The best novels with descriptions of food that will make your mouth water

It took me a while to realise the thing that so many of my favourite novels have in common, and that thing is food. My first pick is a classic. While Nora Ephron’s Heartburn focuses on the breakup of a marriage, the protagonist’s relationship with food and with her most-loved recipes is a subplot about how the comforts of good cooking can help us through the toughest times in life. Not only does Heartburn contain wisdom about resilience and agency in the face of life crises, it also reveals the best way to roast almonds, mash potatoes, make key lime pie. This book will change your life, if only because it's a recipe for Linguine Alla Cecca. 

This is an enchanting novel about transformation, generosity, small acts of kindness, the complexities of human nature – and chocolate. What I think I love most about this book are the food-related perceptions of the protagonist, Vianne, a new arrival in a small French town. She learns about the people there by observing their relationship with food. Who keeps treats to themselves? Who shares them readily? How can food give us hints about the essence of someone’s soul? She describes one character as the kind of man who breaks a biscuit in two so he can keep the other half for later, which amazingly, tells us everything we need to know. 

This is a gem of a book: perceptive, quirky, clear-eyed, and dark. Bender uses the tradition and taste of food, starting with her mother’s lemon cake recipe as a mysterious access point that unlocks the complicated secrets of the heart. It’s clever and stunningly written, deceptively deep but also sensuously thrilling. "I reached to the side of the cake pan, to the least obvious part, and pulled off a small warm spongy chunk of deep gold. Iced it all over with chocolate. Popped the whole thing into my mouth."

Charlie Bucket’s life is grim. "There wasn’t even enough money to buy proper food at all. The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch and cabbage soup for supper." But all that’s about to change. Once he’s been introduced to everlasting gobstoppers, a river of chocolate, three-course-dinner chewing gum, and lickable wallpaper, there’s no going back. Not to mention the whipple scrumptious fudgemallow delight.

A beloved classic picture book about a very hungry caterpillar who (spoiler alert) nourishes his way to becoming a beautiful butterfly. It’s a simple but compelling story of transformation, told with elegance and humour  - and a total joy for very young children. The very specific list of food (apple, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges, chocolate cake, cherry pie) makes it an immersive close-up experience. From the very start ("In the light of the moon, a little egg sat on a leaf.") its words and pictures are vivid and enchanting. A read-aloud delight full of texture, variety, and colour.