Five Books That Will Make White People Less Exhausting at Dinner Parties

The older I get, the less interested I am in food books that promise to make me a better cook. I’d much rather read the ones that make me a little less certain of myself.

These are five books that expand your pantry, your vocabulary, and your understanding of who gets to tell America’s food stories.

This list is part of 5 on Five, a monthly bookish tradition on Substack where writers, readers, librarians, booksellers, and other literary types each recommend five books around a shared theme. This month’s prompt, hosted by Laura Bray at The Cozy Library, is Books That Make You Hungry. After you're done here, head over to Laura's post to discover dozens more delicious recommendations from fellow readers.

Mine probably won’t make you hungry in the traditional sense. They will, however, make you want to buy fish sauce, call your grandmother, question your pantry, and maybe learn that the most interesting thing at dinner isn't you.

I’ve never read another book quite like this one. Chantha Nguon stretches the very definition of a recipe, using food — and sometimes the absence of food — to tell the story of surviving Cambodia after nearly a decade of American bombing and the Khmer Rouge. Some recipes contain almost no ingredients at all because there simply weren’t any. Nguon is a phenomenal storyteller who refuses to sugarcoat history or the fish sauce.

Most likely to make you: Realize recipes can hold a lot more than ingredients.

_{*Thank you to Betty Williams for recommending this one!}

This is the Southern cookbook I wish I’d grown up with. These writers brilliantly expand the definition of Southern cooking by centering the women who have always been shaping it, whether or not history bothered to give them credit. It doesn’t just change what Southern food looks like; it changes who gets to be considered Southern. And, it belongs on every American bookshelf.

Most likely to make you: Ask who was doing all the cooking while someone else was getting the credit.

I’ve baked nearly every recipe in this book, which is saying something because I work on cookbooks for a living. The recipes are deeply satisfying after a long day. The desserts alone earn this book permanent shelf space, but what keeps me returning is the way Jerrelle Guy writes about baking as a fully sensory experience.

By the time you're done, you're convinced baking is less about following instructions than learning to notice.

Most likely to make you: Listen more carefully to what your cookies have to say.

One of my favorite culinary memoirs because it refuses to separate food from race, class, ambition, and identity. Every chapter feels like someone lit a burner under it. By the end, you’ll wonder what you’ve been doing with your own life and you’ll never look at a box of candy bars quite the same way again.

It’s about becoming a chef, but it’s also about becoming yourself.

Most likely to make you: Spend the next hour Googling restaurants you’ll never get into.

Part publishing satire, part food novel, part industry inside joke, Food Person is painfully accurate if you’ve ever wondered how cookbooks get made. As someone who ghostwrites cookbooks for a living, I spent most of the novel alternating between laughing and wondering whether Adam Roberts had somehow gained access to my inbox.

Most likely to make you: Decide becoming a cookbook collaborator sounds like a terrible idea. (It’s not. Mostly.)

_{*Thank you to Everything Cookbooks for putting this on my radar with their great episode with Adam Roberts.}

Think of this as a field guide for people who'd like to sound much smarter while holding a Negroni. Stewart traces the plants behind the world’s great spirits with the kind of obsessive curiosity that makes you want to corner strangers at parties and explain how agave and juniper changed all of our lives. Equal parts botany, history, and cocktail trivia, it’s the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered what exactly they’re drinking.

Most likely to make you: Become completely insufferable at your next cocktail party (and mix a better drink because of it).

_{*Thank you to Jane Friedman for hosting a fabulous class with Amy Stewart that sent me down a delightful rabbit hole of her work!}

Apparently my favorite food books aren't really about food at all. They're about history, identity, family, survival, and the strange things we inherit every time someone hands us a plate. The recipes are just how they get us to the table.

Want to join the fun? Every month, 5 on Five invites readers, writers, and other bookish weirdos to recommend five books around a shared theme. It's one of my favorite corners of Substack and a great way to discover your next favorite read. Fair warning: your TBR pile will grow faster than your bookshelf.

Still here? Delightful. If you’d like more Cheese Toast with White People, more odd family stories, or more ways to work with me before the cheddar burns, here’s where to go next.

• August 7 & 28: I’m teaching a two-part DIY Cookbook Proposals workshop with the Food Writers Business Lab for cookbook authors who want to build a proposal for traditional publishing.

• August: I have one spots open for a book proposal consultation this month, in case your nonfiction book a needs a little structure, strategy, or loving-but-firm editorial attention.

• September 9: Write Up’s Book Proposal Intensive begins again. Join our 12-week workshop for turning your book into a polished, submission-ready proposal with community support and personalized feedback.

• October 2: I’m moderating The New Landscape of Food Memoir, a conversation with editor Vivian Lee and memoirists Hannah Howard and Krys Malcolm Belc about writing and publishing food memoir today.

• October 27: I’ll be joining a national panel on ghostwriting for the Women’s National Book Association, discussing the craft and business of collaborative writing.

• Anytime: Join our Write Up circle community. A cozy, chaos-free corner of the internet for anyone working on their first book! Two ways to join.

Want more? My newest essays cover boundaries for ghostwriters for the Authors Guild and grief, motherhood, and family for TalkDeath.

Thanks for being here.