Featured Books and DVDs: Snack-tacular!

Food: You need it. You love it. And so do we. Here at the Penn Libraries, we think summer is the perfect time for culinary exploration through books (including cookbooks, of course!), DVDs, and experimenting with new recipes. In this month’s recommendations, you’ll find plenty of “meals” - those deep explorations of cultures, techniques, and histories attached to food – as well as lots of “snacks,” or fun popular pieces.

You can find the selections highlighted below, and many more, on display on the first floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, next to New Books.

Note: The descriptions below are collected from publishers and edited for brevity and clarity.

Books

Of Morsels and Marvels by Maryse Condé

For many, cooking is simply the mechanical act of reproducing standard recipes. To Maryse Condé, however, cooking implies creativity and personal invention, on par with the complexity of writing a story. A cook, she explains, uses spices and flavors the same way an author chooses the music and meaning of words.

Condé takes readers on a literary journey through Australia, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Japan, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, and different parts of the U.S., highlighting tastes and culinary traditions that provide important insights into lesser-known aspects of contemporary life. Blending travel with gastronomy, this enchanting volume from the winner of the 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize will delight all who marvel at the wonders of the kitchen or seek to taste the world.

Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips, and Recipes for the Disabled Cook by Jules Sherred

Jules Sherred believes the kitchen is the most ableist room in the house. With 50 recipes that make use of three key tools―the electric pressure cooker, air fryer, and bread machine― Sherred has set out to make the kitchen accessible and enjoyable. The book includes pantry prep, meal planning, shopping guides, kitchen organization plans, and tips for cooking safely when disabled, all taking into account varying physical abilities and energy levels.

The book also provides a step-by-step guide to safe canning and a template for prepping your freezer and pantry for post-surgery. With rich accompanying photography and food histories, complete nutritional information and methods developed specifically for the disabled and neurodivergent cook, Crip Up the Kitchen is at once inviting, comprehensive, and accessible.

`
Balut: Fertilized Eggs and the Making of Culinary Capital in the Filipino Diaspora by Margaret Magat

Balut is a delicacy which elicits passionate responses. Hailed as an aphrodisiac in Filipino culture, the dish — which comprises a fertilized duck or chicken egg embryo with feathers and a beak that is cooked and eaten from the shell — is often seen and used as an object of revulsion in Western popular culture.

In the first academic book on balut, Margaret Magat examines balut production and consumption, its role in drinking rituals, its relation to sex, and the vampire-like legends behind it. Balut reveals how traditional foods are used in the performance of identity and ethnicity, inspiring a virtual online cottage industry via social media. It also looks at the impact globalization and migration are having on cultural practices and food consumption across the world.

Farm: the making of a climate activist by Nicola Harvey

Is it possible to survive as a new farmer and change the future of farming at the same time?

In 2018, Nicola Harvey and her husband, Pat, left their careers and inner-city Sydney life to farm cattle in rural New Zealand. They thought it would be exciting, even relaxing, but soon found themselves in the middle of heated arguments and deep divisions about food, farming, and climate change. In this profoundly personal story, Harvey takes readers into the heart of the industrialized global food system to share what life on the land is like when you’re a new farmer just trying to survive — and change the status quo.

At odds with her family and struggling to find a place within her new community, Nicola begins to transform the farm into a site of activism. In the kitchen and on the land, Nicola finds hope and a path towards a cooler future.

American Feast: Cookbooks and Cocktails from the Library of Congress by Zach Klitzman and Susan Reyburn

Cookbooks offer key insights into what people eat, how they prepare it and share that knowledge, and what kinds of events demand certain dishes. This book showcases some of the 40,000 books related to cookery in the nation's library, from the earliest founding-era American household manuals to 21st century-themed cookbooks and everything in between. And not just food recipes, but cocktail recipes too! The word "cocktail" originated in America, and the Library of Congress houses a wide collection of cocktail-related materials as well – the highlights of which are included here.

Whether you are a gourmet chef or have never touched a frying pan; whether you are an expert mixologist or don't know your spritzes from your bitters, you can enjoy this feast of Americana and perhaps find yourself a new signature dish or drink.

DVDs

The Trip to Spain

After jaunts through northern England and Italy, actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon embark on another deliciously deadpan culinary road trip. This time around, the guys head to Spain to sample the best of the country's gastronomic offerings in between rounds of their hilariously off-the-cuff banter. Over plates of pintxos and paella, the pair exchange barbs and their patented celebrity impressions, as well as more serious reflections on what it means to settle into middle age. As always, the locales are breathtaking, the cuisine to die for, and the humor delightfully devilish.

Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie)

In Luis Buñuel’s Oscar-winning satiric masterpiece, an upper-middle-class sextet sits down to a dinner that is continually delayed, their attempts to eat thwarted by vaudevillian events both actual and imagined, including terrorist attacks, military maneuvers, and ghostly apparitions. The film sends a cast of European-film greats through a maze of desire deferred, frustrated, and interrupted. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is one of Buñuel’s most gleefully radical assaults on the values of the ruling class.

In French with English subtitles.

Uppercase Print

In 1981, chalk slogans written in uppercase letters started appearing in public spaces in the Romanian city of Botosani. They demanded freedom, alluded to the democratic developments taking place in Romania’s socialist sister countries, or simply called for improvements in the food supply. The culprit was Mugur Calinescu, a teenager who was still at school at the time. This film combines a documentary play with archival footage from Romanian TV of the era. The final product is an image of a dictatorial surveillance state that draws on the authorized popular entertainment of the Ceausescu regime in order to unmask it.

In Romanian with English Subtitles.

Big Night

Old World idealism clashes with American pop culture in this bittersweet 1996 comedy starring Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini, Tony Shalhoub, and Stanley Tucci. Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Big Night is the story of two brothers whose Italian restaurant is on the brink of bankruptcy. Their only chance for success is to risk everything they own on an extravagant feast for bandleader Louis Prima. But their big night is complicated by a love triangle, a sneaky restaurant rival, and the hilarious perfection of chef Primo. A treat for food lovers and movie lovers everywhere.

Ramen Heads

This documentary follows Osamu Tomita, Japan’s reigning king of ramen, as he reveals every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect bowl of noodles. He is relentless in his search for the highest-quality ingredients, as are his competitors. The film also profiles five other notable ramen shops, each with its own philosophy and flavor, which exemplify different aspects of the ramen world. Ramen Heads provides a bite-size history of ramen’s historical roots, while giving an in-depth look at the contemporary culture surrounding this unique and beguiling dish.

In Japanese with English subtitles.