Ah, food. One of my favorite subjects. If you follow me on Pinterest, you’ll get a taste for just how much I love food in all its forms. Cooking, baking, eating, sharing, and even reading about it.
It’s our fuel for life. We fuel our bodies, our spirits, and our relationships over food.
Today, I’d love to explore how food is used in fiction–specifically, in the romances we here at Inspy Romance love so much! Many authors use food to bring characters together much like in real life, whether it’s a crucial plot element, a catalyst, a meet cute, or something else.
I like to feature food in my books nearly as much as I enjoy making it. Often, it’ll be an integral part of the relationships or plot. In Whatever Comes Our Way, Gina holds fond memories of cooking with her grandmother. Her relationship with Jaydon blooms and grows over every meal they share (and there are several!). She reaches out to a pair of at-risk youth over a casual lunch of burgers and fries, and dessert opens the door to learn more about their family dynamic. In Adrift (which happens to be FREE!), there’s a particularly fun s’mores scene I think readers might be inspired by. And in my most recent release, What Makes a Home, free spririted Jobie pushes rigid Caleb out of his comfort zone with international foods, and eventually forges a friendship with her roommate, Jenna, over pizza and ice cream.
And I’m not alone in loving to write good food into romantic fiction–several of our Inspy authors’ books involve kitchen professionals.
In Toni Shiloh’s Maple Run series, maple recipes abound, as does the chemistry! The Maple Pit’s chef Dwight needs help from Nina to revamp the restaurant and bring in customers. There is no Maple Run without The Pit, and the deliciousness all starts in Buying Love. Trust me on this, once you start the series you’re going to want to eat up the rest back to back!
I recently picked up Elizabeth Maddrey’s A Splash of Substance through Kindle Unlimited and am loving it so far. Paige wants to impact the world through her organic, locally grown/sourced catering company. The principle of “living gently” that forms the basis of her business brings handsome Jackson into her life and will leave an impact on readers, too.
In Taking a Chance on Mr. Wrong by Liwen Y. Ho, it’s a culture clash of comedic proportions when Ben meets Melanie’s family for the first time over a home-cooked meal of Chinese food. He tries to impress her very old-fashioned mom by complementing her cooking in Cantonese. His misspoken words lead to a rather rocky start to a fantastic story. And in my favorite of her Spark Brothers books, Colin and Candy could melt the ice cream in his shop with their delicious tension.
Call You Home, the last novel in Jan Thompson’s Savannah Sweethearts series, is the story of two talented chefs with an old feud that they’ll have to resolve in and out of the kitchen if they want to be in the will of God for their lives.
Sometimes it’s not the professionals, but amateurs, foodies, and kind neighbors who take the cake.
Julie Arduini created a small mountain village in Entrusted that remains tight knit because of meals at Jack Frosty’s, attending church pot lucks, or being a recipient of matriarch Sara Bivins’ banana bread. Julie reportedly hosted a local book club in which members brought in all the foods mentioned in the book. That sounds like a recipe for fun to me.
Autumn MacArthur’s new release Imperfectly Proverbs 31 is getting shuffled to the top of my TBR pile. The plot hinges on the undomestic geeky heroine having to learn to bake a pie to convince the investigative journalist hero she really isn’t faking being a good homemaker. It sounds adorable, doesn’t it?
The heroine of Valerie Comer’s Sprouts of Love oversees a community garden that supplies fresh vegetables to the food bank run by the hero. And Shannon Taylor Vannatter created a tasty meet cute at the beginning of Reuniting with the Cowboy. Her heroine takes her new neighbor a 4-layer delight, only to discover the man at the door is her first love.
So if you’re hungry for a tempting tale, here are a handful of treats for you to devour. I hope you’ll give a few of them a try and let us know how you enjoyed them! Be sure to leave a comment below telling us your favorite food-in-fiction title (and why you love it), and then check the Back-2-School Bash to enter our AMAZING GIVEAWAY this month!
Lover of Jesus, family, books, coffee, music, and crafting (in that order), Jaycee Weaver is perpetually pursuing at least one of her passions. She writes contemporary Christian romance stories featuring realistic characters in everyday situations where God is at work in big ways. She appreciates books where the characters face shortcomings, temptations, and adversity but always get their happy ending, so that’s what she writes.
Hi Jaycee, I love the Arcadia Valley books- from farm fresh produce to bakeries and mexican food- yum!
Blessings:)
Hi, Jaycee! I love food in stories too! You mentioned all the books I was going to as well! There is also Hallee Bridgemann’s Jewel series where she includes recipes at the end! Alexa Verde has written books with food themes as well, with Russian specialties I have gone on to try!
I enjoyed Liwen’s story about Colin and Candy. Toni’s Maple Run series is a lot of fun! If there were a Maple Pit around my home, you know I’d be there practically every day! I have a few Valerie Comer books that I haven’t read yet but will soon.
Hi Jaycee! As a teen I worked at a local bakery, so I enjoy stories with a bakery setting. My favorites are: Elizabeth Maddrey’s Baxter Family Bakery series (part of Arcadia Valley Romances) and Cecilia Dowdy’s The Bakery Romance Series (Raspberry Kisses, Shades of Chocolate, Sweet Dreams). While food is mentioned in CCR, very few authors give a recipe. That is why I enjoy reading Hope Callaghan’s cozy mystery series because at the end of each book, she includes one recipe. Gives the reader a special connection to the story. Thanks for the delightful blog and “food for thought.” Pun intended. Enjoy your weekend.
