Normally my beat at SAVEUR is cookbooks, and I have plenty of recommendations from new releases in 2024 for you to savor. However, this year’s crop of food-focused narratives—a vast array of compelling novels, investigative journalism, scholarship, personal essays, and memoirs—is just as worthy of celebration. It’s a good reminder that great food stories aren’t just cracked open in kitchens; they find their way to bedside tables and vacation suitcases, too. These narratives are best read on the couch while someone else makes dinner, and they make ideal gifts for the food-focused reader in your life (even if they’re not much for cooking). Here is a roundup of our favorite food narratives of the year (recipes optional) for your holiday gifting season.
How well do we really know our culinary heroes? In The Essential Elizabeth Stone, Jennifer Banash offers a novel that interrogates the food and lifestyle industry, and the (in)famous women who present their perfect kitchens for public consumption. When the title character suddenly dies, her daughter Juliet must take over her multi-million dollar brand—only to discover that she didn’t know the whole truth about her mother or her career. If the Martha documentary left you clamoring for another behind-the-scenes look at a domestic goddess, Banash’s smart, sharply-observed novel is sure to whet your appetite.
