A Feast of Words: For Lovers of Food and Fiction - Hardcover

Shapiro, Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039303979X ISBN 13: 9780393039795

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996

Synopsis

"Anna Shapiro's books have all been delicious. But this one grants a wish of every voracious reader. Here at last, a book that no one can object to his reading at the table!" ―Thomas Mallon

An unusual cookbook for literature lovers with delicious recipes inspired by great scenes in literature. Literature is nourishment. The author has created inventive menus to accompany the pleasures of reading Proust, Isak Dinesen, and Charlotte BrontU. Along with tempting your palate with luscious cuisineincluded are over fifty recipesyou'll learn how very central food is in Anna Karenina, Moby-Dick, Jane Eyre, and Marjorie Morningstar. If there were no joint of meat in Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter," the philandering husband would be living happily with his new love. Without the dirty cup of tea in Doris Lessing's A Good Neighbour, Jane Somers might never wake up to love; and Rose in Alice Munro's "Royal Beatings" might be able to resist her stepmother if she could resist salmon sandwiches. A perfect gift to bring to a dinner party. Included are recipes for Queso Rellono (Serenade); Chicken Tarragon (The Sweet Dove Died); Quail with Potatoes and Grapes ("Babette's Feast"); Lamb Ó la Robin (David Copperfield); and Meat Tart (Ethan Frome). Menu inspired by The Magic Mountain: Roast Duck with Cranberry Conserve Fresh Spinach Sauteed in Olive Oil & Nutmeg Mix of Brown and Wild Rice Creamed Turnip Casserole Pear Conserve with Vanilla Ice Cream and Crumbled Amaretti

About this title

From the Back Cover:

For me, the selections make a kind of covert autobiography. I spent so much of my youth reading these books that it seems to have lasted for the entire nineteenth century and half the twentieth. The recipes too are markers on a private emotional map. "Chicken Livers in White Wine" conjures a rooming house in Toronto where I first cooked it, on a hot plate. I think of the commune in Ithaca where granola was repeatedly drawn from the oven for stirring, one very hot day. And any number of the dishes bring back a tiny New York apartment where many big, ambitious meals were served to people I loved. --from the Foreword to A Feast of Words, by the author.

From the Inside Flap:

Anna Shapiro's books have all been delicious. But this one grants a wish of every voracious reader. Here at last, a book that no one can object to his reading at the table! --Tom Mallon
I cooked once in 1978 and decided it was a bad idea. But the wit and literary insights in A Feast of Words will charm even the culinarily challenged. --M.G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 039303979X
• ISBN 13: 9780393039795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216