Jennifer. J. Chow

Your Book is Making Me Hungry

Dear Authors,

While I appreciate you putting mouth-watering food descriptions in your books, I also charge you with making me hungry. Your excellent sensory prose has led to the revival of my sweet tooth, much snacking, and procrasti-baking. My evidence?

Exhibit A:

Pecan Pralines. I made these after reading Ellen’s Fatal Cajun Festival.

Exhibit B:

Cinnamon Rolls. These pastries aren’t even typically served at the café cinema at the heart of Vickie’s My Fair Latte. I still craved them.

Exhibit C:

Almond Cookies. Elle Marr’s protagonist in The Missing Sister uses these to fuel her search for her sister.

It’s not only my taste buds that have been affected. Fellow 2020 Debut author, A.H. Kim, has taken this even further and done book pairings on her Instagram page. She’ll match a book with the food described within its pages!

I think this is enough, authors. Please share your logical reasons for making me hungry all the time.

Sincerely,

Jennifer

P.S. Complimentary food gifts might make me less irritated hangry.

Do books make you hungry?

54 thoughts on “Your Book is Making Me Hungry”

  1. Books can definitely make me hungry. As much as I love culinary cozies, that is usually a downside to them. Since I’m lazy, I don’t tend to make recipes like you are showing. But occasionally, I have been known to go out and buy something that the book has be craving from the store.

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  2. Wow, these look delicious. Like Mark, I’m too lazy to actually make anything from the books I read. The only exception I can remember is when I cooked up a grilled cheese loosely based off of one of Leslie Karst’s recipes. Next time a book makes me hungry I know whose house to go to!

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  3. Books make me hungry all the time. I wish I had a friend that owned a bakery or a was a caterer or a sweets shop owner, etc. I’d be visiting all the time. I have tried some of the recipes in the books and they were yummy.

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    1. Hmm, that’s a good idea. One of my new factors in finding a friend should be their food connections. I know people with restaurants but don’t know anyone who owns a bakery or sweets shop. One of my friends is a barista, though…

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  4. My smart side loves to read the recipes but my art side isn’t talented enough to make most of them. I do get the urge for foods mentioned in books and will buy the foods mentioned in the titles of the series by Vivien Chien every time a new book comes out.

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    2. Whoopsie, I read that recipe above as one big, chicken-and-carmel brownie recipe. I was like, Oh, sort of a sweet mole-chicken deal. I’m in! Maybe skip the tomato sauce.

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  6. Books containing lots of yummy food descriptions (and recipes) definitely makes me hungry. I have to be careful about reading and eating at the same time though, because I get so engrossed in the book I end up consuming an entire week of calories in one sitting. And now your blog post makes me want to pull Ellen’s pecan praline recipe out and make a batch!

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  9. Yes, books DO make me hungry. I am currently reading a Cheese shop mystery by Avery Ames. I am known for being a cheese addict. If I receive a gift of chocolate and a gift of cheese, I will eat the cheese immediately, and the chocolate will sit there. In reading this mystery, I am SO tempted to get up from my chair and grab a slice of cheddar while reading. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.
    Carol

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  10. Jen, I loved this! And looking at your pralines made me want one. Yup, I do get hungry reading cozies with recipes. It’s why I included recipes in my series, although I’m not a cook by nature. I was making myself hungry writing the first Cajun Country Mystery, so I figured my readers would be hungry too.

    I’ve made some recipes from cozies. It’s been a mixed bag, even with my own. I think you probably had the same experience making pralines that I had. It’s REALLY hard!

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  12. So it’s the cozies I read that are sabotaging my diet?! That’s the excuse I’m going with now (thanks, Jen)!

    I’m better at making coffee than baking — but your cinnamon rolls and pralines look yummy!

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  13. I do get hungry reading food descriptions, but what makes my stomach truly start to growl is when I write the food descriptions in my books: brainstorming the ideas, researching the seasonal ingredients, coming up with recipe ideas, and then describing the finished product. Oh, my. (Is is lunch time yet?)

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  14. Oh my goodness, those look amazing! Kudos for making them (and congrats to El and Vickie for providing recipe treasures)…wow, that is impressive all around.

    I always read the recipes–and they do make me hungry–but I never try to make them. I enjoy them imaginatively. 🙂

    Thank you, Jen! Love the pics too!

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  17. I made the most delicious Key Lime coconut cake from one of Lucy Burdette’s Key West Food Critic mysteries, b/c I wanted it that badly. I am not really a cook (I just totally ruined a perfectly good and e-z cinammon coffee cake for Valentine’s Day by losing track of how much flour I’d added. It took me more than an hour instead of 10 minutes prep b/c I really was concentrating so hard. I used 1/4 teaspoon cups instead of 1 cup (scoop was too big to fit in my flour container) and…sigh. My husband ate it anyway.

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  18. I’m way too lazy to make recipes from the books I read. And since I typically read for pleasure at 5am, my taste buds aren’t awake yet. More than food descriptions, I get all excited by locations I’d like to travel to. But I wouldn’t say no to some of those cinnamon rolls if you’re passing them around, Jen!

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  19. I’m absolutely open to the power of suggestion, especially if it involves food, double especially if it’s inspired by wonderful authors! I’m not talented enough to make these goodies, but I’m up to the job of consuming them. Thanks for the delicious post, Jen! (And now I can’t stop thinking about pralines and cinnamon rolls.)

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  20. My problem is I not only read culinary mysteries, I write them. And I put recipes in them. For A Side of Murder, I had to do DAYS of research to get Sam’s Thin and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies just exactly right 😉

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