Gastronomy and Literature: The Perfect Mix

My favorite books are those that include food in some form, preferably in full descriptions of the way it was prepared and how it was presented.

So much of social interactions these days involves food. I'm talking about when people actually get together and talk, not fake communication like Facebook and other so-called 'social media'. Before long, if today's trend continues, no one will talk face to face (forget Skype-type chat), instead relying on impersonal contacts, if that.

Unlike so many people I know, I still read books. Real books, not e-book readers. Poetry is my latest passion. Recently I thought about all the wonderful food written about in the many books I've read. Here are my five favorite references to food:

1. 'Strawberries, and only strawberries...the best fruit in England', in Jane Austen's Emma.

2. The meal at the college Oxbridge, with its sole, partridges and pudding, in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

3. Cliche, perhaps, but the gorgeous little formed cookies -- madeleines -- from Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

4. The 'crusty bread rolls filled with chunks of brie and minced garlic drizzled with olive oil and baked until the brie was bubbly', in Supper, a poem in Garrison Keillor's 77 Love Sonnets.

5. The freshest tomatoes, basil and garlic for pasta, and the wild mushrooms and truffles, in Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence.

For those of you salivating over those food references, and perhaps wanting more, here is the rest of the meal in Keillor's sonnet. It's enough to make you dash to your nearest farmers market and grocery: 'salmon with dill and lemon and whole-wheat couscous baked with garlic and fresh ginger, and a hill of green beans and carrots roasted with honey and tofu.'