When people start talking about magical food, they tend to refer to a select few amazing — but dated — works. Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate is a fave (and for good reason!), despite the fact that it was originally published over three decades ago. Slightly newer (but still from the previous millennium) is Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices. It’s no wonder that readers continue to return to books like Esquivel’s and Divakaruni’s. After all, they were good when they came out and they’re still good today! But in the decades since their publication, there has been a lot of new work in the realm of magical food fiction. Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells (along with its sequel, First Frost) and Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake are two that come to mind readily. But even those were published over a decade ago, so in the spirit of offering you some freshly baked magical food fiction, I’ve compiled a list that should whet your appetite for more recent books. I’ve divided the list into adult and young adult reads, but within each list, there’s a tremendous amount of variation. Some of these books are humorous, others are romantic, and still others are somewhat scary. Let this list be a menu of magical morsels for you to choose from. I hope you find a little something to nibble on!
