Time again for one of the most challenging recommendation features we have: READY, SET, GO!
Here are the rules:
We pick a specific sub-genre, trope, or type of romance, and we have to make ONE recommendation for that type.
And no more than two sentences as to why.
Just One.
And our theme this month?
It’s Thanksgiving in the US today, a complicated day that in the beforetimes might have been filled with complicated family (and possibly complicated food) but now, it’s even more complicated – or simple, depending on how you look at it.
So this month: what’s your favorite Food Porn romance? What romance has the best food-related content? What one book makes you the Most Hungry?
What Food Focused Romance Would you Recommend?
Any genre, but just one rec!
Ready, set, GO!
Sarah: Before I choose a book, I am betting which book Amanda will recommend. Let’s see if I’m right!
Amanda: If it’s Alice Clayton you’d be right.
Cream of the Crop. #TeamNightCheese
Sarah: I WAS RIGHT! #TeamNightCheese
Sneezy: Okay, just one!!!! I can do this!!!!
…now I want cheese
Sarah: I am torn between two and must ponder. PONDER.
Sneezy: Okay, The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!
Sarah: I WIN AGAIN.
I was betting that book would be chosen, either by you or by Catherine.
Sneezy: You Sneaky Sorceress!!!! You completely have my number, please have mercy.
Jokes aside, the book isn’t just delicious, the relationship the characters have with food is a lot like the one I have. What the book said about place, about how the sauce is British on a molecular level, had me in tears. I can’t remember any other book that so starved me of body while feeding my soul.
It’s like if Alton Chinese Restaurant in Toronto had a book twin. The food there almost had me in tears too. My grandma on my mom’s side is from GuanDong (same as the hero and heroine in the book!!!!) and the food there was a lot like what my grandma would make. I had forgotten how GOOD food can taste until I went there.
And yes, they do take out.
Shana: Sneezy, you’re killing me. I really wish I could cross the Canadian border right now, that sounds SO good! I want a meal by Sneezy’s grandma’s food twin.
Ahem. Anyway, I choose A Taste of Pleasure by Chloe Blake.
Sarah: That’s a GREAT pick Shana – it’s on my short list for this question. So much food porn in that one.
Shana: And Italian food is my go-to for comfort, so that book makes me ravenous every time.
Claudia: Just one, you say, and Sneezy already picked one that I might have? I’m going to go with Delicious by Sherry Thomas.
Sneezy: Claudia, we can share! Although your pick has the punner title, given the circumstances.
Claudia: Right??
Tara: God, it’s hard choosing only one book, because there are books that I know I loved and made me hungry, but there’s one that takes place on a grilled cheese food truck that I think other people would love even though I hate cheese. So I’m going to go with that one. It’s called Perfect Pairing by Rachel Spangler.
Ellen: Ok ok ok this is kind of straddling the line between romance and women’s fiction but I would have to recommend Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber.
GORGEOUS ownvoices story about Arab American community in Los Angeles. Heroine works in a restaurant so there are amazing descriptions of food. Also a really interesting diversity of ways faith is depicted and understood. I’m 99% sure the book ends with an hfn but it has been a while since I read it.
Catherine: Sarah, this is TWICE MEAN, first because you started it while I was asleep AND ALSO because I have difficulty distinguishing between a book that is excellent and a book that is excellently full of food and all of my recommendations here have food in them.
(I actually felt something go sproing whirr pop in my brain as I attempted to think of just one book with food porn in it, and then tried to narrow it to one I hadn’t recommended in on here already and it all broke…)
Sarah: LOLOL. I had a feeling you’d be like DAMMIT SARAH and start marching across the Pacific Ocean fueled by enough ire to keep you entirely above water.
Catherine: Just ONE???
Not joking about the brain stutter. I was not programmed for this…
Ok, ok. Since you all know my feelings on Laura Florand and Jacki Lau already, how about I give you something new that puts Thanksgiving in the rear vision mirror and leads you to Christmas?
Sweet on You by Carla de Guzman is set in Manila and is full of desserts and traditions that are completely new to me, and I have no idea what most of the food would taste like but I really, really want to find out.
Features a rivalry between a cafe owner and the baker next door and is full of food porn. The coffee porn is also fairly extreme, and I don’t even like coffee.
Sarah: That is high praise!
