Food is a big deal in our lives. It’s part of who we are, how we celebrate and why we love each other. Here are 10 books about food history and memoirs coming out this year that we are thirsting over.

1. Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry 11/8/22 - For Rabia Chaudry, food has always been a source of comfort and connection. In this warm, intimate memoir about food and body image, Rabia describes how she came to terms with the expectations placed on women by modern society, as well as by their own families. In doing so, she found that it wasn’t just her own relationship with food that needed to change—it was also her relationship with herself.

2. Fieldwork: A Forager's Memoir by Iliana Regan (1/24) - From National Book Award-nominee Iliana Regan, a new memoir of her life and heritage as a forager, spanning her ancestry in Eastern Europe, her childhood in rural Indiana, and her new life set in the remote forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Fieldwork explores how Regan's complex gender identity informs her acclaimed work as a chef and her profound experience of the natural world.

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3. A Cook's Book: The Essential Nigel Slater [A Cookbook] by Nigel Slater (3/7) The beloved author of Eat and Tender presents 150 satisfying and comforting recipes based on his favorite childhood food memories and culinary inspirations, accompanied by reflective personal essays.

4. Undercooked: How I Let Food Become My Life Navigator and How Maybe That's a Dumb Way to Live by Dan Ahdoot (3/21) A collection of hilarious essays about how food became one man's obsession and coping mechanism, and how it came to rule--and sometimes ruin--his relationships, from the Cobra Kai actor, stand-up comic, and host of Food Network's Raid the Fridge.

5. Kitchen Bliss: Musings on Food and Happiness (with Recipes) by Laura Calder (3/28)author Laura Calder is back with Kitchen Bliss, a warm, funny, and pragmatic collection of stories and recipes that reveal how cooking, feeding, and home-keeping can magically restore balance and calm in our out-of-sync lives.

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6. The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García by Laura Tillman (5/23)Mexico City-based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo's story: from Máximo's kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai's first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo's hometown of San José de las Pilas.

7. Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson (6/6) In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking -- that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books -- as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control.

8. Last Call at Coogan's: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar by Jon Michaud (6/6) - Coogan's Bar and Restaurant opened in New York City's Washington Heights in 1985 and closed its doors for good in the pandemic spring of 2020. Sometimes called Uptown City Hall, it became a staple of neighborhood life during its 35 years in operation--a place of safety and a bulwark against prejudice in a multi-ethnic, majority-immigrant community undergoing rapid change.

9. No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating by Alicia Kennedy (8/15) A culinary and cultural history of plant-based eating in the United States that delves into the subcultures and politics that have defined alternative food.

10. The Rye Bread Marriage: How I Found Happiness with a Partner I'll Never Understand by Michaele Weissman (8/15) A beautifully told, often humorous, unusual and also universal love story. A memoir about learning to live with another human being and about how every relationship is a mystery--and a miracle.

This is just a small sampling of the nonfiction titles I’ve curated on this topic. Make sure to check out the complete list HERE.

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We're totally obsessed with food history. What's your favorite food-related book?

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