Breaking Bread Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family

“More local color than a steamed lobster wearing wild blueberry bracelets, along with a mess of wistful nostalgia for any reader raised in Maine or New England.” —Portland Press Herald

Nearly 70 renowned New England writers gather round the table to talk food and how it sustains us—mind, body, and soul

An award-winning collection of essays by internationally recognized and beloved foodies, Breaking Bread celebrates local foods, family, and community, while exploring how what’s on our plates engages with what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, ethics, race, and class.

Here, you’ll find reflections from top literary talents and food writers like

• Award-winning novelist Lily King on connecting with her children over a tweaked chocolate chip cookie recipe
• Pulitzer Prize recipient Richard Russo on the Italian soup his mother snubbed that he came to enjoy
• Coauthor of Mad Honey Jennifer Finney Boylan on how cheese pizza holds her family together through the good and the bad
• Coauthor of About Grief Brian Shuff on how greasy takeout can be life-giving food for the grieving soul
• Award-winning writer Ron Currie on the childhood shame—and adult pride—of your mother being a “lunch lady”
• Author and homesteader Margaret Hathaway on building a community cookbook to bring food and family together in the early days of COVID-19

Other essays address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, and the urge to bake pot brownies for an ill friend.

Rich and flavorful, Breaking Bread brings together some of the most influential voices in the literary and food worlds to show how we experience life through the foods we eat.
Proceeds from this collection will benefit Blue Angel, a Maine-based nonprofit founded by writer and Breaking Bread coeditor Deborah Joy Corey to combat hunger. The organization purchases food from local farmers and delivers it directly to families in need.

Deborah Joy Corey is the award-winning author of two novels, Losing Eddie and The Skating Pond, and the memoir Settling Twice, as well as many essays and short stories. She is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Smithbooks/Canada Novel Award and ELLE’s Lettres Readers’ Prize, among others.

Debra Spark is the author of five novels, two collections of short stories, and two books of essays on fiction writing, as well as numerous articles, stories, and book reviews in places like Dwell, Esquire, Food and Wine, Maine Home+Design, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Yankee. She is a professor at Colby College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.