Maybe it was one Rachael Ray cookbook too many, but when a memoir called "Last Chance to Eat" by an author I had never heard of landed on my desk, I picked it up and didn't stop reading until I had finished two more food books with more writing than recipes.
Since coming up for air, I notice I am not alone in my craving for meat over glitz. Of the last six review copies publishers have sent me, exactly one is credited to a face way too familiar from the Food Network. The others are all serious writers tackling diverse topics with all the attributes you expect in superb cooking: skill, imagination and flair bordering on sorcery.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday May 13, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Book title -- In Wednesday's Food section, an article on recent books about food said Michael Ruhlman's book "The Soul of a Chef" was about his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America. "The Soul of a Chef" profiles three chefs. Ruhlman's book "The Making of a Chef" is about culinary education.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 18, 2005 Home Edition Food Part F Page 3 Features Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Book title -- In last week's section, an article on recent books about food said Michael Ruhlman's book, "The Soul of a Chef," was about his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America. "The Soul of a Chef" profiles three chefs. Ruhlman's book "The Making of a Chef" is about culinary education.
Even more surprising, these kinds of books are capturing audiences the way Emeril did in the early days of tele-food. "Salt: A World History," by Mark Kurlansky, has sold a quarter of a million copies so far. That's the kind of number you would expect from "Kitchen Confidential," the Anthony Bourdain expose that some credit with setting publishers off on what amounts to a literary truffle hunt over the last five years. But Kurlansky never posed with a knife on his cover, nor went on to bite heads off bats (or was it snakes?) on TV.
Walk into any bookstore and you'll see more evidence of this encouraging trend in an age of celebrity. Food books are not just likely to be showcased front and center. Their titles also could not be further from "365 Ways to Cook Ground Beef" or even its successor, "How to Cook Everything."
The teaser table of new nonfiction at a Borders the other day held a memoir built around baklava, an overview of honey called "Robbing the Bees" and the latest installment in the story of Ruth Reichl, "Garlic and Sapphires" -- all arrayed alongside the more predictable books on finance, self-help and celebrity.
At Cook's Library in Los Angeles, owner Ellen Rose rattles off five titles of "what people are reading" to me, and only two are cookbooks. The others are Alan Richman's "Fork It Over," a collection of his witty essays on food; Dianne Jacob's how-to for wannabe Richmans, "Will Write for Food," and "Poet of the Appetites," Joan Reardon's biography of the late M.F.K. Fisher.
But her store carries many, many more choices intended to be savored anywhere but alongside a stove. "There are so many better books being written," Rose said. Publishers have moved beyond the pedantic, and Fisher, Elizabeth David and A.J. Liebling are no longer seen as the only real writers in food town.
