All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer

by Karen Babine

“My sister is pregnant with a Lemon this week, Week 14, and this is amusing. My mother's uterine tumor, the size of a cabbage, is Week 30, and this is terrifying.” When her mother is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Karen Babine—a cook, collector of thrifted vintage cast iron, and fiercely devoted daughter, sister, and aunt—can’t help but feed a fever, starve a cold, but what do we do for cancer? And so she commits herself to preparing her mother anything she will eat, a vegetarian diving headfirst into the unfamiliar world of bone broth and pot roast. In these essays, Babine ponders the intimate connections between food, family, and illness. What draws us toward food metaphors to describe disease? What is the power of language, of naming, in a medical culture where patients are too often made invisible? How do we seek meaning where none is to be found—and can we create it from scratch? And how, Babine asks as she bakes cookies with her small niece and nephew, does a family create its own food culture across generations? Generous and bittersweet, All the Wild Hungers is an affecting chronicle of one family’s experience of illness and of a writer's culinary attempt to make sense of the inexplicable.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays, Biography, Food, Biography Memoir, Medical

184 pages, Paperback

Published January 8, 2019

About the author

Karen Babine is the award-winning author of All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer (Milkweed Editions, 2019) and Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life (University of Minnesota, 2015), both winners of the Minnesota Book Award for memoir/creative nonfiction.

All the Wild Hungers chronicles her mother's rare cancer, Babine's attempt to cook for her mother, and the food metaphors of cancer, all the while collecting vintage cast iron from thrift stores. It is described by James Beard Award-winning chef and writer Amy Thielen as "A lush gem of a book, both heartbreaking and heart-making. Karen Babine’s language is the plush dough she kneads, her observations as elastic as gluten bubbles. By the book’s conclusion you will become a child again, standing on a chair to peer into the pot, not wanting the process of making―of cooking, of understanding, of as she says, ‘consuming the knowing’―to ever end.”

Her next book, The Allure of Elsewhere: A Memoir of Going Solo about camping to Nova Scotia to discover her family’s Acadian roots, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in May 2025. She lives in Chattanooga and teaches creative writing at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never thought I would be saying that a book about cancer, is captivating and yes, even uplifting. When her mother is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, a cancer that is usually only found in children, the family is stunned. Entering unknown territory as a family, the authors first instinct is to feed, cook foods to nourish a nother often to sick to eat.

So yes, the story is about cancer, but so much more. The writing captivated me, so much so I've already sent for her first book. The writing is beautiful, told in 64 vignettes, coming straight from the heart. It is not depressing, it is questioning, thoughtful, but full of love, life and family. There are quirky elements, full of bright colors, in the things she sees but also in her thrift store, vintage cookware. She names her pots, her red Le Creuset named Poppy, her mustard discoware casserole named Padriac and others. As she talks about the food she prepares, she ponders about the scenery from her window in her native Minnesota. The nature and changing face of cancer, just as food changes ss it Cooks.

Family, and how important this is, unmarried she is a fantastic aunt to her niblings. These are her neices and nephews that she adores and loves to cook with. She talks about parmesan broth, of which i had never before heard, but intend to search out. Love, in all forms, feeding a family, memories associated with foods. We all have those, our comfort foods. A slim book, but a beautiful one.

"Delight is visceral, the energy of love, it's nerves in the stomach; it's pride expanding the rib cage. This is where laughter comes from. Is it any wonder than, that the joy of baking feeds us in this way?"

[Anna Leahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really wonderful book. So important for those of us whose parents are diagnosed with cancer--and there are many of us. And important because of the role of meals in our relationships. And so I wrote a review for the Los Angeles Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/t....

[Aimee Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, written by my childhood friend! I finished it in one evening!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Karen Babine's mother is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer her instinct is to start cooking. She tries new recipes, old family recipes, anything that she thinks might entice her mother to eat something. All the while she vacillates between hope and crippling fear that her mother might not survive the cancer treatments. As a reader her tone is rather dark, so I was almost certain that it would turn out her mother didn't survive, but (spoiler alert) she does. Babine's writing is more literary than memoir-esqe, but I did enjoy her musings on family, food, medicine, and health. I was also wildly jealous that she managed to find not one, but two or more Le Creuset cookware pieces in thrift stores for $5! Overall, it wasn't amazing, but it was a quick, interesting read that turned out more hopeful than I had anticipated.

