Examines the unique qualities of the foods of the desert areas of Mexico and the southwestern United States, discussing how the ecology and cultural history of the area shape its food.

The word “terroir” refers to the climate and soil in which something is grown. Natasha Sajé applies this idea to the environments that nurture and challenge us, exploring in particular how the immigrant experience has shaped her identity. She revisits people and literature across her life, including her experiences as the child of European refugees in suburban New Jersey, taken under the wing of a widowed neighbor; a winter spent waitressing in Switzerland; her marriage to a Jamaican man in Baltimore; and finally her marriage to a woman in Salt Lake City. This memoir-in-essays combines poetic lyricism with incisive commentary on nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Reminding us that change is constant in our lives, Sajé asks how terroir creates identity. Throughout, the English language is her most fertile ground.

Features essays, reviews, and articles from various food magazines and newsletters by such food writers as Paul Graham, Rachel Levin, Daniel Duane, and Kevin Pang.

Winner of a 2019 Southwest Book Award (BRLA) An homage to the useful and idiosyncratic mesquite tree In his latest book, Mesquite, Gary Paul Nabhan employs humor and contemplative reflection to convince readers that they have never really glimpsed the essence of what he calls "arboreality." As a Franciscan brother and ethnobotanist who has often mixed mirth with earth, laughter with landscape, food with frolic, Nabhan now takes on a large, many-branched question: What does it means to be a tree, or, accordingly, to be in a deep and intimate relationship with one? To answer this question, Nabhan does not disappear into a forest but exposes himself to some of the most austere hyper-arid terrain on the planet--the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts along the US/Mexico border--where even the most ancient perennial plants are not tall and thin, but stunted and squat. There, in desert regions that cover more than a third of our continent, mesquite trees have become the staff of life, not just for indigenous cultures, but for myriad creatures, many of which respond to these "nurse plants" in wildly intelligent and symbiotic ways. In this landscape, where Nabhan claims that nearly every surviving being either sticks, stinks, stings, or sings, he finds more lives thriving than you could ever shake a stick at. As he weaves his arid yarns, we suddenly realize that our normal view of the world has been turned on its head: where we once saw scarcity, there is abundance; where we once perceived severity, there is whimsy. Desert cultures that we once assumed lived in "food deserts" are secretly savoring a most delicious world. Drawing on his half-century of immersion in desert ethnobotany, ecology, linguistics, agroforestry, and eco-gastronomy, Nabhan opens up for us a hidden world that we had never glimpsed before. Along the way, he explores the sensuous reality surrounding this most useful and generous tree. Mesquite is a book that will delight mystics and foresters, naturalists and foodies. It combines cutting-edge science with a generous sprinkling of humor and folk wisdom, even including traditional recipes for cooking with mesquite.

An essential tool for assisting leisure readers interested in topics surrounding food, this unique book contains annotations and read-alikes for hundreds of nonfiction titles about the joys of comestibles and cooking. Food Lit: A Reader's Guide to Epicurean Nonfiction provides a much-needed resource for librarians assisting adult readers interested in the topic of food—a group that is continuing to grow rapidly. Containing annotations of hundreds of nonfiction titles about food that are arranged into genre and subject interest categories for easy reference, the book addresses a diversity of reading experiences by covering everything from foodie memoirs and histories of food to extreme cuisine and food exposés. Author Melissa Stoeger has organized and described hundreds of nonfiction titles centered on the themes of food and eating, including life stories, history, science, and investigative nonfiction. The work emphasizes titles published in the past decade without overlooking significant benchmark and classic titles. It also provides lists of suggested read-alikes for those titles, and includes several helpful appendices of fiction titles featuring food, food magazines, and food blogs.

Get to know this West Texas region by tasting flavorful recipes, meeting the colorful locals, discovering the rich history, and much more. Early settlers of the Big Bend honed a culture of self-reliance, resilience and creativity. Today, this is reflected in the diverse art, music and cuisine of the area that draw visitors undeterred by its isolation. Though sparsely populated, Big Bend is home to nationally acclaimed restaurants and chefs, as well as generations’ worth of family recipes. Travel town by town and plate by plate in this culinary and cultural tour through the Big Bend. Indulge in a slice of jalapeno chocolate cake from Lajitas. Taste the way Big Bend Brewery’s beer makes beef stew irresistible. Take a bite of an innovated classic with the rich pistachio fried steak in Marfa. From barbecued cabrito in Marathon and pozole in Fort Davis to adventures foraging in the desert, savor a part of Texas unlike any other. Author Tiffany Harelik guides the journey with interviews, history and, of course, recipes.

"The book centers on a call to define/redefine the field of ethnobiology and the need for doing so. It points a major way forward for ethnobiology: toward engagement with people and communities that are saving ecosystems and lifestyles through reviving traditional agricultural items and techniques, and integrating them into the contemporary world"--Provided by publisher.