Food fulfills so many roles for me: it’s a soothing friend, a partner in crime, a love interest, a guide. My feet, roaming the unfamiliar streets of summer vacation destinations, led me many-a-time to the taunting odors of cooking food. Spices, flavors, temperatures, and plates have transported me. They latch tightly to my tongue and spread through my bloodstream, injecting me with shivers of elated satisfaction and momentarily transporting me to a different world.
Books, like food, have the ability to smother me entirety with their woven words and deliver me to a world of imagination. The rich emotional bonds I’ve fostered with my reading material have led to vulnerability: I render myself helpless and defenseless, allowing the story to take me wherever it desires.
With such power, both food and books can alter our perspectives and our moods. Here are two of my favorite food-book combinations tailored to the acquisition of specific feelings:
For Comfort:
EAT: Pho
Pho-get about grilled cheese and pizza; this Vietnamese soup is the ultimate cozy day, Netflix-and-chill, heartwarming food. Each spoonful of broth is its own universe brimming with sensational, shifting flavors of lime, ginger, vegetables, herbs, meat, and probably some fairy dust for good measure.
READ: Euphoria by Lily King
Euphoria, like pho, transports its victim (yes, victim, you will be utterly powerless in the face of such delicious soup and reads). If you want unadulterated deliciousness, this food-book combo is for you. This brilliant account of Margaret Mead’s studies in New Guinea delivers us to a 1933 jungle world. Lily King scoops up her reader in a wooden canoe alongside three anthropologists in the Sepik River, navigating an adventure laden with, among other things, grime and disease. Through the brutality and struggle shimmer intoxicating passion, intelligence, and beauty, which ultimately make this novel so attractive and delectable.
For Adventure:
EAT: Injera
Spongy and porous, injera is a crepe-like vessel made with a fermented batter of teff flour grown in the Ethiopian highlands. Consider it a blank slate on which to place a carefully curated assortment of stews and meats. Choose wisely, my friend, for you are crafting your own experience. That said, if you’re looking to be perplexed and awed by the complex flavors of your meal, you really can’t go wrong in choosing injera toppings.
READ: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Marisha Pessl weaves magnificence in this mysterious, richly crafted story of relationships, life, and the pursuit of knowledge. Pessl adorns her plot – her base, her vessel – through delivering lessons with passion, quirkiness, and zeal: the father of our protagonist, Blue van Meer, offers that “Everyone is responsible for the page-turning tempo of his or her Life Story,” proving that we truly do craft our own experiences. For a stimulating, page-turning, finger-licking adventure, pick up this novel and give the nearest east African restaurant a call.
