Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse & Other Recipes for Living

Growing up around food, especially watching her female relatives can peaches in the August heat, author and narrator Nicole Walker in this series of chapter-essays takes the reader through her life in heavily religious Mormon Utah and her journey from that place to motherhood and beyond. Her book, Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse, is a gritty, sticky, complicated book about life, love, and the complicated relationship we have with our food. A combination cookbook, memoir, and food-system expose, this read inextricably links food with the body in a way that is painfully aware, beautifully rendered, and as erotic as it is grotesque.

This is a beautifully written book, sharply, almost painfully aware of itself, with a keen sense of detail and devastating philosophical observations. It has a sense of itself like a mason jar, fragile and resilient, with the threat of too much pressure and it could burst apart at any moment. The recipes entwined in the narrative are especially powerful, like the recipe for tongue. Walker is an outstanding essayist and gives haunting anecdotes about food and the body that will long stick in the minds of readers, especially her description of KFC mashed potatoes and gravy.