My passion for food is a long-held one. On and off for decades, I helped in my family’s Maui restaurant, and I spent over 20 years serving tables, baristaing, and bartending elsewhere. As I moved again and again, local cuisine became one of the first ways I experienced a place. When I leave somewhere, I grieve dishes. Hawai‘i’s saimin and poke. Pasties from Michigan. West Virginia’s pepperoni rolls. Seafood gumbo, crawfish, and shrimp in myriad ways from the Gulf Coast.
No matter your unique connection to food, it’s something we have in common. We spend our days orbiting food and the subject of it: devouring meals, snacking, fantasizing about a little treat, discussing our next feast with beloveds, and adding items to our shopping list. I wonder why food doesn’t appear more in literature, so I’m drawn—across genres and formats—to the books that feature it. While cooking or when served a dish, I snap pictures. Maybe that’s one reason why when I want to read about food, graphic novels and memoirs beckon me.
Savor this list of six titles ranging from middle grade to adult titles. From fantasy, romance, nonfiction, and fiction with a touch of horror, something delectable awaits every reader.
Basil and Oregano by Melissa Capriglione
At the costly, exclusive Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy, a witch named Basil Eyres strives for “top student” honors to maintain her performance-based scholarship. When social media-famous Arabella Oregano enrolls, Basil develops an instant crush, and Basil, Villy, and Addy enfold her into their friend group. Undoubtedly drawn to one another and perhaps with a dash of fate, Arabella and Basil become partners for the Senior Festival, sharing a familiar and, then, a secret. When a jealous bully learns what Arabella’s hiding, she threatens to reveal her. Capriglione’s comforting exploration of class, passion, and tenacity kept me reading well past my bedtime snack.
Batter Royale by Leisl Adams
In Adams’s sweet young adult romance loaded with baking show puns and recipes for “Apple Crumble” and a “Maple Chocolate Cream Cheese Tart,” Rose waits tables at the Quayga Diner, where her best friend, Fred, cooks. When a food critic sampling the establishment’s dessert offerings becomes enamored with Rose and her strawberry shortcake, the 17-year-old receives a potentially life-changing opportunity. As her parents’ separation and her acceptance to an elite, but expensive, culinary school cloud her mind, Rose focuses on the titular televised baking competition in London that comes with a substantial cash prize and publishing deal. She just has to convince wanderlusty Fred to be her teammate as his mother’s business flounders.
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Cannon by Lee Lai
Meditating on intimacy, loss, and self-care, Lai’s bittersweet graphic novel begins in a destroyed eatery and then returns to three months earlier. In Montreal, Cannon works as a chef for a toxic boss, and her longtime friend Trish, an aspiring writer, occasionally stops by for an off-menu “peanut thing.” Even-tempered Cannon—first nicknamed Luce, then Cannon—nurtures others, dissolving heat-fueled kitchen arguments and preparing meals for weekly scary movie nights and for her ailing grandfather, all while turning to breathwork meditations in private and running on blistered feet. Cannon’s mounting anxiety becomes palpable through the haunting appearances of birds.
I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib
Delving into family, food, and place, Gharib’s vibrant graphic memoir centers on first-generation Malaka, whose Filipine mother and Egyptian father met in Southern California. In this refreshing coming-of-age story, Malaka grows up a handful of miles from her extended maternal family and spends summers in Egypt with her father, stepmother, and stepsiblings. She dares to daydream, especially about attending college in New York like Felicity’s Felicity. This reread, I bookmarked every page picturing food and found the number of dog-ears surprising and not. How much food informs Malaka’s identity resonated with me, and the mentions of SPAM, rice, and pancit made me homesick to the marrow.
Night Chef: An Epic Tale of Friendship with a Side of Deliciousness! by Mika Song
After the restaurant closes, Night Chef emerges to cook ramen and discovers an egg among fresh herbs. When the perfect ingredient hatches and a crow appears, the raccoon, reluctant to leave her familiar kitchen, vows to return the chick. While searching for the elusive crows’ roost, Night Chef and the chick (now named Ichi after the bird’s taste for Ichiban noodles) avoid an enemy and meet plenty of friends. With adorable responses to sticky scenarios that always begin with A chef, like “A chef will assist when needed,” the lovable characters and whimsical art make this middle grade graphic novel a joyful page-turner. Now I crave more of Song’s books.
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Raised by foodie parents and surrounded by people in the industry, Knisley’s young palate revels in taste: creamy salmon, tart vinegar, and rich foie gras. Accompanied by colorful illustrations and meaningful recipes for “Spice Tea” and “The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies,” this follows Lucy throughout her food-centered life. Starting with a Manhattan childhood, then moving with her mother, at seven, to rural New York, she remains close to food, working in the garden, at a farmers market, and for her mother’s catering business. This also highlights formative bites from Knisley’s travels to Rome, Mexico, Tokyo, and backpacking through Europe, where she ate a jam-filled croissant emulating “Venice sunlight.”
If you’re salivating over more food-focused reads, check out these satisfying posts ruminating on the most memorable dishes in comics, comic cookbooks, and cozy culinary mystery series.