Food may not rank with white whales or the family as the most important literary subject, but in fact, major writers past and present have had plenty to say about it. This delightful divertissement brings together a tasty menu of literary gems about food. Anthony Trollope discusses cake while Paul Auster laments the bitter breaking of two eggs. Other scrumptious entries riff on American and foreign cuisine, restaurants, cooking, table manners, Dickens' famous Christmas pudding, Proust's Madeleine, and Solzhenitsyn's challenging cabbage.

Food may not rank with white whales or the family as the most important literary subject, but in fact, major writers past and present have had plenty to say about it. This delightful divertissement brings together a tasty menu of literary gems about food. Anthony Trollope discusses cake while Paul Auster laments the bitter breaking of two eggs. Other scrumptious entries riff on American and foreign cuisine, restaurants, cooking, table manners, Dickens' famous Christmas pudding, Proust's Madeleine, and Solzhenitsyn's challenging cabbage.