The Evening Standard's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Food offers so much more than simple sustenance. In many ways, the cooking and eating of delicious meals offer cross-cultural communication.
When planning holidays, once flights and hotels have been booked, the first thing avid explorers focus on is finding the best possible meal in their destination. Not solely to overcome jet-lag, but because tucking into local cuisine is a great way to familiarise oneself with a new setting.
Anthony Bourdain famously said, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” Sharing a meal is often the best way to get to know a person or a place.
Where language might be a barrier, food is universal. From soul-reviving bowls of chicken soup dished out by a family matriarch, to chocolates after a bad break-up to remind us that sweetness still exists, the healing power of food should never be underestimated.
Then there’s the fact that memory is so strongly tied to smell and taste. A whiff of freshly baked focaccia might recall a childhood spent in Italy, while the clink of a spoon stirring malty Milo into a supersized mug could put you at ease in an instant. The food we consume over a lifetime helps shape who we are, who we become.,
Whether trawling through foreign food markets, experiencing new sights and smells, or dining in a Michelin restaurant, food evokes so many feelings. A full belly is one of the best ways of describing how love feels.
We’ve curated a selection of books and memoirs exploring food's emotional, scientific and sociological impacts. Keep scrolling to feast one of life’s most primal pleasures.
Shop now
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
So much more than a cookbook, Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a perspective-shifting piece of work for amateur and professional chefs alike. Bringing us back to the basics with the help of beautiful illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton, Nosrat boils down the art of cooking to its four most important elements: salt, fat, acid and heat.
She learned this simple mantra at Chez Panisse in Berkley, CA, and it’s helped the chef to trust her instincts ever since. Now it’s time to trust yours with the help of this simple yet revolutionary method.
Taste by Stanley Tucci
A celebration of gastronomical joy, Tucci’s beloved memoir Taste deals with how the meals of his childhood and beyond have formed some of the most important, lasting memories of his life thus far.
From the food that could be found in the pantry of the Italian-American’s childhood home, to the conversation-starting meals he’d devise with his wife to share with their children, the celebrity epicure’s fabulous book is a must-read for its dry wit, emotional poignancy and hunger-inducing descriptions.
The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K Fisher
M.F.K Fisher left America for France in 1929. The author tried true French cuisine for the first time in her life, a turning-point which marked the beginning of a venerable career as a food and travel writer.
In this glorious memoir, Fisher tells the story of her life through the meals she’s cooked and consumed. A treatise on loss, survival, love and the importance of dining alone, it’s a book that will make you fall head over heels for gastronomical writing like never before.
A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
While many foodies have devoured Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, his fantastic A Cook’s Tour is one for the gastronomical globe-trotters. The radical chef and unconventional writer dives into the heart of Southeast Asia’s culinary movement, exploring everything from consuming the still-beating heart of a live cobra in Saigon to enjoying an ice-cold beer in the midst of cross-country travel mayhem.
The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee
In this atypical piece of gastronomic literature, the celebrated horticulturalist and gardening writer delivers a sweeping cultural history of Italy as told through the cultivation of citrus crops over the centuries. A brilliant summer read alongside an ice-cold shot of Limoncello, explore an interwoven narrative featuring recipes, art, horticulture and history thanks to Helena Attlee.
The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs
Eliza Acton was a prominent English food writer who produced one of Britain’s first domestic cookery books in 1845.
In The Language of Food, Annabel Abbs delivers a fascinating fictionalised account of Acton’s life in this piece of feminist historical fiction. Through the lens of Miss Acton, Abbs explores everything from the importance of strong female friendships to the quiet joy of cooking and consuming food.
The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten
Jeffrey Steingarten has been the food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989.
In 1998, the writer published his memoir The Man Who Ate Everything, which delves into the critic’s desire to rid himself of any culinary dislikes. He succeeded in coming around to foods such as kimchi and anything made by the Greeks, but the jury remains out on food which is the colour blue.
From Italy to Japan, Steingarten embarks on a global mission to explore anything and everything related to the wonderful world of gastronomy with overwhelming passion, easy-to-comprehend intelligence and razor-sharp humour.
English Food: A People’s History by Diane Purkiss
We discovered this fantastic book thanks to The Full English podcast, hosted by chef and researcher Lewis Bassett.
Author Purkiss, in her discussion with Bassett, mentions how she decided to stick to a solely English history of food, simply because expanding outward into the remainder of the UK would make for a book so large it’d become unpublishable.
Purkiss illustrates how the way we eat is inherently intertwined with notions of class and gender throughout history. Taking us on a journey from the development of the coffee trade to the first breeders of British beef, Purkiss teaches us what it means to eat food in England, and England’s historically complicated relationship with the global food market.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Though the extent to which writer and musician Michelle Zauner’s brilliant memoir can be considered a light read remains up for debate, you don’t have to be a fan of the band Japanese Breakfast (which she heads up) to delve into her simultaneously joyful and gut-wrenching account of a highly complicated mother-daughter relationship forever changed by a devastating cancer diagnosis.
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Before George Orwell was a world-renowned writer, he was a struggling artist living between Paris and London.
Written during the author’s first experience of true poverty, Orwell guides us through the metropolitan underbelly of the cities on opposite sides of the English Channel. From surviving off scraps and cigarette butts to washing up the dirty plates of the guests at Hôtel X, food takes on a whole new meaning when you’re trying to survive starvation.