Recipes in Memoirs and Narrative Nonfiction
What is the role of recipes in memoir and narrative nonfiction? This question sprang to my mind shortly after I sent a completed draft of my debut book, Group Living and Other Recipes, to my editor. As the title suggests, I’d included recipes—specifically, one recipe to close each chapter.
The book is part memoir, focused on my experiences living in communal households; part examination of group living through the stories of my extended family; and part exploration of group living as a metaphor for interconnections—macrocosmically, microcosmically, and across generations. I wouldn’t categorize Group Living as primarily a “food memoir” or what prominent food writer Alicia Kennedy calls “domestic writing.”
So what did my decision to include recipes convey? Does the presence of recipes pigeonhole narrative nonfiction or memoir as food writing? Do they signal something fundamental about the scope, style, or focus of a book? And if so, is that a problem? I knew how to answer these questions: I needed to hit my bookshelves.
