October TravelKIT: Food or drink

For October's TravelKIT, we will be reading books related to food or drink from a specific location/country/region.

There are many cookbooks now that are written not just to impart recipes but include stories of the country or locality involved.

Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman
Tasting Rome by Katie Parla
The Basque Book by Alexandra Raij
Central by Virgilio Martinez
Casa Cacao by Jordi Roca
The Nordic Cookbook by Magnus Nilsson
Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules

We can also read travelogues that are based around food or drink.

Ant Egg Soup: The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos by Natacha Du Pont De Bie - Laos
Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo by Matthew Amster-Burton - Japan
The Meaning of Rice by Michael Booth - Japan
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuschia Dunlop - China
Black Sea by Caroline Eden - Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine
Hot Tea Across India by Rishad Saam Mehta - India
Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons by Matthew Fort - Sicily
The Year of Eating Dangerously by Tom Parker Bowles - the world
American Pie by Pascale Le Draoulec - USA

Or you could choose a book that features a specific food or drink that we would consider tied to a certain country or region that does not necessarily involve travel.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer Lee - China
The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge - American South
Beyond Bratwurst by Ursula Heinzelmann - Germany
The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo - France
The Pavlova Story by Helen Leach - the controversy lives on! New Zealand or Australia?

And there are any number of fiction books with specific regional foods or drinks in the title.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran
The Patisserie Mystery Series by Harper Lin, beginning with Macaron Murder
Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump
Til Grits Do Us Part by Jennifer Rogers Spinola
Sweet Tea Tuesdays by Ashley Farley
Souffle by Asli Perker
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
One Hundred Spaghetti Strings by Jen Nails
Herring Girl by Debbie Taylor
Special Lassi by Amrita Chatterjee

Hopefully that will give you some ideas! Happy reading!

I'm not sure if I've got anything suitable on my shelves that I haven't already read (as I'm using the challenges to dent Mt TBR). I would recommend Bon Appetit! by Peter Mayle (and also of course his A Year in Provence is very gastronomically-focused). Another suggestion might be Eat Pray Eat by Michael Booth (about India, in which food plays a big part).

This is a tougher one for me. Will have to hunt around a bit, I think.

I have a couple of books in the TBR that would work for this category:

Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford. Very British food.

Ill Met by a Fish Shop on George Street by Mark McShane. While fish is not regional food per se, I remember eating at fish shops in Sydney--so it's a kind of personal travel connection for me.

The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori by Robert Barnard. I also have fond memories of eating Indian food in Yorkshire--we couldn't understand the waiter's York accent and the waiter couldn't understand our American accents.

Eating for England was a past fave for me, so maybe I will give that a go as a re-read.

Had to depart from my tbr for this one. Hard to find the ones I wanted at my library, but am going to go with this:
Two for the Road / Jane Stern

Another one I have on my shelves is Around the World in 80 Dinners and that might work for this category.

I have finished Elsässer Erbschaften, a mystery set in Alsace. Major Gabin is newly posted there and the locals introduce him to Alsatian specialties and wines.

I ended up reading The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking for this category, which included anecdotes as well as yummy artisan bread recipes from around the world.

Two for the Road / Jane & Michael Stern
3.5 stars

Jane and Michael Stern are married and have been travelling across the US since just after they married in 1970 to find local eateries (aka “roadfood”) and review them. This is a memoir of their travels and the food.

This was entertaining. Many chapters focused on an area and at the end of each chapter they included a couple of recipes of things they mentioned in the chapter. (Except the chapter on the awful food they tried (or smelled and didn’t try!) The recipes at the end of that chapter included foods that many people dislike). I’m not one who reads recipes, but each recipe had a story to go with it, so I did read that. I bake more than cook, and I’m not an adventurous eater. That was one of the nice things about this book – though there were some odd things, much of it was just “American” food (bbqs, pies, ice cream, steak, etc.). Although I don’t eat meat often, I really want to try a steamed cheeseburger (head to Meriden, Connecticut for that one)!

I have also finished the next in the series, Elsässer Sünden, and can now pass it on to someone who will like it better.

November Thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325462

The book I read turned out to not have much to do with the food in the title. The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori begins in the Indian restaurant in Haworth (the village where the Brontë sisters grew up) but quickly ends up at the rural residence of an unpleasant old painter who enjoys having some groupies living around him. Everyone in this book is rather unpleasant, actually, as is the plot, and these factors drag down an otherwise competent, well-written traditional mystery.