[Sam Bauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful memoir that despite the sad subject matter warmed the heart. I don't believe I've met Karen but her sisters are just as wonderful as they seem in the book and reading this made me miss them. I'm sorry they had to go through it.

[Krysten · Rating 3 out of 5]

so, let's talk about this. the more I think about this book, the less I like it. a few things bothered me while I was reading that, in the week since then, have not stopped bothering me. I'm thinking particularly about the slow cooker chicken. this woman puts a whole, frozen chicken in the slow cooker and cooks it and I - have a hard time believing a whole frozen chicken in a slow cooker remains outside of the temperature daaaaanger zoooone long enough to render it passable by a food safety inspector. I just. I. it's a WHOLE. FROZEN-SOLID CHICKEN. IN A SLOW COOKER. THERE IS NO WAY THIS IS OKAY.

the other thing is, where the fuck does this woman do her thrift shopping. sincerely, where. we both live in Minnesota. I have neeeeeeeeeeeeeeever seen a Le Creuset at a thrift shop and somehow she's found a lot. which is really cool but!!! I have to wonder. does she mean antique shop, and not thrift shop? I MUST KNOW.

I will also never be totally okay with a vegetarian who cooks meaty meals for their family and doesn't taste them. how can she even know her food is good??? if she's just relying on her family to be like, oh yeah, that was properly seasoned. although.... as Minnesotans they probably don't know much about seasoning or flavor. I'm haunted by my coworker's story about her uncle, who doesn't use ANY salt in ANY of his cooking. that's not GOOD! don't do that. and I guess it's just part of my philosophy that if you wouldn't eat it you shouldn't cook/serve it. if you haven't tasted the fucking meat how can you give it to a human to eat!! can you imagine eating a meaty stew made by a vegetarian who proudly places her Le Creuset named Mavis or whatever on the table and says she didn't taste it?? she didn't TASTE the food she's serving??

this book was the good kind of short but my lip keeps curling when I think about it. I'm not enchanted.

[Lin Salisbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Karen Babine’s mother was diagnosed with a form of cancer that usually strikes children under the age of ten, her doctors surgically removed a tumor the size of a cabbage from her abdomen and recommended a regimen of chemotherapy to guard against a recurrence. Karen moved in with her collection of vintage cast iron skillets, a rainbow collection of Le Creuset, gathered from thrift stores, restored, and lovingly named as if each was a precious child to cook her mother back to wellness. In each of the vignettes in this collection, All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer, the most important ingredient is love.

Karen’s family gathers together to support her mother and share a dinners of homemade chicken soup, boeuf bourguignon, and their favorite, breakfast for dinner. They gather to celebrate birthdays with aebleskiver, a buttery and golden-brown perfection achieved eventually through the family’s encouragement to “keep practicing.”

“’Keep practicing,’ we’d say with our mouths full, because in our house, Keep Practicing is the best compliment a cook can receive; even if the cake or the pot roast or the tomato soup is the best you’ve ever eaten, you always tell the cook to Keep Practicing, so they’ll keep making it. Keep Practicing, because once perfection is achieved, there is no point in repeating it. We make our own philosophy. Every family does.”

During the season of her mother’s illness, Karen and her family learn to slow down. She cooks stock from scratch. She cooks for her family of carnivores, though she herself is a vegetarian. She learns to make the protein-rich broth that helps strengthen and restore her mother after sessions of chemotherapy. She entices her with comfort foods when she experiences the “dead belly” of chemotherapy’s after effects.

