subjects. The franc was at twenty-six to the dollar and the researcher, if he had only a certain sum — say, six francs — to spend, soon established for himself whether, for example, a half bottle of Tavel > supérieur> , at three and a half francs, and braised beef heart and yellow turnips, at two and a half, gave him more or less pleasure than a > contre-filet > of beef, at five francs, and a half bottle > ordinaire> , at one franc. He might find that he liked the heart, with its strong, rich flavor and odd texture, nearly as well as the beef, and that since Tavel was overwhelmingly better than the cheap wine, he had done well to order the first pair. Or he might find that he so much preferred the generous, sanguine > contre-filet > that he could accept the undistinguished > picrate > instead of the Tavel. As in a bridge tournament, the learner played duplicate hands, making the opposite choice of fare the next time the problem presented itself. (It was seldom as simple as my example, of course, because a meal usually included at least an hors d’oeuvre and a cheese, and there was a complexity of each to choose from. The arrival, in season, of fresh asparagus or venison further complicated matters. In the first case, the investigator had to decide what course to omit in order to fit the asparagus in, and, in the second, whether to forgo all else in order to afford venison.)
A rich man, faced with this simple sumptuary dilemma, would have ordered both the Tavel > and > the > contre-filet> . He would then never know whether he liked beef heart, or whether an > ordinaire > might do him as well as something better. * * * Our hypothetical rich > client > might even have ordered a Pommard, because it was listed at a higher price than the Tavel, and because he was more likely to be acquainted with it. He would then never have learned that a good Tavel is better than a fair-to-middling Pommard — better than a fair-to-middling anything, in my opinion. In student restaurants, renowned wines like Pommard were apt to be mediocre specimens of their kind, since the customers could never have afforded the going prices of the best growths and years. A man who is rich in his adolescence is almost doomed to be a dilettante at table. This is not because all millionaires are stupid but because they are not impelled to experiment. In learning to eat, as in psychoanalysis, the customer, in order to profit, must be sensible of the cost.
More here: Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris - A. J. Liebling - Google Books
Thanks for all the responses!
Forgot to mention The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin. He came up in the old apprentice system in France and was essentially shipped off to a hotel kitchen at about 14. It’s a fun read.
I don’t know if you would be interested in some lighter entertainment, but in that area “Alice, Let’s Eat” is a great choice.
Blue Trout & Black Truffles was a fun read: Amazon.com
+1. Fascinating as well as fun.
Hemingway’s Moveable Feast.
Great book, which reminds me, Au Pied du Cochon is a fun book, too.
As I’m too lazy to scroll down, I may be repeating myself by mentioning Bitters, which was published last Fall, and is a great history of them, with recipes, etc.
Ludwig Bemelmans “La Bonne Table”
Robert Farrar Capon “The Supper of the Lamb”
Anything by Peter Mayle “A Year In Provence”, “Toujours Provence”, “Encore Provence”, “French Lessons”, “Hotel Pastis”…
and of course the Italian version of the above Francis Mayes “Under the Tuscan Sun” which fortunately is far better then that travesty of a movie.
Laura Esquivel “Like Water for Chocolate”
Peter Mayle is awesome. He’s written for Wine Spectator and Esquire. He’s a former Brit ad exec who details his “adventures” of buying a house and restoring it in the first three books. Wonderful dry sense of humor and great appreciation of Provençale food and wine.
Lots of great stuff keeps coming to mind. Here’s a great piece that was in the Oxford American on Charles H. Baker. http://stjohnfrizell.com/StJohnFrizell/Gentlemens_Companion.html
The guy was basically a professional bon vivant (and great food writer) who hung out with many a great writer and, fortunately, married well.
If you like this piece about him, track down The Gentlemen’s Companion - one volume dedicated to exotic food and the other to exotic drink. They are of a time and place, but are laugh-out-loud funny. They’ve been republished, under other titles, I believe.