Food-Related Non-Fiction
Top 10 Food-Related Non-Fiction
: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, My Life in France, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, Eating Animals, Salt: A World History, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, Eat, Pray, Love
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
| Author | Eric Schlosser |
| ISBN | 0060838582 |
Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry...
| Author | Julia Child |
| ISBN | 1400043468 |
The bestselling story of Julia's years in France--and the basis for Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams--in her own words.
Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television...
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
| Author | Ruth Reichl |
| ISBN | 0767903382 |
At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world. . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion...
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
| Author | Ruth Reichl |
| ISBN | 0143036610 |
Ruth Reichl, world-renowned food critic and editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, knows a thing or two about food. She also knows that as the most important food critic in the country, you need to be anonymous when reviewing some of the most high-profile establishments in the biggest restaurant town...
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul!
Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking...
| Author | Jonathan Safran Foer |
| ISBN | 0316069906 |
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. Once he started a family, the moral dimensions of food became increasingly important.
Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others,...
| Author | Mark Kurlansky |
| ISBN | 0142001619 |
From the Bestselling Author of Cod and The Basque History of the World
In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story...
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table
| Author | Ruth Reichl |
| ISBN | 0375758739 |
In this delightful sequel to her bestseller Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl returns with more tales of love, life, and marvelous meals. Comfort Me with Apples picks up Reichl's story in 1978, when she puts down her chef's toque and embarks on a career as a restaurant critic. Her pursuit of good food and...
Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural...
| Author | Elizabeth Gilbert |
| ISBN | 0143038419 |
A celebrated writer's irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life.
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an...
A History of the World in 6 Glasses
| Author | Tom Standage |
| ISBN | 0802715524 |
Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.
A History...
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
| Author | Laurie Colwin |
| ISBN | 0060955309 |
Share the unsurpassed pleasures of discovering, cooking, and eating good, simple food with this beloved book. Equal parts cookbook and memoir, Laurie Colwin's "Home Cooking" combines her insightful, good-humored writing style with her lifelong passion for wonderful cuisine in essays such as...
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
| Author | Mark Kurlansky |
| ISBN | 0099268701 |
The Cod. Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been triggered by it, national diets have been based on it, economies and livelihoods have depended on it. To the millions it has sustained, it has been a treasure more precious that gold. This book spans 1,000 years and four continents. From the...
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
| Author | Brian Wansink |
| ISBN | 0553804340 |
This book will literally change the way you think about your next meal. Food psychologist Brian Wansink revolutionizes our awareness of how much, what, and why we’re eating—often without realizing it. His findings will astound you.
• Can the size of your plate really influence your...
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
| Author | Molly Wizenberg |
| ISBN | 1416551050 |
When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. But when she tried going back to her apartment in Seattle and returning to graduate school, she knew it wasn't possible to resume life as though nothing had happened....
French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure
| Author | Mireille Guiliano |
| ISBN | 0375435484 |
So, two winters ago when I started to put on a little weight, I didn't sweat it at first. I figured "hey, it's normal to put on a few pounds when it's cold out." But when one morning I had difficulty zipping up my pants, I decided to get serious and apply the ideas from this book.
Confession: in the past,...
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health
| Author | T. Colin Campbell |
| ISBN | 1932100660 |
More than thirty years ago, nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell and his team at Cornell, in partnership with teams in China and England, embarked upon the China Study, the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease. What they found...
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
| Author | Dan Koeppel |
| ISBN | 1594630380 |
A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world's most humble fruit
To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what...
| Author | M.F.K. Fisher |
| ISBN | 0865473927 |
If one imagines M.F.K. Fisher's life as a large colorful painting, it is here, in The Gastronomical Me, that one sees the first lines and sketches upon which that life was based. In what is the most intimate of her five volumes of her "Art of Eating" series, the reader witnesses the beginnings of a writer...
The Food of a Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait of Food in Pre-World War II America
| Author | Mark Kurlansky |
| ISBN | 1594488657 |
A remarkable portrait of American food before World War II, presented by the New York Times-bestselling author of Cod and Salt.
Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system...
An Edible History of Humanity
| Author | Tom Standage |
| ISBN | 0802715885 |
Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes—caused, enabled,...
The Language of Baklava: A Memoir
| Author | Diana Abu-Jaber |
| ISBN | 0375423044 |
From the acclaimed author of Crescent, called "radiant, wise, and passionate" by the Chicago Tribune, here is a vibrant, humorous memoir of growing up with a gregarious Jordanian father who loved to cook. Diana Abu-Jaber weaves the story of her life in upstate New York and in Jordan around vividly remembered...
The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
| Author | Anthony Bourdain |
| ISBN | 1582344515 |
New York Times Bestseller
The good, the bad, and the ugly, served up Bourdain-style.
Bestselling chef and No Reservations host Anthony Bourdain has never been one to pull punches. In The Nasty Bits, he serves up a well-seasoned hellbroth of candid, often outrageous stories from...
