(Some books that interest me, with notes. I’m not altogether sure why it’s here.)
Capon, Robert Farrar. The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1969.
Almost reads like a contemporary food book. With a few glaring missteps, a very engaging book about how to relate to food, practically and perhaps theologically.
Gray, Patience. Honey From a Weed. London: Prospect books, 1986.
Ah, one of the best books ever. Living and eating like and with peasants in the Mediterranean, while they still existed. A kind of bible in my house.
Page, Linda Garland and Eliot Wigginton, Eds. The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984.
Robinson, Solon. Facts For Farmers; also for The Family Circle. A Compost of Rich Materials For All Landowners, about Domestic Animals and Domestic Economy; Farm Buildings; Gardens, Orchards, and Vineyards; and All Farm Crops, Tools, Fences, Fertilization, Draining, and Irrigation. New York: Johnson and Ward, 1865.
The best, most engaging antique farming manual I’ve found.
Yutang, Lin. The Importance of Living. New York: John Day, 1937.
A best seller the year it was published, it promised happiness despite poverty through dalliance with ancient Chinese philosophies of materialism and sensuality. Chapters include: On Having a Stomach, On Having a Mind, On Being Wayward and Incalculable, Man the Only Working Animal, Celibacy a Freak of Civilization, On Lying in Bed, On Sitting in Chairs, and On Going About and Seeing Things.
Visser, Margaret. The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.
A book I can’t claim to have finished, but one well written and on a fascinating subject. I ‘ll get around to it.
Logsdon, Gene. The Contrary Farmer. Post Mills, Vermont: Chelsea Green, 1993.
A classic book about farming and being a farmer, improbable and cussed as that farmer must be.
Brown, Edward Espe. Tassajara Cooking. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala, 1973.
A near-perfect introduction to cooking for someone frustrated with the dominant recipe-book teaching paradigm. “Like carrots? Put in more carrots!” But the food is fairly awful, the cuisine anonymous, and without context can lead to years of bland, half competent meals.
Fearnley-Whittingstall, Hugh. The River Cottage Meat Book. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2007.
This would be a more perfect book if it were not half morality, to be read once and once well understood, skipped over continually. But it is that near to a classic.