Let's read: food literature

Let’s speak about books here for a change. I selected three books I have really enjoyed reading. The subject is food literature but those are not cookbooks, they are food memoirs (even though two of them do include a few recipes, they are part of the story and a wonderful addition to it).
I will not give you full details of the books because that would spoil it for those of you who would be interested in reading them. Instead, I will just sum them up briefly and tell you what I liked about them.

My Life in France, by Julia Child (with Alex Prud’homme) -
Editions Anchor Books

I guess there is no need to introduce Julia Child anymore. This book is a great account of her years in France and beyond. It covers the years from her arrival in la Belle France and studying at Le Cordon Bleu to the culinary TV shows The French Chef with the writing of famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in between. What an incredible food life indeed!


While reading My Life in France, I rediscovered the culinary side of my own country through the eyes of Julia Child. It made me hungry and I wanted to try a lot of the dishes she mentioned (I come from the North-West of France and I obviously have not tried every type of food or recipe that exists in France, I would need more than a lifetime I reckon…). It is a delightful story where food, love and anecdotes of being an expat in Paris mix together. I was familiar with the character of Julia Child through her cookbooks and extracts of her TV shows before but My Life in France was a fascinating read and definitely gave me an insight at who she really was behind all this.

Risotto with Nettles, a Memoir with Food By Anna Del Conte -
Editions Vintage Books Random House

Risotto with Nettles is a wonderful memoir where chapters are punctuated by recipes that correspond to specific parts of Anna Del Conte’s life. Starting with her life in a beautiful family apartment in Milan, Italy, it moves on to the time her family had to relocate to the country side because of the war. After the war, her story brings us to England where she moved to in the late 40’s and never left. There, she founded a family and inspired many people (including Nigella Lawson) with her Italian cookery and the cookbooks resulting from it.


I had never heard about Anna Del Conte before I watched one of Nigella Lawson’s culinary shows that mentioned her with the recipe for spaghetti with marmite. I was really keen to know more about her but since we were in the middle of moving back to Ireland from Australia at the time, I forgot about it… until E. gifted me the book the following year! I really love Italian food and it was one of the best non fiction books gifted to me (he followed up two years later by giving me her amazing cookbook Gastronomy of Italy).
Anna Del Conte’s memoir particularly appealed to me because a lot of my own memories are related to food. I really loved how the chapters include the recipes of the dishes she mentions in her stories. This way, if you feel hungry reading the account of such or such part of her food life, you actually get to try it if you want. The lemon lover in me was delighted to get the recipe for granita di limone, which I would obviously love to try with snow like she did when living in Milan.
If you love Italian food, please do read this book!

Delancey, a Memoir by Molly Wizenberg -
Editions Simon and Schuster

The lines under the title read ‘A man, a woman, a restaurant, a marriage’ and this is exactly what it is about. Molly Wizenberg’s husband, Brandon Pettit, decided to open a pizza restaurant. What she believed might just be another interest of his (something she thought he would maybe not pursue) ended up becoming very real with all the complications opening a food business entail. This memoir, just like Anna Del Conte’s one, contains mouth-watering recipes that match with anecdotes in each chapter.


I have been reading Molly’s blog Orangette for the past seven years and I really like her writing and stories. I finally got my hands on her memoir Delancey earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed reading this very honest life story. This is not embellished but told as it was and this is something I really appreciate when reading non fiction. It is a vivid account of what went behind the opening of Delancey and I feel like it is quite eye-opening of what is involved in starting a food business such as a restaurant (or café, pizzeria, etc.).
This story has not only had a happy ending but a happy continuing and two more venues have opened following the success of Delancey pizza restaurant (Seattle, USA): Essex and Dino’s Tomato Pie. (P.S. this memoir will definitely make you feel very hungry for pizza.)