For my pick, alongside Shana’s pick on my short list: the Kat Halloway series by Jennifer Ashley, starting with A Soupçon of Poison, a novella that establishes Kat as a talented chef who has masterful recipes matched by masterful smarts in sleuthing. The first novel is Death Below Stairs but I know enough of you are completists so you’d want to start the series in chronological order. The series is also, as I’ve mentioned previously, on the very short list of books I give to people who are bereaved.
There’s food p0rn AND competence p)rn AND a slow burn and class entanglements and so much food competence.
What about you? What book would you recommend as your favorite Food P0rn Romance?
Ready, set, go!
Twelve days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley is my favourite food book. Holly is an unbelievably competent cook and she cooks her way to Christmas. I love reading this book just at this time of year but I have been known to read it in the summer too. All of Trisha Ashley’s books have great food anyway and recipes at the end too!
Man vs Durian by Jackie Lau. A fake boyfriend who takes the heroine on all sorts of wonderful dates to restaurants with delicious food, and even puts up with her love of durian despite hating it. Yummy and sweet.
Another Jackie Lau recommendation here: Her Big City Neighbor. The heroine is new to the big city, and she’s determined to sample her way through as much delicious new cuisine as possible as she gets to know the aforementioned neighbor. This book satisfies on a number of levels.
If grumpy Scotsmen are your catnip: “A taste of Heaven” by Penny Watson
For a delicious chocolate in NewOrleans: “In her wildest dreams” by Farrah Rochon
And I second Jackie Lau recommendation – the whole Toronto series is full of great Asian food and IceCream! (and hot heroes, of course 😉 ) <3
Any of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. Whenever I finish one of those books, I want a sub from Pino’s, a supper with Mrs. Plum, and some birthday cake. One of those books made me crave toast.
Alisha Rai’s WRONG TO NEED YOU—the hero, Jackson, is a chef. Now that I think about it, a lot of her books have tasty foods in them even if they’re not what I would call food porn per se.
Also, Jackie Lau’s Baldwin Village series—there’s one about an ice cream shop and one about pie. They’re delightful.
Jennifer Crusie’s Agnes and the Hitman has great food in it and is just generally one of my favorite books.
Manga is great for food p0rn. Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday series is one of my favorite. It’s an m/m story with a middle aged couple and it’s aaaaaaaalll about food. There’s also recipes in between chapters. Yoshinaga also has a very clever touch with characterisation.
Anne Calhoun’s AFTERNOON DELIGHT: the heroine runs a food truck, the hero is a paramedic. They have some hot sexytimes between sampling the heroine’s latest dishes. A word of caution: Do not read when you’re hungry!
Jackie Lau’s Ultimate Pi Day Party, because it’s pie season. As Pusheen the cat says, my favorite things about fall are pie, pie and also pie.
Livia Day’s A Trifle Dead series – cozy mysteries with romance and lots of humor, set in a bakery in Tasmania. The Blackmail Blend novella has a fancy high tea party and makes me want a nice hot cup of tea every time.
A TASTE OF HONEY by Rose Lerner is my jam (see what I did there). Also, Rose Lerner has the distinction of having mentioned an onion pie in LISTEN TO THE MOON, and she then posted a recipe of sorts on her website and I tried it and it was delicious. So although that book isn’t food focused, it is the one I associate with food.
Laura Florand’s Amour et Chocolat series. My favorite is The Chocolate Touch.
Food in books isn’t generally a big draw for me, but I really enjoyed RESERVATIONS FOR TWO by Jennifer Lohmann. She’s a chef and he’s a food critic and it’s one of the few times I actually paid attention to the food in a book. The cuisine described is Polish, which I wasn’t familiar with, and it sounded wonderful. I found a local deli that made perogies after I read this! YUM!
Absolutely Cream of the Crop. It popped right to the front of my brain when I read the topic. Cheeeese.
Truly by Ruthie Knox. The food is interesting — we learn about beehives on New York City rooftops and how the flavor of the honey is different in each one — and the romance is stellar.
Any book by Betty neels
Sunshine by Robin Mckinley. The heroine is a baker for her stepdad’s cafe and she talks a lot about the desserts and cookies she made for the day. The vampire stuff is fun too but reading about Sunshine going about her day is what I really like about it.
