Do you like cookbooks that have a story?
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JLeslie (
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November 20th, 2011
Or, maybe it is novels that have recipes? Not sure what to call it. I have read a couple novels, can’t think of any titles off the top of my head, that were fiction or non, that centered around family coming together in the kitchen and cooking for a particular occasion throughout the story, and then telling the reader the recipes. I kind of liked it, wondered if others do to? One I read for a book club, and when we met that month, we all made one of the dishes from the book, it was kind of nice.
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18 Answers
I really liked the Nero Wolfe Cookbook when I was younger. And I’ve read some other murder mysteries with recipes in the back. It’s a nice way to be exposed to something new to eat.
I do. A family friend made a cookbook/anecdote anthology that’s loads of fun to read. Indeed, I’d like for more educational material to come packaged that way.
There was a business book that I read once, First Contract, which taught a body about, well, business. In a sci-fi setting, where galactic society turns out to be a ruthlessly capitalistic place and Earth gets rated as a “third-world” country planet.
If I recall correctly, Fanny Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe has a few good Southern US recipes at the end of it including, of course, how to make fried green tomatoes.
I enjoyed “Like Water for Chocolate” with a recipe at the end of each chapter, but mostly I haven’t found most cook books with a story line about the author very interesting. I like author comments about recipes. They can be fun fun. They’re often about when and where and for whom a dish was prepared or something like that. Or they may be suggestions for food to go with a particular recipe.
If the wife ever wrote a cookbook it’s title would have to be The Impossible Dream
A work of pure fictional fantasy, a horror story in every chapter :¬(
Yes, but I didn’t like the Silence of the Lambs cookbook.
@Sunny2 Author comments at the end of a recipe. I like that idea.
I don’t. I find it jarring, and a little bizarre, to find a recipe in the middle of a narrative. But I do like my cookbooks to be chatty. I like to curl up and read about food and recipes. Authors like MFK Fisher, Edouard de Pomiane, and Elizabeth David come to mind. And I am drawn to cookbooks that write out the recipes in narrative form, instead of lists of ingredients and numbered blocks of text.
@JLeslie You ought to write one. I’d be interested in not only the story, but the recipes.
I love novels that involve cooking and recipes like the ones mentioned above.
I tried to create a family cookbook that I was going to give to my relatives for Xmas last year. I asked each one of them to send me one single recipe that was from our family, like something that one of our Grandma’s or Aunt’s or even they made on a regular basis, with a little bit of history to go along with it. Not one relative sent me a recipe. It kind of bummed me out. I thought everyone would appreciate this booklet as a little keepsake, considering that everyone in my family loves to cook and eat and we’re very family oriented.
@JLeslie I’m still toying with the idea for next year. But my e-mail and Facebook requests got absolutely no responses. I think I need to draw up a little flyer and talk to these people directly and hound them a little bit. I tried to make it as easy as I could. All they needed to do was either write down the recipe or simply xerox it and send it to me by e-mail or snail mail and then give me a sentence or a short paragraph about why they liked it, or how it made them feel and who first presented the recipe to them. I think everyone would really love this little booklet, but it’s like pulling teeth trying to get even one person to give me a recipe.
Plus I don’t want to guilt anyone into participating, I just wanted it to be a fun family memento.
@JLeslie Did you change the question? :P
Yes, I quite enjoy reading them :)
I thought that the actual question was whether we liked novels with recipes. I must have read the details more closely than the question. And that is so rare for me!
I like novels that describe food as part of the setting or atmosphere of the book. I find them few and far between. Writers are taught to describe things that are observed through the 5 senses. Sight is almost always used. Smell, hearing and touch are less frequent. Taste is rarely described.
@dappled_leaves It was. But, I’m glad people embellished a little, I got answers about different types of books I had not even thought of.
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