Dwight Garner’s The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading is an irresistible blend of memoir, literary history and culinary journalism. Garner, a longtime New York Times Book Review critic who is married to chef Cree LeFavour, shares memories of meals from his Southern upbringing and food-related anecdotes from a host of famous figures, literary and otherwise, including Toni Morrison and David Sedaris. As he contemplates his favorite pursuits (yes, those would be reading and eating), he highlights the wonderful idiosyncrasies of personal taste. For Garner, the two pastimes nourish each other—with rich results.
In her moving memoir, Tastes Like War, Grace M. Cho looks back on her childhood in Washington state, where she lived with her Korean mother and American father after the family migrated from Korea. Grace was a teenager when her mother began to show signs of schizophrenia. As a doctoral student researching Korean history, Cho started cooking for her mother, drawing on recipes from the family’s past. Themes like colonialism and the unifying power of food will inspire spirited book club discussions.
Anya von Bremzen investigates the role that place plays in food culture in National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home. Over the course of the book, von Bremzen visits foodie dream destinations like Turkey, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Italy and France. Along the way, she talks with chefs and influencers, historians and scientists to find out why particular dishes—pizza, rice, ramen—end up representing a country’s culture. An acclaimed food and travel writer, von Bremzen whisks up a brisk, lively narrative that’s brimming with culinary history.
Kwame Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef chronicles the author’s remarkable journey from the flavor-packed but dangerous streets of the Bronx to the heights of the culinary world. As a youngster, Onwuachi suffered at the hands of his violent father and flirted with gang life. But he learned about cooking from his caterer mother and went on to become a James Beard Award-winning chef, even as racism in the culinary industry threatened to derail his dreams. Written with Joshua David Stein, this invigorating memoir offers many talking points, including the value of failing and getting up again.