Absolutely have to go with Poppy Z. Brite’s lesser known Liquor series: Liquor, Prime, Soul Kitchen and D*U*C*K. All about food, recipes, running a restaurant, and being in a long-term committed and hella romantic relationship.
Penny Watson’s A TASTE OF HEAVEN (recommended by Konst. in Comment #4 above) is 99-cents in the Kindle Store right now.
Love’s Recipe by Mila Nicks. So much good food, cooking together…
My recommendation is for Delicious by Sherry Thomas which Claudia also picked. Reading it will make you hungry! It also has a noteworthy bathtub scene.
The Kat Holloway series is great food p0rn but since it’s already been mentioned, I’ll go with “Banquet of Lies” by Michelle Diener. This is a fantastic spy story with the heroine undercover as a French chef. Yes, the same Michelle Diener who now writes scifi/space opera romance.
I’ve been recommending The Duke Who Didn’t to everybody, because it’s great, but every time it’s with the caveat “this WILL make you want to eat literally every dish described, make plans in advance.”
As for my pick, I periodically reread the Innkeeper series by Ilona Andrews as comfort reading, and the elaborate descriptions of Orro’s food always make me so hungry (and also wish that I too had a giant alien chef living in my house, but, alas).
I enjoyed THE COINCIDENCE OF THE COCONUT CAKE by Amy e. Reichert. Heroine is a chef/restaurateur. Lots of stuff about the business of owning & running a restaurant and just the pleasure of food. It is set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the book is also a love letter to Milwaukee and the love of cheese!
Seconding Michelle Diener–that series is a comfort read for me but Banquet of Lies is my favorite. (Now I want to re-read it)
Hmm…. Dine with Me by Layla Reyne is a MM story with a chef who has cancer he doesn’t want to treat because he fears he’ll lose his sense of taste. (I have a friend who had radiation treatments on his neck/throat, and it really crushed his taste buds, so I didn’t find the plot unbelievable.)
And totally NOT a romance, but Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series always has AMAZING food descriptions. Here’s a bit from the third book.
Oh man, 10,000 times yes on poppy s brite’s liquor series!!!!! But also Alexis hall For Real. Makes me crave scrambled eggs and lemon meringue pie every time
If you’re a chocoholic Andrea Penrose’s Lady Arianna series will make your mouth water (and has recipes). Historicals with mystery and lots of chocolate!
Beauty and the Feast by Julia Barrett. The heroine is a chef. The main scene I remember is a meal she prepared that has a course likened to oral sex by the hero (she’s not there when he eats it). There is a somewhat cartoonish jealous woman villain. Overall I remember liking the story and there being lots of cooking
+1 rec for DINE WITH ME by Layla Reyne. I read it yesterday and it is easily one of my favorite books of 2020. Also OMG hungry by the time I finished it.
I second the Lady Arianna series by Andrea Penrose. Great recipes.
CINNAMON AND GUNPOWDER by Eli Brown. I wouldn’t call it 100% romance, but MY GOD, the descriptions of food and cooking. Bonus: hero is kidnapped by the heroine, who is a pirate queen.
THE GIRL WHO CHASED THE MOON by Sarah Addison Allen — the heroine baked for a local BBQ joint, right?
Not a romance perhaps, strictly speaking, but Joanne Harris’s Chocolat
Bet me by Jennifer Crusie. I really wanted to find a good chicken marsala recipe by the end.
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Eat This Poem by Nicole Gulotta
The Bollywood Bride–Sonali Dev. Cravings, people.
Tif Marcelo’s North to You series. Each book in the series features another member of a Filipino-American family doing something with food or wine. They’re all good!
THREE LITTLE WORDS by Jenny Holiday- hero is a chef, heroine is a model trying to pull herself out of body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. Total food porn, really sweet romance. It’s number three in the Bridesmaid’s Behaving Badly series which I LOVED.
The Little Beach Street Bakery has breadmaking, Cornwall and a puffin.
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof and its sequel by Sheila Williams. I just reread them. They came out in 2002 and 2004. Dancing was made into a movie starring Alfrie Woodard. I love the actress and she did a great job but the books were bettef
The Corinna Chapman mysteries by Kerry greenwood. She runs a bakery called earthly delights and between the better than sex muffins and the authentic kosher deli nearby…nomnom