Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
I found this one quite hard, and actually only ended up with four examples. I feel like I don’t tend to read a whole lot ‘involving food’, but these books do have food as something pivotal/crucial to either the plot or the characters.
Top Four Books Involving Food
(That Aren’t Cookbooks)
(Submitted by Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life)
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Suzanne Collins
Genre: Sci-Fi – Dystopia
Age: Young Adult
Format: Audiobook
Published: May 19th, 2020
Review
It’s been a long time since I read the original trilogy, but I remember there being a focus on food in them, as well, as a representation of status and wealth and waste. The same is evident in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Coriolanus witnesses people going to great lengths to stop hunger during the war, his family have little food at home, but he tries to resist eating too much at school lest the others work out his family are no longer wealthy, and food ends up playing a key role in him bonding with Lucy Grey and even in the way he influences the games but pitching the idea of food and water being delivered to the tributes.
Skyward Inn
Aliya Whiteley
Genre: Sci-Fi
Age: Adult
Format: Audiobook
Published: March 16th, 2021
Review
With this being set at an ‘inn’, food and drink are going to come into play on some level, but there’s a specific brew served here that plays a key part in the story. I can’t say much more, but this is a strange, intriguing sci-fi book that I absolutely loved.
Six Crimson Cranes
Elizabeth Lim
Genre: Fantasy
Age: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: July 6th, 2021
Review
Soup plays a key role in this, and it serves as a connection for Shiori’anma to her family, as well as offering her a way to survive while under the curse. And the descriptions of the food are absolutely mouth watering, but Lim is, in general, an excellent writer.
#Sweets for Love
Elodie Nowodazkij
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: October 6th, 2022
Review
Love in Swans Cove is an absolutely wonderful Christmas romance series, and this book is no exception – food plays a major part here, as it’s a baking competition that brings Alessandro and Aisling back into each other’s lives, and the reality show setting makes for some brilliant moments between the pair. I absolutely adored this one, as I have all the books in the series!
Apologies for the shorter list, but if you have any recommendations for books featuring food, I’d love to hear them! And if any of these catch your interest and you pick up a copy, do let me know. I definitely only include books on TTT I would recommend. It’s interesting to think about food in these books though, and the way they use them in different ways.
Unwrapping Words 