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An ABC of unusual, unruly and misunderstood fruits: in twenty-six chapters, Kate Lebo blends personal, cultural and natural history with the best of food writing in this unique book.
About the author
Kate Lebo is the author of Pie School: Lessons in Fruit, Flour, and Butter and A Commonplace Book of Pie. Her essay about listening through hearing loss, 'The Loudproof Room', originally published in New England Review, was anthologized in Best American Essays 2015. A graduate of the University of Washington’s MFA program, Kate is the recipient of the Nelson Bentley Fellowship and the Joan Grayston Poetry Prize. From Fall 2015 through December 2016, she was a spokesperson for the US company Driscoll’s Berries, who produced the following video about her and her Pie School cookbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx0KHwEE2nI
She lives in Spokane, Washington.
Summary
‘A richly researched food history, gentle memoir and left-field recipe book.’ i newspaper
‘A dazzling, thorny new essay collection.’ Samin Nosrat, New York Times
‘A beautiful, fascinating read full of surprises – a real pleasure.’ Claudia Roden
‘Inventive and charming . . . profound and deeply felt.’ Buzzfeed
Inspired by twenty-six fruits, essayist, poet and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends the culinary, medical and personal.
A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odour – peaches, old garlic. M is for Medlar, name-checked by Shakespeare for its crude shape, beloved by gardeners for its flowers. Q is for Quince, which, fresh, gives off the scent of ‘roses and citrus and rich women’s perfume’ but if eaten raw is so astringent it wicks the juice from one’s mouth.
In this work of unique invention, these and other difficult fruits serve as the central ingredients of twenty-six lyrical essays (and recipes!) that range from deeply personal to botanical, from culinary to medical, from humorous to philosophical. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine and more. What if the primary way you show love is to bake, but your partner suffers from celiac disease? Why leave in the pits for Willa Cather’s Plum Jam? How can we rely on bodies as fragile as the fruits that nourish them?
Lebo’s unquenchable curiosity leads us to intimate, sensuous, enlightening contemplations. The Book of Difficult Fruit is the very best of food writing: graceful, surprising and ecstatic.
Includes black and white illustrations.