Babine is a poet and a scholar, and her essays are laced with lyricism, as well as scientific facts.
When her mother experiences neuropathy from the chemo she writes: “A lack of B12 can damage the nervous system as well as affect the brain functions.” Returning home after a doctor visit, she puts her pot named Phyllis on the stove to simmer soup for dinner, “that gorgeous cheerful shade of cobalt blue – Co – and I think about how cobalt is part of B12. I wonder if I could form an entire alphabet of neuropathy if I tried, if this is a new language I can create and put on the table.”

Babine comes from a family of cooks. Her grandmother’s rice pudding was the highlight of many potluck Sundays at Bethany Lutheran Church in Nevis, and woe to the poor soul at the back of the line who would miss out. Her grandmother would share her recipe as well as her advice: “Don’t rush it and don’t try to substitute ingredients.” Babine learned well.

I recommend All the Wild Hungers for fans of Water and What We Know, Girl with a Knife, and
In Winter’s Kitchen. This is Lin Salisbury with Superior Reviews.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you do when life ceases to make sense? When your 65-year-old mom is diagnosed with a childhood cancer, so rare in adults that doctors can only guess at a correct chemotherapy dose?

In Karen Babine’s case, you cook. You go to thrift stores and collect cast-iron Le Creusets—skillets and Dutch ovens, and you give them names such as Agnes and Penelope. You bake. At the same thrift stores, you buy Nordic Ware forms for bundts and angel foods.

As Babine demonstrates in All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer (Milkweed, 2019), you can control a recipe. Add this, mix that, cook or bake for a certain amount of time, and you have something delicious to eat.

As Babine’s mom grows weak and tired from chemo treatments, Babine takes to the kitchen to concoct parmesan broth, beef roasts, and pancakes.

This is a collection of personal essays, not a memoir with a linear narrative. You’re not going to find details about diagnosis, hospitals, and treatments. You’re not going to find Babine or her family members raging against God. Babine’s mom or other family members are a light presence. The essays are Babine’s reaction to the circumstances, her reflections and meditations on this challenging year and the comfort the kitchen brings.

Scenes are impressionistic, like a rubbing that you do upon a gravestone. Or, like the imprint of a bird that had slammed into Babine’s kitchen window. “Each feather is perfect, delineated from the next, two wings, a tail, the head, the beak. The bird print is in profile, its head pointing west, wings pointing to the soil and sky.”

The culinary details made my mouth water, and they also made me wish I had the time and desire to make food from scratch. Is there anything Babine can’t make? Just when a reader might find herself slightly envious of Babine’s kitchen skills, she admits her failings. She had just perfected pancakes in a hundred-year-old Alfred Andresen cast-iron pancake pan when it cracked. “I had just started to understand this pan. And then it was gone.”

Is she writing about food? Or life in general? The bird who hit the window is nowhere to be found. “For this we believe in things we cannot see, for our eyes are on the sparrows at the feeders along the fence as they scatter at the wing of Cooper’s hawks who live nearby.”

I read this book for a few minutes each morning over the span of several days. My morning routine involves a combination of yoga, meditation, prayer, and words—whether writing my own or reading words others have set down. I seek morning books that are contemplative or spiritual. When I mentioned this to Babine—a friend of mine—she said the book was born out of morning pages, a practice championed by Julia Cameron that many writers embrace. The pages of All the Wild Hungers book are infused with that morning light, with the dawn, with the unknown of what lies ahead in a new day.

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a moving look into how a daughter copes with her mother’s diagnosis of a deadly form of cancer by cooking. The book is accessible to everyone, because everyone eats and most of us know someone who has dealt with cancer.

In 64 crafted micro-essays, Babine talks about her mother’s cancer treatments and learning to cook with cast iron as she tries to make something that her mother can eat. There is little separation between her thoughts on cancer and thoughts on cooking. They flow with each other as parts of the same river.

A variety of ingredients are balanced in this book. There is the cancer and cooking, of course, but also Babine’s lyrical writing, the benefits and limitations of metaphors, humor, touching portrayals of her family, the historical view of the value of women to society, the color blue, ethical eating, the moral differences between agriculture and agribusiness, and insights into the culture of northern Minnesota. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I’m intrigued that the stoic, non-emotive culture of Scandinavian Americans sounds much like my German American one.

