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“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”

- Voltaire

If you really love food: cooking, eating, discovering new cuisines, and learning new food related facts, you will be happy to read these books. Both books, although completely different, present food as more than just the three meals each day. In each book, food is part of a lifestyle which includes health of the mind, body, and spirit. It opens doorways to passion, people, and fun.

French Women Don’t Get Fat: The secret of eating for pleasure by Mireille Guiliano. This book is fascinating. It is supposed to be a diet book. But, soon, you realize that to get thin or to stay thin involves more than counting calories for a few months. It takes a change in lifestyle. The lifestyle Guiliano describes is one most people would love to have. It involves long walks around Paris, drinking champagne or wine with lunch, eating delicious salads, and…never going to the gym. Therefore, dieting becomes fun and not really dieting at all. She reveals how loving life and food and love keep you thin. One chapter is called, “eating for life” because she describes how to eat forever, not just to shed a few pounds. The book also contains delicious low fat recipes. She gives great tips like, “The full taste of wine reveals itself only when paired with the right food.” She goes on to say that French women would never drink wine without food, like a cocktail. It’s a fun book and you won’t be able to put it down. You will probably want to get on the next plane to France. However, everything she describes in her lifestyle you could adopt wherever you live.   

The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten. This book is entertaining, fact filled, and so funny. You may know Jeffrey Steingarten as a judge on Iron Chef America. He is extremely well educated in all things food related. He found that one can get rid of preconceived notions of disliking certain foods with discipline and curiosity. He says that you can learn or train yourself to like food if you increase exposure to them. In this book, he travels and tries so many different foods. He gives you detailed information about everything. You will learn all you ever wanted to know about fries because there is an entire chapter on them. He bottles his own water and makes the perfect sourdough bread. He offers many recipes as well. It reads like a cookbook, travel guide and food encyclopedia. Plus, it’s a comedy. You’ll love it.

You would be doing yourself a favor to add these foodie books to your library. Whether you are a seasoned chef or a novice, you will enjoy reading these. They teach you about the author’s passion for food and life. Both are passions worth reading about.