Have you ever thought about why we use the same vocabulary to describe consuming food and consuming knowledge? How we’re hungry for the truth, devour a good book, and digest information? 

Intellectual nourishment has been so closely aligned with physical nourishment, it’s not surprising that food figures so prominently in books, the most formidable carriers of information. Book Feast celebrates this connection by highlighting a specific food or dish that plays a special role in a work of literature—analyzing its significance and demonstrating its general culinary use.

As we all spend more time at home and more time than ever consuming (media, news, information, meals, and books), it’s a great time to cover some culinary basics and to discover new works. Combining the two, this program requires nothing beyond equipment found in most kitchens, ingredients sold in neighborhood stores, and resources through your local neighborhood library.

We hope that you will find inspiration to read, to cook, and to explore—to nourish yourself with good food and good reads. Check out the first three episodes of Book Feast on the Free Library of Philadelphia’s YouTube channel if you’d like to learn more about the mysterious morality of onions in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, banana massacres in García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and carnal candy in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Stay tuned for more episodes, and feel free to email a recommendation of your own favorite food passage to lanek @ freelibrary.org. 

In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, stay full.