Harcourt Brace, 1998

-- Read a feature story in the Metro Times

Autobiographical essays about food by Julia Alvarez, Paul Auster, Charles Baxter, Madison Smartt Bell, Janet Burroway, David Haynes, Gish Jen, Bobbie Ann Mason, Jill McCorkle, Lorrie Moore, Chris Offutt, Stewart O’Nan, Richard Russo, Lee Smith, Steve Yarbrough, and others. All royalties benefit Share Our Strength, America’s largest grass-roots hunger-relief agency.

"In my house, curry would have been more exotic than heroin," professes editor Mark Winegardner in the introduction. "Maybe it's a family thing. Maybe it's the potassium benzoate," explains Jill McCorkle in her hilarious admission to a life of junk-food addiction. Food is at once the most common and most personal experience we all have, and in these 24 essays, the authors explore the varied experiences that accompany our sustenance. This includes Paul Auster recalling an onion tart in Provence that he believed to be his last meal, and in the shortest and most poignant essay, Gita Mehta writes of how hard it is to be hungry in the land of plenty. All of the essays were donated by the writers, and the profits from We Are What We Ate will benefit Share Our Strength, a program to alleviate and prevent hunger in the United States and around the world. Mark Winegardner has done an excellent job of assembling this diverse and entertaining collection of essays illustrating the immense variety of the American food experience. From junk food to gourmet fare, from those blessed with the heritage of taste to those of us with a white-bread tradition, We Are What We Ate offers good food and good writing for all."
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