Taste

Columbia University Press, 2022

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• From the No Limits series at Columbia University Press.
• Honorable Mention for the Foreword INDIE Prize in Essays.
• Finalist for the Writers League of Texas Book Award in Nonfiction.

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Jehanne Dubrow is an intellectual sensualist, a writer of sometimes lyrical, sometimes directly colloquial, and always critical sensibility, her mnemonic taste buds open to memory’s compromised dishes, its condiments and aftertaste. While other food-memory books sometimes threaten an overindulgence of richness, in Taste, Dubrow’s sharp wit and self-awareness serve as the perfect digestivo.

—David Lazar, author of After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays

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If “tasting begins with sight” (and what a synaesthetic provocation that is!) Dubrow goes on to show this strangely elusive sense manifesting in every form of perception—mind, body, and soul. She writes: “We acquire tastes just as we acquire knowledge: with time and patience, a belief that the pursuit can lead to something delicious”—and something delicious describes this trove of riches perfectly. 

—Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers

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This is a book I wish I had written. In Taste, Dubrow’s range of allusions, from visual arts to poetry, are movingly conveyed. It is to be sampled as a cornucopia of ‘small bites.’ A viaticum of sorts, and a damn good read. 

—Albert Sonnenfeld, translator of Food: A Culinary History

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In the form of a very elegantly written essay, Dubrow argues that taste is the main form of access to the world and others. And also, and most importantly, to ourselves. A poetic homage to the power and mysteries of taste. 

—Barbara Carnevali, author of Social Appearances: A Philosophy of Display and Prestige

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Buy the Book

• Columbia University Press
• Bookshop
• Amazon
• Jagiellonian University Press (Polish Edition)

Related Links

• Interview on The Lone Star Plate
• Interview on Taste Buds with Deb @ The Jewish Journal
• Review in Publisher’s Weekly
• Review in Split Lip Magazine
• Review in Manhattan Book Review
• Review in Tupelo Quarterly Review
• “On Food Writing – From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy” Substack

Sample Poems

• LitHub, “Jehanne Dubrow on Taste, The Doorway to Our Inner Architecture”
• Poetry Northwest, “Sweetest Things Turned Sourest”
• New England Review, “Small Cups of Shadow”
• Poetry Northwest, “Such Hints of Honey”
• On the Seawall, “The Tiny Thread of Milk”