THIS BOOK was conceived in a local bagel shop. We are both passionate, voracious readers, and we both love preparing and tasting exotic foods. Our shelves overflow with novels, memoirs, biographies, and, of course, cookbooks. To us, pairing books and food was a natural marriage, and we wanted to create a book that united our passions, for ourselves and to share with others. And so we began by hauling huge stacks of books to our favorite lunch spot (much to the bemusement of the customers and staff). It was here that The Book Club Cookbook was born.
We knew we wanted to match books with foods highlighted in literature, but which books would we feature? Where would we get recipes? Should we include appetizers? Entrées? Full dinners? To help us answer some of these questions, we started contacting book clubs around the country, asking about favorite books and types of food served at meetings. We quickly found ourselves enrolled in a crash course on the dazzling array of book clubs that meet in living rooms, bookstores, churches, temples, office buildings, classrooms, and restaurants from Maine to Hawaii. There’s no doubt about it: Book clubs are a phenomenon sweeping across America.
We found book clubs for men, for women, for environmentalists, for former Peace Corps volunteers, and even for former Enron employees. We spoke with members of African-American book clubs, clubs that read the works of a single author, and clubs that stick to the classics. We found book clubs for couples, parents and children, and publishing executives, clubs that specialize in mysteries, classics, prizewinning books, or books with an American western woman protagonist. Some of the people we spoke with are in new book clubs; others have been meeting for decades. Some come together as a group of old friends, but often people are meeting and making new friends through book groups.
Again and again in our conversations we heard about the powerful bonds among book club members. Besides offering an outlet for talking about ideas, book clubs become sources of strength and support in the face of illness or other personal tragedy. They become places to celebrate a new baby, a marriage, a promotion, or a graduation. And for many, they simply represent a refuge from the demands of work and home, a place to catch one’s breath, a sanctuary from the everyday. Most of all, a word we heard repeatedly was “fun”; many people find their book club experience to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of their lives. And many book clubs, we found, had already discovered the joys of using food to enhance and enliven their meetings.
The book clubs we contacted—and their ideas—became the heart and soul of our book. From hundreds of surveys and interviews with a diverse group of book club members across the country, we identified one hundred titles that stimulated intense discussion, provoked debate, or repeatedly stood out as favorites. The books featured in The Book Club Cookbook include contemporary novels, classics, memoirs, and nonfiction, and reflect the recommendations of the ethnically and geographically diverse book clubs we polled. We did not choose books for their obvious gastronomic references. While this might have simplified the process of choosing recipes, we felt strongly that the best starting point for a good book club discussion—even where food is involved—is a provocative, highly recommended book.
The inspiration for our recipes came first and foremost from the pages of those books. Oftentimes a particular dish plays a pivotal role in the narrative or appears in a crucial scene of the book. A group of hostages—and their captors—peel and slice eggplant in Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto. The protagonist of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn obsesses over sandwiches, describing them in detail throughout the novel.
At other times food works more subtly, to set a novel in its time and place or to convey details of the characters’ environment, class differences, or the social norms of the period. In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi nurtures her students with books—and with ever-present cream puffs. The ambrosia in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird suggests the American South of the 1930s. In Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, spiced plum kolaches evoke the warmth of a Bohemian farm kitchen. In Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter, a fictional character visits a real San Francisco restaurant, so we visited, too—and gathered some recipes. Many of the recipes we include give form and flavor to the characters, the culture, and the scenes in the books we have chosen.
The book club members we interviewed, too, were bursting with food ideas. From coast to coast we discovered book clubs pairing food and literature with creativity and spirit. In San Francisco, members of the Epicureaders bring gourmet dishes to every meeting, dishes that reflect that month’s reading selection. In New Prague, Minnesota, the Book Bags, seven creative women, uses food, as well as costumes, props, and activities, to bring their chosen books to life. And in Los Angeles, Pages and Plates, a book club of Asian professionals, dines each month at a restaurant that reflects the ethnic motif of the books they read. These groups—and many others—fed us an unending supply of recipes and food ideas.
To our delight, we found that many of the authors of the books we selected were enthusiastic about our idea. They, too, generously contributed family recipes and food ideas. In short statements or essays, they give voice to the meaning of food in their work, their culture, or in their lives growing up, explain why they included food in a particular scene of their book, or reveal what they were thinking while writing a particular scene. Their contributions enrich our understanding of these books and the importance of food to their creation.
Thus, the book you hold in your hands is really the result of a unique collaboration of readers and writers, eaters and cooks. The key ingredients came from many places. We simply put them together in what we hope will be an inspiration to lovers of books and lovers of good food.
Whether you’re looking to start a book club, choose your book club’s next reading selection, find a recipe to pair with a book, or gather fresh food ideas, The Book Club Cookbook can help. Though The Book Club Cookbook was written with book clubs in mind, you don’t need to be part of a book club to find inspiration here.
Choosing your next reading selection is infinitely easier with The Book Club Cookbook. For each of the one hundred reading selections we include a brief synopsis of the book, one or two recipes based on foods that play a role in the book, and discussion points from a book club that recommends the book. Our list of titles includes popular bestsellers as well as gems that even the most voracious reader may not have discovered. Perhaps most important, we include an endorsement from a book club that has read and discussed the book. After all, the best way to choose a book is to talk to someone who has already read it!
In the “More Food for Thought” sections, you will find a variety of ideas from book clubs across the country for pairing foods with the selected titles. Their ideas range from a single dish to an entire meal, from takeout food to dinner at a restaurant to a catered menu. Take these ideas alone or use them to stimulate your book club’s culinary creativity.
Even if your book club chews on nothing but ideas, don’t despair. We spoke to a range of book groups: those for whom cheese and crackers is the norm to groups that enjoy an elaborate dinner spread. For these groups, and everything in between, The Book Club Cookbook offers food for thought. Even if you never prepare our recipes, our discussions of food, contributions from authors, discussion points and endorsements from book clubs, and menu suggestions will help keep your group interested and engaged.
Our culinary-literary odyssey took us, by telephone, coast to coast and around the world. Through a variety of book clubs, we discovered—and devoured—new books. We thought about, created, and sampled good food. Just as it has for us, we hope The Book Club Cookbook inspires you to reach new literary and culinary heights. Bon appétit, and good reading.