"Food is often the common denominator that promotes contact between peoples and cultures."

One of the fears of the personal essayist is the possibility of having the readers mutter, "Who cares about your opinions or travels." Richard Sterling, editor of FOOD: A TASTE OF THE ROAD was certainly ambitious when he put together no less than 49 short essays concerning the inter-relation of food and travel. Sterling in his choice of essays endeavours to avoid this pitfall and to a great extent succeeds.

Food is often the common denominator that promotes contact between peoples and cultures. As mentioned in the preface, "the collection furthers the proposition that humanity is revealed through cuisine just as surely as it is through any other art or social activity."

Within the opening pages of this delightful anthology of essays, you immediately discover a world globe with numbers from 1 to 49 scattered in all directions. These numbers are linked to corresponding essays and names of localities that are listed at the bottom of the page. With this guideline we are able to pick and choose where we want to go and as we are reminded, Napoleon said of the army, "we travel on our stomachs."

Perhaps you are interested in breaking bread in Egypt? If so, you may want to read Mark Gruber's story when he traveled to Egypt in a Land Rover from one desert monastery to another. After his Land Rover broke down, he found himself as a guest of a Bedouin family who could not stop feeding him. How about travelling to Florence with Tanya Monia and sitting at a table with a transsexual? Do you like to eat salmon heads? Join Sandy Polishuk as she travels with a group of people, whom she describes as standing out from the others "like the cast of a drag show at a Rotary Club luncheon." She even elaborately describes the enjoyment of sucking the eyes of the salmon! No wonder her eccentric culinary desires were the butt of many jokes. Rajendra S. Khadka recounts how the caste system in Nepal dictates how food is to be eaten among the servants and guests. On a more sombre note, P.J. O'Rourke gives us a glimpse of the tragedy of Somalia where famine reigns and where guns seemed to have replaced food.

As the editor states, "you will not put this book down and think of food, or travel, or travel literature, in quite the same way again. And you will say, yes, of course. It was there all the time, in all of my journeys, I simply never acknowledged it."

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Posted October 22, 2002