One of my favorites is Patty Jaeger’s Christmas and Cannolis. Great story and great food!
I don’t really have a favorite food-in-fiction title, but a lot of the Arcadia Valley books come to mind right now. I do feel hungry after reading your post.
Arcadia Valley is one of my favorites too, Wemble!
Where Two Hearts Meet by Liz Johnson is one of my favorite food in fiction as well as Wanda Brunstetter’s Amish Cooking Class Series. Thank you for sharing.
I love food in fiction, too!! One thing that I liked about the Tales of the Grace Chapel Inn that was different from other books was there was a recipe at the end of most of the books that had been mentioned in the book!! I haven’t used any of themYET, but some of them sound really good!!
The Sisterchicks series (Robin Jones Gunn) includes food & fun.
I always live vicariously in her books thinking of me & my best friend.
You can travel and taste international food without ever leaving your seat.
Thank you for pointing out all these wonderful books. I do love it when food is a part of a story, it is part of life. We can make it a wonderful part of our lives.
Thank you! I love Arcadia Valley, too. So much food-and-farm based romance!!!
I know, right? Breakfast time here, thankfully LOL (Arcadia Valley was a great project!)
Thank you for sharing all of these books are great I love it when food is part of a book and the recipe is at the end of the book! Makes it great to have! Love The Arcadia Series.
Hi, Jaycee!
As soon as I saw the title of this post I immediately thought of Toni’s Maple Run series! I adore everything Toni writes! Last year for my birthday I made a maple bacon cheesecake similar to the one in the books, because I was dying for a little taste of The Maple Pit in real life! 😍
Also, I loved the s’mores scene in Adrift! 😍
I loved all the food in Maple Run too! And I’m so glad you liked that scene in Adrift. 😊
I need to remember to post more recipes in the back! That does seem to be a reader favorite. Thanks for stopping by today!
Food is a wonderful part of our lives! I love making good food, together, a priority!
I’ll have to check those out! I remember reading many of her books as a young teen, but it’s been a long time!
That’s definitely something I’m going to try to remember to add to future books. New recipes are a great way to connect and bring the story to real life!
Thank you for stopping by!
Haha! I’m working on catching up in the Arcadia books. So many books, so little time!
Mmmm. I do love cannolis.
You are so right! I’m definitely going to be adding recipes to my food mentions more often. I love to cook and bake, but for some reason adding a recipe to the book always slips my mind!
I’m pretty sure I’d be eating at the Maple Pit far too often as well!
Yes! I always love the way Alexa works in so many multicultural foods and languages. I love to cook foods from around the world, too. I get so bored eating the same things haha!
Definitely! I’ve read a few but am looking forward to catching up on the rest of Arcadia Valley. Farm fresh stories and foods are always a big favorite!
I guess I don’t really think that much about food in books. Although there was a book with a coffee shop named Higher Grounds I read a while back. It was faith based coffee shop and I loved that idea.
One of the ladies whose Bible studies we’ve done includes recipes in her Bible study books, not that I’ve tried any of those yet, either!! Kelly Minter calls them her “living room series.” She eats a little too healthy for some of my tastes, but the desserts I do want to try!! Lol!
Oh my, my mouth is watering after reading the post LOL
I’m hungry for something sweet like baked goodies from Cherish Me ;)
I get hungry reading about food. A lot of stories include it at some point. It inspires me to try a different approach or recipe sometimes. I enjoyed Arcadia Valley series as well as others. I’m always endorsing farmers markets if someone is interested.
I think I’ve read that one! The name sounds familiar. Here we have a church with a coffee shop called Solomon’s Porch! Lol!
Yeah, I’m a sucker for dessert. But I’ve been playing with whole and clean foods, learning to make healthy food that tastes delicious. It’s an adventure!
Mmmm! Sounds good to me! I’m a sucker for a big, soft cinnamon roll! Haha! How about you?
Me too! We have quite a number of farmers markets here that I enjoy.
Hello :)
And oh, wow, yes! I know that now I have way too many recommendations for Food in Fiction, but I thank you for them. From the ones you’ve mentioned, I’ve already read Liwen’s books as well as a few of Valerie Comer’s, and I just loved them! I love it also when there’s a special/new recipe and the author gives it away at the end of the book :D
Seriously, this is such a great topic! Thank you for writing about it :)
Thank you for your kind comments! I do love talking about food. And reading about it…clearly. 🤪
I love when books have a strong presence of food in their stories. Either actual recipes, community events including food, or places characters hang out that serve food, I love them all!
Wanda E. Brunstetter’s Amish Cooking Class Series and Suzanne Woods Fisher and others. I like books that have recipes in them.
I love books that talk about food! Food makes up so much of our existence (we need to to survive) and good food can give us such pleasure to eat (and read about without consuming calories!). Plus I love reading about food I have never tried and it inspires me to try new things. :) Love the topic for this blog post.
I enjoy reading books with small diner or bakery settings. I also enjoy reading books with small town ice cream store settings. I love to make (and eat) desserts.
Love to have food included in stories!
Thanks for the article. I love food in stories too. Eating together is such a special thing. I remember when I was little the church I grew up in had Wednesday night supper prior to the evening service. I loved it! I still have special memories of those times. And even Jesus broke bread with His disciples and gave them fish after He had risen. Thanks so much for the lovely article.
Wow! My favorite food in fiction….i have noooo idea. I love the ones that include recipes at the end or throughout that have been tried before though. Baked good are a fave…lol