This is one of the best books about cancer/dying that I’ve read. Unlike many of the books dealing with life-threatening illnesses, this one is not stuffed with medical details, and the main focus is not on the person fighting off death, but on Babine’s struggles to care for her mother and keep herself together. It feels like she is sharing with us as friends, and the depth of her reflections is moving.

Babine often pauses in her narrative to face the darkness looming up before her to wonder if she can endure living in the space between her dread of what might happen and her hopes. She says metaphors can cover some of the space of uncertainty when we don’t have facts to support us, but ultimately we have to let go of trying to make sense and accept the unpredictability of life.

When we’re under stress like this, we find it helpful to do something physical. Babine finds release, and regains a measure of control, by cooking. When I was grieving, I went hiking. She also gathers with her network of family and friends to nourish one another and hold on to hope. To not do what we can do is to abdicate our responsibilities. We may not be able to change the outcome of what is happening, but we can listen to the stillness between our fears and our hope, and we can take care of those who are on this journey. We can comfort the suffering, feed the hungry, and sit with those who are grieving.

More grief books should be like this.

[Shari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun fact -- I graduated from Concordia with the author, which has nothing to do with anything except that I was lucky enough to attend a college that fostered and produced (produces) some great writing and an enduring love and appreciation for stories and language. Anyway. The only reason I didn't read this book in a single night is because I picked it up at nine o'clock on a school night, after my children were in bed, and I finished it the next day. It's SO good. It's a book that will resonate deeply with anyone who has a strong sense of place, of family, for anyone who understands how both food and language have the power to heal and connect us. It's beautiful. This is a book that will likely be categorized in the health/wellness/illness section of the bookstores, depending on which bookstore you're in, but that's a mistake. It should be front and center with any other memoir or essay collections, because what she writes about is human experience and human love. And she does it in absolutely gorgeous sentences. I couldn't put it down.

[John Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read Karen Babine's first book of essays and really liked her writing. I really enjoyed the book, but while that book was a collection of diverse essays centered on place, and this is a book of essays, this one feels very different. There are 64 essays in this short book and each could stand on its own as a prose poem or an essay, but what they center on is the author's love of cooking and how she tried to care for her mother when her mother was diagnosed by a very rare form of cancer. In the mix is the warm relationship between the parents, their three daughters (two single) and the author's "nibblings" as she calls her nephew and niece. The book has a story arc to it from the initial diagnosis to when her mother feels healthy again. I felt the writing was good in her first book, but this one flows together so very well. I think the title may keep some from reading it as it seems so specialized but it deserves a wide readership for the beauty of the writing and its exploration of cancer and food.

[Jody Keisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't finish All the Wild Hungers in one sitting--though I wanted to because the story is that compelling--because this is the kind of book the begs the reader to linger on its words, images, and meaning. In chapters that read like stand-alone flash essays, Karen Babine chronicles her mother's cancer, her own cooking and quirky habit of naming cookware, and an already close family's processing of disease and grief. She does so with grace and with both an essayist's thoughtful self-reflection and a poet's sensibility. I came across this book when processing the ways disease and illness had moved in on my own family, and I was so glad I found it I for the reasons I've already stated, but also: this writer moves with ease between personal experience and philosophy, science, linguistics, and history. In sum, it's a gorgeous, stunning story written by a author with enormous talents. (My Amazon review)

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is beautifully. It describes how the author deals with her mother's cancer diagnosis and chemo treatment. Food is important to the author: she prepares items for her mother to eat; she recalls her favorite foods and meals; she uses food preparation in her social interactions with family members; she collects cookbooks and special cast iron items that she names and welcomes as family members.

The author deals with questions of disease, medical care, food availability, hope, and confusion. In her pages, I often felt as if she had plucked some memories from my own past--favorite foods, holiday celebrations, family members in the kitchen. Her desire for a white-and-black tiled kitchen because that was what the kitchen in the Clue game had made me smile.

