Feed the Hungry: A Memoir with Recipes

by Nani Power

An author whose fiction has been praised by Mary Gaitskill ("Passionate, intelligent, and piercingly beautiful. ..an altogether striking debut") and Darcy Steinke ("Nani Power...shows that sensuality pervades all of life and is too powerful to be contained in the bedroom alone"), Nani Power turns her incredible storytelling talents to memoir, crafting a sublime work of nonfiction centered around a life of travel, eclectic dining, and dealing with her decidedly eccentric Southern bohemian family.

Consumption is the real American pastime. Through the prism of food, we all see our pasts differently. Like the finest food writers, Power brings readers directly into her world through the evocative depiction of the experience of eating. From her childhood on a rambling farm in Virginia -- during which she witnessed a saga of fighting, disowning, silencing, and other regrettable acts -- to her peripatetic and international adult life, Power's reflections are surprising, enthralling, and entertaining. She has a deep understanding of the cuisines of Peru and Mexico, Iran and India; her stints as a sandwich seller in Rio, a waitress in the East Village, a funeral caterer in the Deep South, and on a food junket to Japan all seem familiar as she relates each experience to us through its cuisine. A wealth of detailed recipes throughout the book offer a chance to recreate Power's memories in perpetuity.

Lyrical and uplifting, unflinching and brave, Feed the Hungry is a supple, evocative memoir of food, travel, Americana, and family history, written with all the creativity, tenderness, grit, and verve we have come to expect from this uncommonly gifted writer.

Genres: Memoir, Food

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Nani Power is the author of the novels Crawling at Night, The Good Remains, and The Sea of Tears, the first two of which were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

She lives in The Plains, Virginia.

Reviews

[Joan Wetherell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good premise, and interesting anecdotes and recipes, but the proofreading/copy editing was so bad as to get in the way of enjoying the book. I finally quit about 1/3d of the way through.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this memoir with recipes, Nani Power tells of her Virginia childhood near the "pompous town of Middleburg," with its moneyed people and "equine interests." Her family is endlessly fascinating, warm, funny and quirky, yet at the same time aloof and unsettling. I can see how one might feel on the outside of such a family. Nani is great with details that show the reader her life: the sequestered parlor, an ornate mausoleum of satin loveseats in her grandparents' house; a grandmother who, "when she wasn't lipsticked and laughing and drinking gin, she was lounging on her large king-size bed, writing novels." Nani brings her life into vivid focus, a life of traveling, hunting, eating and cooking exquisite and exotic foods, drawing, reading cookbooks, eating Vienna sausages out of a can, watching I Love Lucy and Petticoat Junction and listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I enjoyed reading about her various boyfriends, her husband, her lovers, her children, her brother and uncles, her grandparents and her mother.

I love the raw honesty and openness found here. I haven't tried any of the recipes, so I can't speak to how good they are, but they sound good. I found especially interesting Nani's time in Brazil, in the "servitude business," in Peru, Mexico and Japan. I loved how she tied writing and cooking together near the end.

I did feel like the chapter "Kousa and Warak" could have been omitted, but the point about recipes involving the senses and deep-stretching memories could have been moved from this chapter to the chapter, "Writing and Cooking;" this point about recipes applies to writing as well.

Some distractions: the point of view kept changing, for what seemed like no purpose. Within a couple of sentences I'd find "You, I, She," all referring to the author. Also, the verb tenses weren't consistent (past and present, back and forth, helter-skelter) and thus were distracting. Other than these issues, it was an enjoyable and revealing read.

[Elizabeth Cottrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the most uniue and charmingly eccentric voices I've "heard" in a long time.

It was reminiscent of Eat, Pray, Love with the added attraction of having so much of the author's childhood -- and recent adulthood -- set in my home Fauquier County. Her step-grandmother was my beloved Sunday School teacher "Aunt Elsie" McCarty.

Nani's lyrical and vivid descriptions of the Virginia foods of her childhood (Virginia ham rolls, squash casserole, fresh tomatoes) were perfectly evoked, as were her characterizations of the myriad family members, friends and lovers who moved in and out of her life: from amusingly eccentric old South aristocracy to no-so-amusingly eccentric monied gentry. The author deals with her strange upbringing and resulting neuroses lovingly and honestly.

Her theme of food (and feeding and nurturing and loving) is an effective one with both physical and spiritual overtones. Her travels and experimentation with other cultures and cuisines were wonderful for the reader along for the ride.

The book could have used a better editor (errors and some repetition and some confusing chronology), but otherwise a wonderful read.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I get behind reviewing my read books, but usually, especially if I’ve bookmarked notable excerpts, I’ll recall the thread of the story or important moments. The main thing I remember about this book was all of the proofreader errors. There were two in particular that stood out, both from page 185:

1) “The perfectionist is the worst. More on them later. I look at my students at on the first day of class…”

2) “Snippets of phrases or whole sections of text don’t need to deleted, they can simply be cut and pasted to be used in the future.”

She’s definitely not a perfectionist, which is good since she says they’re the worst. At least the blunders were amusing!

There were some interesting thoughtful snippets, and I will easily forgive proofing errors if the story is compelling. But for the most part, sadly, the book was unmemorable.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best food memoirs i've had the privilege to read. i smiled, i savored, and even cried. i plan to try all these recipes, eventually i will even buy a copy of the book (a big deal these days). power takes you through various vignettes of her life and you feel like you are there, you can almost taste the lobster rolls, the ceviche, even the apricot chicken. i highly recommend this book and once you finish it, pick up her "crawling at night", another favorite.

[Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird and eccentric romp…with recipes. So much privilege and heartbreak. A little tiresome with the repetition and stream of consciousness style.

[Stephie Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again, a food related auto-biography. This features some excellent writing in passages but seemed disjointed to me as a whole. Perhaps the lack of cohesive time line and staggered appearance of characters in the book is reflective of the authors turbulent childhood and life? Not a bad read, not one of my favorites either. I've heard her fiction surpasses this work.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful foodie memoir.

[colleen]

ok, i didn't read it. got about a quarter of the way into it and was pretty bored. not only could i not relate, but the recipes at the end of her chapters didn't even sound good. hmmm.

[Kerry]

abandoned it - couldn't get into it...

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Power creatively weaves nostalgic recipes into her personal and family history. It felt like it was bordering on egocentrism, but maybe that's just what a memoir is. This book made me hungry.

[Nancy McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoir+ recipes is my silver bullet, and this one packs a punch! Tales of an eccentric family hit all my chords, and the intertwining of food through memory makes it all resonate.

[Vella · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's almost like the story of my life...just change some of the recipes.

[Rory · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nani Power's writing often reads like a half-hearted poem attempting to break out of its prose prison. Yes, it's a memoir, or is supposed to be, but so much time is spent trying to figure out if she actually relived these memories while she wrote about them or spent the time trying to figure out (to her) novel ways of describing them. It's a consistent distraction.