Pick up a food book to learn a lot and dream a little

An astonishing number of new food-related books kindled my interest this year. I read — and reveled in — a stack that melded entertainment with enlightenment, offering an extra-big helping of history, geography and cookery. Among the highlights were the following giftables that delved into everything from food politics to food snobbery, kabocha squash to kumamotos.

"The Food Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge" (Broadway Books, $12.95) is the gotta-give-it gift for every food snob you know — and those who aspire to that "Tampopo"-watching, Fergus Henderson-adoring, peekytoe crab-eating throne. In this A-to-Z compendium rife with lists and laughs, authors David Kamp and Marion Rosenfeld define that food-fancier's favorite, "foam," as a "sputum-like nuisance"; describe our own Puget Sound geoduck as an "alarmingly phallic siphon that hangs, John Holmes-like, out of its shell"; and provide a list of practical pronunciations honoring "Ruth RYE-shul, Ghee Sav-WAH and Tim and Nina Zuh-GATT."

Don't know your Stellar Bay from your Fanny Bay, your Penn Cove from your Judd Cove? Didn't know that Hama Hama translates as "stinky, stinky"? Are oysters really an aphrodisiac? Which should you turn to when slurping on distant shores? How to shuck them? How to store them? And what about that "r-month" thing: fact or fiction? Rowan Jacobsen's "A Geography of Oysters: the Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America" (Bloomsbury, $24.95) takes an in-depth look at heaven on a half-shell. Wrap this pearl with a split of champagne.

L.A. Times food writer Russ Parsons' incomparable "How to Pick a Peach" (Houghton Mifflin, $27) is a very personal, exceedingly practical and eminently useful paean to produce. This four-seasons-driven guide not only is a great read but a great reference. Parsons is far from parsimonious as he explains, in engaging detail, how to savor flavor by eating locally and seasonally. Guided by geography, this farm-to-table tome is rife with recipes and easy cookery tips. What's more, it (bless you, my son!) spares us the holier-than-thou while offering sage advice on how to properly choose, store and prepare a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Speaking of local and seasonal (and who hasn't been doing that, these days?), I loved the following locavoracious memoirs: "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally" by Alisa and J.B. Mackinnon — the story of a B.C. couple's 100-mile diet. And "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life," by Barbara Kingsolver (with help from her husband, Steven L. Hopp, and her teenage daughter, Camille).

Other memoirs on my must-read list? "Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter" (Morrow, $24.95), in which Phoebe Damrosch takes a maliciously delicious look at the fine art of fine dining, viewed through the lens of a waitress at New York's four-star restaurant Per Se. Damrosch dishes the dirt on Thomas Keller's magnificent multicourse menus, haughty chefs, tipsy sommeliers, tip-palming patrons and other Platinum-card-carrying customers who — regardless of what she was trained to believe — are not always right.

Her French is bad. Her knife skills worse. But that doesn't stop Seattle-based author (and former Microsoft editorial-content maven) Kathleen Flinn from jumping off the corporate ladder to do what so many of us wish we could: spend a year in Paris while earning a diplome de cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu. In "The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry" (Viking, $24.95), "Meess Fleen" (as her hard-core chef-instructor calls her) dons a crisp white jacket and houndstooth slacks, grabs her regulation Mundial knives, grits her teeth and goes at it, chronicling her passage from accomplished home cook to fond fondling, lamb-gutting, Tupperware-toting Bleu-blood — telling tales along the way of splitting hares and splitting headaches.

For a sushi maniac like me, reading Sasha Issenberg's "The Sushi Economy" (Gotham Books, $26) was every bit as enthralling as omakase at Masa, the astronomically pricey dinner he (rightfully) describes as "the definitive twenty-first-century splurge." And while this historic look at the sushi trade will certainly appeal to sushi-loving brainiacs, fear not the title (nor its subtitle: "Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy"). This journalistic endeavor borders on the novelistic — making the book an intriguing read for anyone who might wonder how Americans have gone from saying, "Ewwww, raw fish!" to knowing their nigiri from their nigori and distinguishing the difference between hamachi and kanpachi.

Count me among The New Yorker's loyal readers — one who combs each issue hungering for literary foodstuffs. With "Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink" (Random House, $29.95), editor David Remnick has done the combing. He's read through decades' worth of taste sensations to offer this gastronomic grab bag. Included? Everything from the classics (A.J. Liebling, M.F.K. Fisher) to the contemporary (Bill Buford, Gabrielle Hamilton) to those fabulous food-centric cartoons. The don't-miss entry: Jim Harrison's "A Really Big Lunch," where the noted novelist (and his good friend and traveling companion, Seattle restaurateur Peter Lewis) is among a daring dozen who gather in a Burgundian village to tipple and taste their way through 37 ancient recipes. Armchair travel as they dine on (among other delights) calf's-brain tart; poached eel with chicken wing-tips and testicles; and spit-roasted squab, boned and stuffed with sweetbreads, squab livers and scallions.

And finally, here's my gift to you: Whether you live to eat or eat to live, if you've not read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," treat yourself to the best-seller. Just out in paperback (Penguin, $16), it should be required reading in high schools across the land. Grab a mug of hot cider, a quiet corner and a highlighting pen — which you'll need, so you can turn to friends and family later and say, "Unbelievable! Listen to this!"

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com.

More columns available at seattletimes.com/nancyleson.

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