Why Does My Mouth Water When I Open a Book?

Delicious Book Recommendations

Many people have probably made a resolution to read more books in the new year. Of course, it might end in just a few days. Even if you have resolved to read, you might hesitate because you don’t know which book to pick. How about starting by finding your own taste among various genres like novels, humanities, history, and society? Another good way is to find your interests according to specialized fields such as food, music, architecture, and movies. Here, we have selected prose, novels, and essays about food. These are fun books that you can read straight through from the first page to the last, so no more worries!

Kwon Yeo-seon

This is a prose collection about side dishes by Kwon Yeo-seon, who was chosen as the 'Novelist of the Year' by 50 novelists in 2023.

"For me, all food is a side dish, so this unconsciousness is even reflected in the book title , which shortens to 'Anju' (side dish). Naturally, the word 'Anju' is omitted in the title " Excerpt

is Kwon Yeo-seon’s voice about food (written as food but read as ) according to the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In spring, called 'the taste of youth,' the stories unfold under subtitles like lilac and sundae (Korean blood sausage), real dumplings, kimbap is kind, do you know pancake flowers?, and the marriage of salted seafood and porridge. Summer is 'the taste of fighting heat with heat,' autumn is 'the bittersweet taste,' winter is 'the taste of the beginning,' and the last is about the changing seasons. Each section continues with menus that make your mouth water just by their names: noodles in summer, special mulhoe (cold raw fish soup), the season of spicy peppers, hot pot noodles when the cold wind blows, three-layered radish cake, solfood cockle stew, and the era of home-cooked meals. Not a single dish is left out. The dishes are not only expressed with lovely illustrations but also accompanied by various stories about the food, leaving you salivating without a moment to spare.

Laura Esquivel

is a story from a small town in Mexico where the youngest daughter in the family cannot marry and must take care of her parents. Tita loves Pedro but faces the reality that she cannot marry him. Pedro, confronted with the cruel reality that he cannot spend his life with the one he loves, eventually decides to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura. It may sound absurd, but this is how the story flows in the novel. The story unfolds from January to December, containing recipes and stories for each month. Although the story spans 22 years, not just one year, the voices that emerge in each season and situation carry unique meanings through various dishes.

"My grandmother had a very interesting theory. She said we are all born with a matchbox inside us, but we cannot light the match by ourselves. Just like in the experiment, oxygen and a candle’s flame are needed. For example, oxygen can be the breath of a loved one." Excerpt

Dishes such as Christmas pie, Chabela wedding cake, turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds, and oxtail soup appear. Like magic, each dish becomes the sweetness and bitterness in Tita’s life. They become the power to move someone’s heart and the reason to think of someone. While the story inside the dishes takes the lead rather than the taste of the food itself, reading somehow makes you feel a bit hungry. Whether it’s your heart or your stomach, or both, you can’t tell.

Heo Yoon-seon

This is one of the 'Dding' series food essays released by Semicolon, a comic, art, and lifestyle brand under Minumsa Publishing Group. It contains numerous stories about delicious dishes like ramen, curry, jajangmyeon (black bean noodles), triangular kimbap, ice cream, and chicken. If you are someone who is serious about food, like an editor, it is recommended to read at least once.

"The most delicious is definitely the hot pot on the day the final deadline ends. At that moment, the hot pot is really refreshing. It couldn’t be more refreshing. Colleagues who enjoy drinking never forget to order beer. The deadline is over, and after eating to your heart’s content, you just collapse onto the bed." Excerpt

Hot pot is enjoyed by putting your favorite vegetables, meat, fish cakes, etc., into the bubbling red and white broths and waiting for them to cook. The moment you dip them into a homemade sauce or a franchise-exclusive sauce and put them in your mouth is simply 'happiness.' The author, a fashion magazine editor, vividly and deliciously describes hot pot eaten after a tiring deadline, hot pot tasted overseas, and diary anecdotes received from famous hot pot franchises. Maybe because of her sincerity for hot pot, you can almost see the steaming hot steam rising from each sentence. By the time you finish the book, you might find yourself running to a hot pot restaurant.