Yet the novel is more than a culinary history lesson. Embedded in the spirited adventures of Ugo DiFonteвЂ“a reluctant food taster to the tyrannical Duke FedericoвЂ“Elbling offers images of lavish banquets, the first recorded use of napkins, and delectable descriptions of Renaissance dishes, including Neapolitan spice cakes and pear tarts wrapped in marzipan. Elbling has done his homework, and his novel is redolent with the smells, textures, and tastes of early Italian cuisine. Set in Renaissance Italy, Peter ElblingвЂ™s The Food TasterВ is a feast for the mind as well as the palate. Covering Southern history and culture from 1929 to the present day, Fried Green TomatoesВ will surprise, charm, and satisfy any reader looking for more than a quick literary bite. While certain dishes within the book do serve up a healthy dose of symbolic nostalgiaвЂ“the traditional Southern recipe for fried green tomatoes indicating a close friendship between a middle-aged stay-at-home mom and an aging nursing-home residentвЂ“other recipes represent the plight of the homeless, romantic love between women, the implicit racism of mammy figures, and how acts of cannibalism might be transformed into ones of communion. Instead, Fannie Flagg has written a social protest novel for our time, as penetrating and wickedly comic about such controversial issues as race and class stratification, sexual violence, the beauty myth, rampant commercialism, and same-sex love as any Victorian novel by Charles Dickens. More provocative and complex than the film of the same name, Fried Green TomatoesВ turns out not to be chick lit after all. For as Rachel tells us, cooking is вЂњa sure thing in a world where nothing is sure.вЂќ If readers wish to cook up some of RachelвЂ™s вЂњsure-thingвЂќ recipes, the ones for vinaigrette, Potatoes Anna, and Chez HeleneвЂ™s bread pudding are among the best.ДЇried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafeby Fannie Flagg

From the bookвЂ™s first recipe for lima beans with pears (вЂњsomething that looked like plain old baked beansвЂ¦ turned out to have pears up its sleeveвЂќ) to the novelвЂ™s piГЁce de rГ©sistanceвЂ“a recipe for key-lime pie, which Rachel serves Mark right in the kisserвЂ“Ephron marries love to food: humansвЂ™ desire for food, delight in food, and disgust with food.

Wielding her recipes as skewers, Rachel broils Mark and his lover Thelma Rice over the slow coals of betrayal and revenge. In this novel, Ephron becomes cookbook author Rachel Samstat, while Bernstein transforms into syndicated columnist Mark Feldman. The heart does indeed burn in Nora EphronвЂ™s Heartburn, a humorous roman Г clefвЂ“a thinly veiled fictional account of EphronвЂ™s disastrous marriage to her philandering husband Carl Bernstein (the journalist of Watergate fame).

Lust at first bite cookbook