Hungry Heart: A Story of Food and Love: The Times Food Book of the Year

by Clare Finney

Award-winning food writer Clare Finney presents a moving, heartfelt exploration of the intertwining influences of food and love

From family feasts to comfort foods, first dates to office cake; how does what we eat define us, and the relationships we have with others?

Award-winning food writer Clare Finney delves into these questions with a rare and insightful sensitivity, telling a powerful story of life and love whilst uncovering the manifold ways in which food touches all relationships: from perfect strangers to partners, parents and friends.

Beginning with a childhood spent in her grandmother’s hotel kitchen and ending at her grandfather's bedside, she charts a course through the meals and recipes which have shaped the person she is today.

Finney also investigates the role food plays in a modern society which can often feel isolating, exploring how eating unites us in varied ways throughout our lives. From the dance of culinary courtship entailed in dating to the funeral foods that remind us of the connections between life and death, Finney examines the power of food and drink to attract, bind and define us – and of course, its power to divide and repel.

At a time when our relationship towards what, when and where we eat has become increasingly complicated, Hungry Heart is a feast; an honest, heart-warming account of humans breaking bread together and what that really means.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published June 8, 2023

Reviews

[Paula Learmouth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clare shares her story from being young, her parents divorced, friends at school, her first break 'proper' breakup, he grandad dying, through recipes and food. From scrambled eggs that her dad made in the microwave, that was shaped like the jug it was cooked in, 90s packed lunch, sharing a mint Viscount with friends Jenny and Amy, Grandad's scallops made from bits leftover from cutting the chips and not forgetting Nicholas, Clare's brother making their mam's Cheesy paste. Clare has included recipes at the end of each chapter. I think we can all relate to Clare's story, how food reminds us of places, a time and a person. I just loved this book.

[Suzannah Rockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book, I love food and its associated memories and links’s with people and relationships.

It was totally up my street in every way.

Made me reflect on my childhood memories, relationships and how important food is within these relationships.

Enjoyed every minute of my reading time 😀

[Rennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll read pretty much any book of this general topic, that is, a memoir of someone's food memories and quirks, and especially the concept this one takes of weaving in some stories from her friends and other food writers and culinary figures around broader psychological and social concepts.

Finney is a British food writer and this reminded me a bit of Ella Risbridger's cookbooks, with the heavy emphasis on friends and togetherness, minus the tweeness of her style. Finney is also an anorexia survivor, and she incorporates elements of that into what food means to us, to those who love us, and some psychology around food and caring for each other. I especially liked and appreciated this aspect, and would have liked to have seen it focused on much more, actually. What was this path like from anorexia and the psychological horrors of it to a career in food writing?

I stuck with this even though early on, she writes something about how she learned that you can't love someone until you love yourself. Ugh, that old chestnut? I worried this would be a book of more such toxic-positive platitudes but luckily it mostly wasn't. I loved the parts that focused on her memories with her grandparents and the significance of various foods in those, and how unique those foods were. It made me teary in thinking about the same in relation to my own grandparents, and I loved that Finney includes several writing prompts at the end of the book for forming your own food stories. They're really excellent ideas, too.

It did have a few very curious elements, like that for a book about what is special in someone's (and by extension, the reader's) food memories and habits, it can come off extremely judgmental. The one that really struck me is one of her girlfriends being horrified that on a first date at a pub, the guy (who had suggested the pub) ordered hot chocolate (with whipped cream, no less, so embarrassing!) while she ordered wine. Oh the horror! Obviously SO not compatible. Finney uses this as an example of how important it is to be on the same page with foods, the significance of being able to share and bond over food and drinks, etc. Um, it was so laughable and also mean. What if he didn't know he'd be on antibiotics when they scheduled the date? What if he suggested it because he knew how much she loved chardonnay although he doesn't drink (Finney admits to being a teetotaler for years, as was I at one point, so she should well know the complicated issues people have around alcohol and how you can get bullied, pressured, be the recipient of all kinds of projected upset and discomfort while you just try to hang out with people who happen to be drinking, so I really couldn't believe she included this).

Now to a really unforunate issue with this book, and I'm sorry to the author to connect it to the text but the publisher deserves to be shamed for this: they didn't even run spellcheck on this before publishing. This was published by Aurum, an imprint of Quarto, which I thought was a significant publisher. But no joke, on at least two occasions, there was a word with another word inside of it, i.e., they'd tried to replace it and were sloppy. Elsewhere there were typos and double words/grammar mistakes that would have been caught in a spellcheck so it's very evident it wasn't run.

As an editor and copyeditor, this is painful. I paid full price for a hardcover; it's just insulting. Companies shrug off copyediting as being not worth the money because they think someone in the office can do it themselves, or don't want to shell out on a final round after changes have been implemented (clearly what happened here) and then you end up with this. But like, they didn't even run spellcheck which is free and takes minutes. I've only copyedited a couple of books and I would love LOVE to work on them more but you know, I'm not experienced enough in them (so I'm told). Yet companies aren't even hiring cheap-ish freelancers who'd appreciate the experience, they're just throwing laughably sloppy work out. Totally unacceptable.

It sounds like I had a lot of complaints but this was also often very lovely and gives you a lot to think about in terms of what food and the socialness of it mean to you, while stirring up some very nostalgic memories.

[A.J. Sefton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the Christmas dinner, simnel cake, seder plate or wedding breakfast recipes and traditions expected in a book titled Hungry Heart, but a truly personal offering. And so much better for it being that.

This is a charming and funny book that everyone can identify with. From the first breakup when the author's brother made her some cheesy pasta to her divorced father microwaving scrambled egg, each of these vignettes of the trials of life invoke the readers own memories. For each scenario I was reminded how my family responded in a similar fashion - and all included food in some way. Nothing fancy but worth ten times the value of cordon bleu meals when the food is made from a place of love and care.

With each of these tales comes the recipe, such as it is. Included in this is the school packed lunch, which really did make me laugh because it was what my daughter had when she was at school (as well as everyone else): Dairy Dippers, cheese strings, yogurts in tubes and a box of raisins.

This book shows how food marks a time and a place in a personal way, something that affects us all. Nostalgic, heartwarming, an enjoyable book from the heart.

[Giordana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was expecting something else... This book is a series of essays on the societal and psychological aspects around food, and not a food memoir. It is also, understandably, coloured by the fact that the author suffered from an eating disorder for a large part of her teenage / young adult years. There are a few recipes, at the end of each chapter, each endearingly important to the author in its own way.

I was annoyed at the editing, as I noticed several times some words were randomly split in two an another word inserted in the middle (I really don't think that was an artistic choice). It made for a jarring experience as a reader (for example "still" and "believe" would become "be still lieve".

It was very interesting to read about someone else's relationship to food, especially since it felt very different from my own. I wonder how much is cultural (being from outside the UK myself) and how much is related to whether or not a person has suffered with an eating disorder.

[Naturalbri (Bri Wignall) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this book and the blurb really sold the idea of an insightful book, that touched on emotions and the thoughts around food and how and why we are connected to some foods. I am so glad it drew me in because the book was wonderful. It shared stories and memories, etc really looking into the how's and why's of why we find connections with foods and meals that we are drawn to or those we may not be. It shared all of those details and links and also shares some food with you, making it a very unique and touching read. There are chapters that link to friends and family, such as her gran, and those that link to special times or places, really diving right into why the connected food then became special or significant to her. I found the book really was an enjoyable look at food and what it means to us.

[CJ Mason The Fallen Librarian Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review for this delectable read is on my blog https://thefallenlibrarian.wordpress....