Review: The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

‘My sweet lawyer,’ she said, her voice deep and slow as the bottom of a river. ‘I don’t think you have a choice.’ She paused, and took another sip of wine. ‘We’re all just ingredients, Tom. What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal.’

(from The School of Essential Ingredients, page 130)

The School of Essential Ingredients has made my list of all-time favorite books. This is a story to be savored, yet it begs to be devoured in one sitting. Erica Bauermeister’s first novel is the story of Lillian, a restaurant owner who learned to cook as a child when her father left and her mother used books to escape what her life had become. Each chapter focuses on a member of the latest session of Lillian’s cooking class, The School of Essential Ingredients: Claire, a young wife and mother whose identity seems lost within her family; Carl and Helen, a husband and wife renewed in the face of betrayal; Tom, a lawyer drowning in grief after the loss of his wife; Antonia, an Italian immigrant who knows the comforts of home; Isabelle, an older woman struggling with the early stages of Alzheimer’s; Ian, the son of a painter who turns to computers to satisfy his need for precision; and Chloe, a clumsy girl looking to find her place in the world. Lillian senses the needs of these individuals and shows them how to heal and to find love or themselves through cooking, and for Lillian, cooking is about smells and textures and emotions–not recipes.

Bauermeister is a master of words, using simple sentences with descriptions so rich you can actually smell, feel, and taste the food along with whatever emotion the character is feeling. Only a little bit of time is spent on each character, but Bauermeister never wastes a single word so the reader is left full and satisfied. (Satisfied with the story anyway…This book made me so hungry!) Nearly every page features sensual descriptions of food–the aroma of spices, the silky texture of a cake batter–and they made me look at ingredients differently and recognize their power to evoke emotions and repair wounds.

I’m always rummaging through cupboards and creating new recipes, though nothing as fancy as in the book. I think my love of food and willingness to experiment in the kitchen enhanced my enjoyment of the book, but the beauty of Bauermeister’s writing, the realistic characters, and the strength of each of their stories taken as a whole make The School of Essential Ingredients an all-around must-read.

Disclosure:  I received a copy of The School of Essential Ingredients from Putnam/Penguin for review purposes as part of a MotherTalk blog tour. I also received a $20 Amazon gift card from MotherTalk for my participation in the tour. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2009 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.