Recipe (Object Lessons)

by Professor or Dr. Lynn Z. Bloom

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Recipe reveals the surprising lessons that recipes teach, in addition to the obvious instructions on how to prepare a dish or perform a process. These include lessons in hospitality, friendship, community, family and ethnic heritage, tradition, nutrition, precision and order, invention and improvisation, feasting and famine, survival and seduction and love. A recipe is a signature, as individual as the cook's fingerprint; a passport to travel the world without leaving the kitchen; a lifeline for people in hunger and in want; and always a means to expand one's worldview, if not waistline.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

• ISBN10: 1501367102
• ISBN13: 9781501367106
• Publish Date: 11 August 2022 (first published 30 June 2022)
• Publish Status: Forthcoming
• Out of Print: 30 September 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
• Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 160
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Recipe is a collection of short essays and reminiscences by Lynn Z. Bloom of recipes and how we interact with them. Due out 5th May 2022 from Bloomsbury Academic, it's 160 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This is one of a series of books on everyday items called "Object Lessons" which team writers' observations and experiences with material foci: recipes, stickers, bookshelves, bulletproof vests, traffic, TVs, and trees to give a few examples.

The author does a very good job of first objectifying and deconstructing the concept of a recipe - what it is, where we find them, how they function, and how we interact with them - and then providing insightful essays about how recipes impact us, shape us, inform, and feed us, and occasionally affect us politically and socioeconomically. As a bonus, the author graciously provides a recipe for blueberry pie full to bursting with fresh berries. I haven't yet made it, but I definitely intend to do so.

There's a solid bibliography included with resources for further reading as well as a cross referenced index.

I have enjoyed a number of the books in this series. This one is erudite and thought provoking. It's a worthwhile addition to the series as a whole.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.