My one-and-a-half-year-old daughter is more interested in her books than her box of toys. So a few days ago I went with her to our local library. She went bananas! Picking up book after book and leaving a trail of them for me to put them back in their place. I think she might have been overwhelmed with the choice, and decided to play with massive squishy Lego with another kid.
This gave me a little time, where I was drawn to Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount.
As an up-and-coming bibliophile myself, I found this book visually amusing. This is a book to own, to enjoy its art, research, and its comfortable concept. The book is divided into sections of genres, famous bookstores, famous bookstore cats, libraries, book-people recommendations, author’s work environments and so many more. It’s a great book about books. It will help and most likely force you to buy more books.
Jane Mount started illustrating the spine of people’s favorite books and it evolved into this treasure trove where each page has her illustrations that pull you further in. Check for yourself in the book preview of Bibliophile.
After flipping through the pages I finally arrived at several sections toward the end of Regional Cooking, Baking & Desserts, Everyday Food Inspiration, Reference Cookbooks, and Food Writing.
I felt acknowledged when I discovered some of my books on these pages. Maybe because it felt as if someone else had read and understood what I felt or thought when reading them. A notion of a shared emotional and philosophical voyage. As M.F.K Fisher states:
“People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, about love, the way others do? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”
- M.F.K Fisher
On this page of Food Writing from Bibliophile, I’ve read: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain which is essential reading for any chef, and one of my favorites; Heat, a fantastic book about a career change by Bill Buford from journalist to chef; In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan which talks about the dietary landscape of Americans and states a simple motto of “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
I also enjoyed M.F.K Fisher's book which is part of The Collective Gastronomical Works, her book An Alphabet of Gourmets was published in 1949 and I wrote about it almost a year ago.
I also loved Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabriel Hamilton. Her culinary life story gets me hot and ready to jump back on the line in any decent restaurant. By the end of the book, she mentions her cookbook named Prune and I howled because I never put two and two together. I have her cookbook on my shelf, it’s in my top 10 favorite cookbooks of all time. From the photography and the recipes, both books are a must.
Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone is also showcased here, it is one I haven’t read, but I have read Garlic & Sapphires. On her journey and career as The New York Times food critic, she uses eccentric disguises to eat at the best restaurants New York had to offer. A book that felt as if you were watching a movie or roleplaying as New York’s top food critic.
The Cooking Gene, by Michael W. Twitty, has been on my reading list for over two years. A James Beard Award-winning book and he is also featured on Masterclass. A book on the ongoing struggles of race in America, ancestral food heritage, and culinary history.
As I’m writing this I just ordered The Cooking Gene because it has been on my reading list for too long, and My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss, which is also suggested in Bibliophile and since I live in Berlin. I’m not a fan that Luisa’s book cover looks very familiar to M.F.K Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me.
Luisa may have been heavily influenced by M.F.K Fisher, what food writer isn’t? Yet the covers are too similar for my liking.
As a goodbye and thank you, I will leave you with a nifty internet site that allows for affordable books. If you can, support your local bookstores and libraries, and if you can’t there is bookfinder.com. Just change the country and currency, and off you go collecting more books. Enjoy!
Oh and screw Amazon, seriously.
Papillote-ly yours,
The Greasy Pen.
I am obsessed with Art books but also have plenty of cooking books. I was gifted "Borough Market: The Knowledge: Produce – Skills – Recipes" and bought "The Borough Market Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Year at the Market" on my Kindle. Recently, I purchased "Borough Market: Edible Histories: Epic tales of everyday ingredients." I know it may seem like I have a little obsession with Borough Market, but I used to live in London and loved going there. Last summer, I spent a month in London and made a mental note to get the books. I also buy a lot of second-hand books on https://www.wob.com/. It's way cheaper, and I somehow like buying used books, knowing someone else read them and that they were in someone else's house. Which is your local library? I'm disappointed that there isn't a library with more English books, as I only read in English. Nevertheless, I got a library card last year but haven't returned it since then haha. There are too many books already at home that I am trying to get through, which I will probably never do in my lifetime, but it is better to surround yourself with books than clothes.
I used to be strict about my ‘books to read next’ shelf. Now it’s a small collection that keeps on growing... The library I go to is the American Memorial Library in front of Halesches Tor, plenty of English books in there!
I’m going to dive into wob.com because I love used books as well. Thanks for sharing about The Borough Market! Never heard of it, and now I blame you for all the research this demands 😮💨