[Sarah Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karine Babine has a certain way of writing that taps into the reader's all five senses. In 64 short essays, Babine delicately explores the science of flavor and food as she tries to prepare something her ill mother can eat. The book is insightful, humorous, and poignant - sometimes all in one sentence. In many ways, the collection of essays is Babine's attempt of understanding cancer as she desperately tries to make sense of the illness through metaphor, while finding comfort in almost obsessive cooking. Her writing is deeply personal and blissfully lyrical; I couldn't help but finish it all in one day.

All the Wild Hungers is a beautiful account of a woman cooking through her mother's cancer that will make your mouth water and break your heart.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way this book was written. It was sweet and soft and heartfelt and so easy to read. It made me want to learn more about cooking. It reminds you that food is meant to nourish us and provide time with our community and family.

I wish the cover was on this kindle edition of the book in goodreads because it's bright and colorful and I'm using this book in the 2019 BYL Reading Challenge for the "book with your favorite color on the cover" category.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

By weaving her love of cooking with the love of her family, Babine infuses this book with the richness of life. Food, especially the parmesan broth simmered in her beloved Le Creuset, connects this family together. That cancer brings each detail into specific relief reminds us of the important, tiny things. Babine fills this book with ingredients enough to make us sense the wholeness of the moment.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Karen Babine's second book, All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer, she explores the connections between love and loss, family and food, sickness and well being, in short spurts of lyrical meditations ranging from discussing the connections of pet names to food, to exploring what her mother will eat during chemotherapy -- a preventative treatment for a rare kind of cancer. A beautiful and haunting read!

[Debbie Hagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Karen Babine's mother is diagnosed, at age sixty-five, with a rare childhood cancer, the writer collects cast-iron cookware--in all colors--from thrift stores and uses them to create sumptuous dishes that she hopes will restore her mother's health. In this series of short, lyrical, and poignant essays, Babine ponders grief, illness, cooking, and collecting.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book which explores the connections among food, family, and cancer. I like how the author personalizes her thrift store cast iron pans by naming them, and how she cares for her mother--through her cancer journey--by cooking for her. Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and who don't mind reading about someone with a life-threatening illness.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stream of consciousness essays reads like poetry. The author has a beautiful way of expressing her feelings and emotions. Much like Scott Simon's Unforgettable, I don't have to agree or disagree with the author. I just appreciate the way she has chosen to share this part of her life.

[Dorothy Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a wonderful book. A book about living with a loved ones cancer, yet not a sad book at all. The author dives head first into the kitchen to deal with her pain and anxiety and to nourish the body and sou; of her mother. If you're a person who believes in the power of love cooked in food I highly recommend.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is eloquent, honest, raw and so very human. We will all experience pain, loss, and mind-numbing uncertainty in our lives. The author takes her family’s walk with cancer and allows every last one of us into her kitchen to sit and be together, and fill hearts and bellies alike with love.

[Ruth Bogan]

Didn't get very far. After reading H is for Hawk with its intense and (seemingly) never-ending account of depression, it was too hard for me to tackle another book right away about illness. On to poetry!

[sylas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t really like the intensely gendered language about pregnant bodies. I did enjoy some aspects of the lyrical writing. Final book of the Read Harder challenge for 2020 - which I had all but forgotten about since May-ish.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hard to describe as it is a series of essays on food and cancer journies. It is sad and beautiful all at the same time. I enjoyed the authors reflections - and our shared connection of Grandparents living in Nevis, MN!

[cole snook · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was so disappointing. i love essay collections and i love food and i love metaphor, but the prose was lacking and 64 essays in 170 ish pages does not allow for the substance that i like in essay collections. bonus points for moments of good writing and the phd from unl

[Susie Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing read. You can smell the food cooking and the family love and support.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book. Poetic and heartbreaking, full of love. Cannot recommend this highly enough.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Will read it again I’m sure.

[G Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writing, uninteresting topic. Too specific. I would like to read something else she writes about. Would recommend as a grief book for someone with a parent living with cancer.