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This past weekend, I spent my Saturday afternoon cleaning the cookbook and food section of my library. As I took book after book off the shelf, it felt like I was being greeted by an old friend. I remembered first holding these books in my hands, poring over their pages, and marveling at their stories. There’s just something special about the food people make for one another. There’s so much love and care that goes into it. In that vein, here are a few of my backlist favorite food books.
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Cuisine in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
There’s just something about Southern cuisine that I can’t get enough of, no matter how many books on the topic I read. There’s so much food history here, and that’s exactly what Twitty wants to investigate. Starting off by taking a genetics test, Twitty looks at the cuisine of each of his countries of origin and examines how that cuisine might be part of his life today. The book meanders back and forth, from Twitty’s childhood to his present, looking for the family history that makes Twitty who he is today.
Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream by Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Nguyen, with Elisa Ung
Tung Nguyen and Katherine Manning have a friendship with a fascinating origin story. They met in the 1970s when Manning hosted Nguyen, who had just fled Vietnam at the end of the war. Their relationship grew into something like family as they became business partners and started Hy Vong, a Vietnamese restaurant in Miami. Lyn Nguyen, Tung Nguyen’s daughter, also grew up working at the family restaurant and became invested in the business that the two olderwomen had built. This multi-narrative effect gives this memoir a unique feel, reminding food lovers that restaurants, and the delicious food served, take a lot of hard work—and love—to make it to diners’ tables.
Killing It: An Education by Camas Davis, Narrated by Camas Davis
I spent an entire holiday break basking in the joy that is a brilliant food memoir. That year, it was Camas Davis’s Killing It. I never thought I’d be completely obsessed with a book about a butcher, but I was delightfully surprised. The book spends a lot of time on the ins and outs of being a butcher. There’s learning the craft, advocating for responsible butchery, and making space for herself as a woman in a male-dominated field. As Davis tries to learn her craft and career as a butcher, her personal life gets messy, and she finds herself in two separate relationships.
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You can find me over on my Substack,Winchester Ave,or over on Instagram@kdwinchester. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.