New Books in Food

High in the Lebanese mountains above Beirut sits Beit Trad, an eighteenth-century family home that Sarah Trad transformed into a guesthouse devoted to Levantine hospitality. The house brings together family history, Lebanese design, food, and the belief that welcoming someone into your home is an essential part of life. In A House in the Lebanese Mountains: Recipes & Stories from Beit Trad (Thames & Hudson, 2026), Trad tells the story of Beit Trad and the family who shaped it, alongside recipes for the generous Lebanese food served around its tables. Part memoir, part cookbook, and part portrait of a remarkable house, the book captures interiors that mix Eastern and Western influences and reflect the layered identity of the Levant. The recipes range from Beit Trad’s elaborate breakfasts to vegetable dishes, stews, meats, fish, and sweets. Throughout, Trad explores hosting as both an art and a practice: making guests feel completely at home while recognizing the work and dedicated team required to make that sense of ease seem effortless. Sarah Trad joins New Books Network to discuss Levantine hospitality, her family’s house and its transformation into a guesthouse, and her mother’s influence on her understanding of hosting. She also talks about what it takes to run Beit Trad, the relationship between beauty and appetite, and recipes including Pasta B Laban – a decidedly non-Italian spaghetti dish with garlic and yogurt that is pure Lebanese comfort food – and a strawberry and orange salad that showcases the magic of orange blossom water. Interview by Laura Goldberg, longtime food blogger at VittlesVamp.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, pierogi are the most recognizable Polish food in the United States and a symbol of Polish American identity. How did this humble dish attain such lofty status?In Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food (Columbia UP, 2026), Professor Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann explores the surprising history of pierogi, tracing how Polish cuisine evolved in the multiethnic landscape of the United States. When Polish immigrants crossed the ocean, they brought with them their traditional cuisine, which came to signify enduring attachment to homeland, family, religion, and culture. In time, they as well as new generations and new immigrant waves gradually transformed Polish American culinary culture, reflecting food trends and changes in the United States, Poland, and the world.Pierogi takes readers into the kitchens where Polish American families, friends, and community organizations carry on the custom of cooking and eating together. Dr. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann highlights small- and large-scale pierogi producers who adapted traditional dishes for the US market and food celebrities who mainstreamed them, and she traces the symbolic representation of pierogi in popular culture. She also shares personal stories, from her family’s resourcefulness in communist-era Poland facing near-constant food shortages to her experiences as an immigrant to the United States in the 1980s. Drawing on sources from historical and recent cookbooks to interviews with Polish American entrepreneurs and community members, this book offers new insights for anyone interested in East Central European and American foodways.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We all love the desserts we grew up with-the ones tied to family, tradition, and the moments we remember most. But as much as we love those recipes, they don't always turn out the way we'd want. That's where this book comes in. From cakes and cookies to pies, breads, and more, each recipe in Better than Grandma's (Rolling Pin Press, 2026) takes a nostalgic classic and reworks it to be more flavorful, more reliable, and easier to make at home. With better (proven) techniques, small changes that make big improvements, and a deep understanding of what actually makes a difference, celebrity baker Justin Ellen offers up recipes that turn out desserts the way you always hoped they would be. And while the title may be Better than Grandma's, the book is also a love letter to the grandmothers who taught Justin to find joy in every moment, to fill every room with confidence and laughter, and how to bake in the first place. It's about honoring the women, along with the recipes, then building on them to make them even better. Because it is never just about the dessert. It's about who you make it with, who you make it for, and the kitchens and women who shaped you.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Melissa Fuster and Rosi Song of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective introduce the journal’s latest issue, Fall 2026 (volume 26, issue 3), now available online. Melissa talks with Rosi about what goes into putting a Gastronomica issue together and the backstory of issue 26.3. Rosi shares the inspiration behind her editorial letter and the issue’s thematic focus on migration and food networks, recounting her own journey moving and living across the globe, from South Korea to Paraguay, the United States, and now the U.K. Their discussion highlights new research articles, creative nonfiction writing, and photography from the pages of the journal on topics related to trust building, food networks, provisioning, and nourishment, including a special feature on migrant foodways and culinary mobilities in Japan. Read Rosi Song’s editorial letter here for the Fall 2026 issue of Gastronomica and access the articles in this latest issue online at the University of California Press here. H. Rosi Song is a professor of Hispanic Studies at Durham University in the U.K., co-author of A Taste of Barcelona: The History of Catalan Cooking and Eating (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), and a member of the Editorial Collective at Gastronomica. She leads a Horizon Europe project on food, culture, and recipes titled RELISH (Reframing European Gastronomy Legacy through Innovation, Sustainability, and Heritage). Melissa Fuster is an associate professor of Public Health Nutrition at Tulane University, author of Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City (UNC Press, 2021), and a member of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective. Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies here is published by the University of California Press here. Quarterly issues are available in print and online. Listeners can now find the Gastronomica podcast on the New Books Network here. Subscribe to Gastronomica’s podcast feed to stay updated on the newest episodes.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In This Beautiful Country: How Italy's Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilisation (Chelsea Green, 2026), discover Italy’s unique ecological past and how it has shaped its present—and its future, with this riveting look at the incredibly diverse natural history and our need to preserve it. Italy is renowned for its antiquity, classical literature, philosophy, and modern-day culture, cuisine and fashion, but what has gone largely overlooked – and undocumented, even by its people – is its uniquely biodiverse landscape and wildlife. Italy has over 58,000 different species of wildlife, of which 4,777 are endemic, the highest in Europe. Italy provides a home for a third of all European flora and fauna, with a vast range of fruit and vegetable varieties: more grape varieties than France, more wheat than the US and more olives than Spain.  Edward Cutler, an art historian by trade, began to explore this history when, four years ago on his small Tuscan farm, he found a salamander that turned out to be endemic to that specific location. In understanding how Italy came together as a country, one of the youngest and still geologically active landscapes in the world, and made up of mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes, glacial lakes, desert islands, caves and forests, Ed realised that this natural history has also had an incredibly important influence on its human history, especially its food culture and low-impact agriculture. And along the way, Ed discovers that Italy once was home to pygmy elephants, giant killer hedgehogs, and vampire-toothed deer. Today we can see the relics of those ancient creatures in the flashy blue lizard of Capri, gladiator crabs under the forum in Rome, the crested porcupine, the beautiful Apennine chamois and of course the Marzipan brown bear and Italian grey wolf, not forgetting its flora, including the world’s rarest Christmas tree in Sicily. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.