The Tummy Trilogy: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; Third Helpings
| Author | Calvin Trillin |
| ISBN | 0374524173 |
In the 1970s, Calvin Trillin informed us that the most glorious food in an American city was not to be found at the pretentious rooftop restaurant he called La Maison de la Casa House, Continental Cuisine. With three hilarious books, he established himself as "our funniest food writer" and, in Craig...
The True History of Chocolate
| Author | Sophie D. Coe |
| ISBN | 0500282293 |
As with the only other Coe book I've read so far, I give this book 5 stars for the information, 3 stars for the writing (hence, 4 star average).
Learning about chocolate is the next best thing to actually eating chocolate, and this book certainly gives the reader many tasty tidbits on which to nibble....
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
| Author | Novella Carpenter |
| ISBN | 1594202214 |
Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea...
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease
| Author | Gary Taubes |
| ISBN | 1400040787 |
For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates,...
| Author | Frances Moore Lappé |
| ISBN | 0345373669 |
When my mom became a vegetarian in the early 90s, she read Diet For A Small Planet. I remember thinking, “wah wah wah my mom is such a boring loser moron head.” I pitied her for picking up a book with the words “diet” and “small planet” on it—and a pile of grain, to top it all off. This was around...
I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking
| Author | Alton Brown |
| ISBN | 1584790830 |
I have a 13-year-old who thinks he wants to go to culinary school, but has still only mastered the arts of ramen noodles and jello. He's a fan of foodie rock stars like Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsey, and, of course, Alton Brown. So, this summer we're making cooking homeschool -- I've got it all planned...
The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
| Author | Mark Kurlansky |
| ISBN | 0345476395 |
Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster.
For centuries New York was famous for this particular shellfish, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role...
What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained
| Author | Robert L. Wolke |
| ISBN | 0393011836 |
Do you wish you understood the science of foods, but don't want to plow through dry technical books? What Einstein Told His Cook is like having a scientist at your side to answer your questions in plain, nontechnical terms. Chemistry professor and syndicated Washington Post food columnist Robert L....
American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads
| Author | Pascale Le Draoulec |
| ISBN | 0060957328 |
Crossing class and color lines, and spanning the nation (Montana has its huckleberry, Pennsylvania its shoofly, and Mississippi its sweet potato), pie -- real, homemade pie -- has meaning for all of us. But in today's treadmill, take-out world -- our fast-food nation -- does pie still have a place?
As...
French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew
| Author | Peter Mayle |
| ISBN | 0375705619 |
A delightful, delicious, and best-selling account of the gustatory pleasures to be found throughout France, from the beloved author of A Year in Provence.
The French celebrate food and drink more than any other people, and Peter Mayle shows us just how contagious their enthusiasm can be....
Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucía
| Author | Chris Stewart |
| ISBN | 0953522709 |
No sooner had Chris Stewart set eyes on El Valero than he handed over a check. Now all he had to do was explain to Ana, his wife, that they were the proud owners of an isolated sheep farm in the Alpujarra Mountains in Southern Spain. That was the easy part.
Lush with olive, lemon, and almond groves,...
| Author | Heather Arndt Anderson |
Breakfast: A History tells the story of how breakfast came to be the most important meal of the day. From the humble Roman times of stale bread soaked in diluted wine, to the drive-through McMuffin boom of the 1970s, Breakfast takes the reader on a lively adventure through time, uncovering the real stories...
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
| Author | Sally Fallon |
| ISBN | 0967089735 |
The Diet Dictocrats don't want you to know that...
- Your body needs old-fashioned animal fats
- New-fangled polyunsaturated oils can be bad for you
- Modern whole grain products can cause health problems
- Traditional sauces promote digestion and assimilation
- Modern food...
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence
| Author | Amy Sedaris |
| ISBN | 0446578843 |
Are you lacking direction in how to whip up a swanky soiree for lumberjacks? A dinner party for white-collar workers? A festive gathering for the grieving? Don't despair. Take a cue from entertaining expert Amy Sedaris and host an unforgettable fete that will have your guests raving. No matter the...
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
| Author | Gary Taubes |
| ISBN | 0307272702 |
An eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes.
In his New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes argued that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates—not fats and not simply excess...
| Author | Reay Tannahill |
| ISBN | 0517884046 |
I read this book a few years ago (softcover book), and it sits as a treasured book in my collection (I'd like to have a hard cover of it one day). This is a fantastic reference book. It begins where humans began, back in the caves, and gives archeological evidence as well as common sense theories on how certain...
| Author | Sara Roahen |
| ISBN | 0393061671 |
Celebrating New Orleans' food culture, one specialty at a time.
A cocktail is more than a segue to dinner when it's a Sazerac, an anise-laced drink of rye whiskey and bitters indigenous to New Orleans. For Wisconsin native Sara Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking...
