The best food memoirs about transformative personal journeys

“What should we have for dinner?” is the premise of the fascinating and engaging book that shot Michael Pollan to fame and celebrity. In each of the book’s sections, Pollan follows from source to final product the workings of the three primary food chains—industrial (via corn); pastoral (poultry and meat); and foraged (hunting/gathering)—and in the process, comes to a new and personal understanding of how we as a culture eat and how we should be eating. One often hears about books that “changed my life,” but in this case, that is actually the truth: by making me truly aware of where my food actually comes from, this book quite literally changed the way I think about what I put into my mouth. 

Madhur Jaffrey—the actress/author/celebrity chef whose cookbooks opened up to an entire generation of Brits and Americans the wonders of Indian cuisine—taught me to cook Indian food. And then this beautiful memoir taught me to appreciate the history and culture from whence her recipes spring. A heartfelt and vivid tale of growing up in northern India under the shadow of the coming world war, Climbing the Mango Trees is the story of family, spicy cauliflower (and yes, mangos, too!), and the ability of food to evoke memory and unite us all. 

Long before The Bear television series, there was the Bourdain’s exposé of the underbelly of the culture of the restaurant kitchen. At times raunchy, exhilarating, sharp-witted, angry, and hilarious, Kitchen Confidential is not merely an unflinching look at what, at the time (2000), were the mysterious goings-on of commercial kitchens, but more importantly, it’s the story of a wild and passionate young man’s search for purpose and meaning in life through food and cooking—a story made all the more poignant by what we now know of Bourdain’s lifelong battle with depression.

Commencing with that momentous lunch of Sole Meunière (“it was the most exciting meal of my life”), which launched Julia Child on her quest to unravel the secrets of French cuisine, this is a delightful memoir of the post-war years of the future celebrity chef spent in Paris and Marseille with her charming husband Paul. I can hear Child’s hearty laugh and exuberant voice throughout as she regales us lucky readers with stories of learning how to properly scramble an egg at Le Cordon Bleu, of visits to the local crémerie for fresh-churned butter and Camembert cheese, and late-night dinner parties at their Parisian digs. Few books have made me smile (and feel hungry) as much as this one did. 

Possessing an insatiable appetite even as a toddler, Frank Bruni has long had a complicated relationship with food. Body shame—made all the worse by being a single gay man trying to conform to an impossible standard—drove him from fad diets, to manic exercise, and even bulimia. Nevertheless, in 2004, he accepted the position as restaurant critic for The New York Times. Having spent the better part of my own life acutely conscious of my caloric intake, I found Born Round to be a moving account of the struggle so many of us face regarding body image, and how coming to terms with our own limits and the compromises we need to make can provide a path to self-love and happiness.