Foodoirs & Chicken Lit

Memoirs and novels centered around food. (Food+[mem]oir; Chick[en] lit[erature])

“Done well, memoirs about love and food go together like steak and martinis,” Christine Muhlke observed in The Times in December 2009:

Meals are a perfect application for the “show, don’t tell” directive, from proposal soufflé to break-up pastina. These foodoirs have become a successful subset, one part chick lit mixed with one part chicken lit.

In May 2009 Muhlke explained:

The foodoir was popularized by the likes of Frances Mayes and Ruth Reichl, who wrote eloquently of lazy Italian plumbers and revolutionary West Coast restaurants, punctuating their musings with recipes that brought the flavors of their stories onto the reader’s plate — that is, if readers wanted to get their hardcover splattered. Bloggers took naturally to the format, weaving their personal lives into the cooking process as laid out onscreen. Book (and movie) deals followed. Lately, bookstores seem to be crowded with cooks who write and writers who cook, prompting much shelving discussion among employees. (Are they cookbooks or book-books?)

(The chef’s hat is tipped to Word Spy which notes an early use of foodoirfrom 2002.)