Written with the same flair and color as West's highly praised novels, Consuming Passions chronicles the author's love affair with food. West lends her warm, distinctive humor and often hilarious insights to the stories of her trials and tribulations as a Southern woman who becomes an "accidental gourmet". This wonderfully entertaining volume seamlessly weaves West's evocative voice and humor to the uniquely American form of kitchen tales. Consuming Passions is rich with gracious Southern hospitality and the delicacies that accompany it, including the recipes that have passed through generations of the author's family. This tantalizing read will satisfy the cravings of West's ever-increasing fan base as well as everyone who loved Laurie Colwin, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
Born in Louisiana and at home in Tennessee, author Michael Lee West makes any old body feel downright welcome at her kitchen table. The coffee's hot, the iced tea is sweet, the cake's a little dry, and the conversation shows no sign of abating, even as the last page is turned and the cover is closed on Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life. The subject is variously food, family, and Mama, wherein Mama is as much a state of mind as an embodied soul. This is about the South, honey, some of which is of the New South stripe, and some of the Old.
In an easy, talkative style, author West spins tales, shares recipes, and hands out advice. In a chapter titled "Funeral Food," she includes recipes for Lemon Chess Pie and Lemon Squares. Among her rules for funeral food, she notes that dishes must be easy to transport as well as appealing to the bereaved. Some foods are simply inappropriate. "I myself have never seen appetizers at a funeral," West writes. "This is not the time to bring Better Than Sex Cake or Death by Chocolate. And it's never a good idea to use uncooked eggs in funeral food."
Consuming Passions is about home cooking, about church-basement food, about growing up in the shadow of Mama's kitchen and learning to cook away from home. West is ever willing to try something new, to fail, to try again, and to defend to her last breath the virtues of her favorite mayonnaise. West has the spirit of a close friend who'll share all her secrets, including her best recipes, some of which her various family members (we meet them all) failed to take to their graves. Sit down, pull up a chair, and get ready to listen. --Schuyler Ingle
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
It's all about the recipes!:
There's the greatest chocolate cake recipe in the book that I've ever tried, and the spice cake recipe is melt in your mouth wonderful!
My Most-Used Cookbook:
This book is super, it's full of great stories about wonderful food. I've got a ton of cookbooks and this is the one I use the most. My favorite recipes are the Sweet Potato Souffle, Mashed Potato salad and Egg Salad recipes. I get compliments every time I serve these dishes to people. I love the stories that accompany these recipes, it's like a lovely piece of history I savor as I eat the yummy food I cooked! PS I'm a vegetarian and still find this to be a great resource for yummy food. I highly... more info
Feast for the Famished Southern or otherwise:
Fair warning! If you are on a diet or trying to lose weight, this book is lethal. My stars, what a feast of food memoirs complete with rich and tempting recipes! And how I would love some of that coconut cake that emerges from an eight day recipe.
Obviously, West knows her family characters and attaches them to their noted eccentricities and manna. And what colorful, yea memorable, folks these are! Everyone should have a family like hers, with Aunt Tempe, Aunt Dell, Uncle Bun, a marvelous Mama and... more info
The author of three marvelous books about eccentric and defiant Southern women, Michael Lee West has concocted a winning recipe of down-home cooking and family history in a charming memoir/cookbook, "Consuming Passions." At peace with her love of food and proud of her women-centered family, West promotes food as the sustenance of all that is worthwhile in life. Her anecdotal style sparkles and her recipes are not only provocative, but understandable, even for amateur Yankee cooks and other such timid... more info
