The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo

The Book of Difficult Fruit is the very best of food writing: graceful, surprising and ecstatic. What if the primary way you show love is to bake, but your partner suffers from celiac disease? Why leave in the pits for Willa Cather’s Plum Jam? How can we rely on bodies as fragile as the fruits that nourish them? Lebo’s unquenchable curiosity leads us to intimate, sensuous, enlightening contemplations. Buzzfeed Inspired by twenty-six fruits, essayist, poet and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends the culinary, medical and personal. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine and more. In this work of unique invention, these and other difficult fruits serve as the central ingredients of twenty-six lyrical essays (and recipes!) that range from deeply personal to botanical, from culinary to medical, from humorous to philosophical. Q is for Quince, which, fresh, gives off the scent of ‘roses and citrus and rich women’s perfume’ but if eaten raw is so astringent it wicks the juice from one’s mouth. M is for Medlar, name-checked by Shakespeare for its crude shape, beloved by gardeners for its flowers. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odour – peaches, old garlic. Her ideas and descriptions of fruits and their flavors, family secrets, lost loves, and home tempt and tantalize long after the last chapter.

Her writingbreathtakingly beautiful, brave, and complexsparkles and lingers. A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. The Book of Difficult Fruit is the very best of food writing: graceful, surprising, and ecstatic. Kate Lebo deftly weaves them all together, making for a brilliant, richly layered, and absolutely delicious book. profound and deeply felt.’ Buzzfeed Inspired by twenty-six fruits, essayist, poet and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends the culinary, medical and personal.

‘A richly researched food history, gentle memoir and left-field recipe book.’ i newspaper ‘A dazzling, thorny new essay collection.’ Samin Nosrat, New York Times ‘A beautiful, fascinating read full of surprises – a real pleasure.’ Claudia Roden ‘Inventive and charming.

The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo