Recipes in Memoirs and Narrative Nonfiction

Howdy cookbook fans!

And welcome to your last issue of Stained Page News for the year! Next year things may look a bit differently around here, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There WILL be some kind of Top Chef Wisconsin content for paid subscribers whenever that premieres in the spring, so look forward to that. (I will not turn payments back on without a heads up.)

Today! returns to Stained Page News for some good old fashioned literary criticism. What does the role of recipes mean in memoir and/or narrative nonfiction mean? And what does it mean if you decide not to include them?

What is the Role of Recipes in Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction?

—By Lola Milholland

What is the role of recipes in memoir and narrative nonfiction? This question sprang to my mind shortly after I sent a completed draft of my debut book, Group Living and Other Recipes, to my editor. As the title suggests, I’d included recipes—specifically, one recipe to close each chapter.

The book is part memoir, focused on my experiences living in communal households; part examination of group living through the stories of my extended family; and part exploration of group living as a metaphor for interconnections—macrocosmically, microcosmically, and across generations. I wouldn’t categorize Group Living as primarily a “food memoir” or what prominent food writer Alicia Kennedy calls “domestic writing.” 

So what did my decision to include recipes convey? Does the presence of recipes pigeonhole narrative nonfiction or memoir as food writing? Do they signal something fundamental about the scope, style, or focus of a book? And if so, is that a problem? I knew how to answer these questions: I needed to hit my bookshelves.

I began by grabbing the first book I read in the food memoir sub-genre: Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. When I was 19, I moved into a communal dorm at college where we took turns cooking dinners for each other. My mom mailed me a copy of Reichl’s book, and I found the writing effortless to read. Reichl, who was the longtime editor of Gourmet, throws recipes into the middle of chapters abruptly and playfully, sometimes even before she’s mentioned the dish. For one of our dorm’s communal meals, I broke our vegetarian rule and cooked