What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly
Inspired by twenty-six fruits, essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends natural, culinary, medical, and personal history.
A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odor--peaches, old garlic
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. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine, and more. 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?
Includes black and white illustrations
A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odor--peaches, old garlic
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. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine, and more. 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?
Includes black and white illustrations
416 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2021
About the author
Kate Lebo
12 books79 followersKate Lebo's first collection of nonfiction, The Book of Difficult Fruit, was published by FSG and Picador in April 2021. She is the author of the cookbook Pie School (Sasquatch Books), the poetry chapbook Seven Prayers to Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Entre Rios Books), and co-editor with Samuel Ligon of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze (Sasquatch Books). Her essay about listening through hearing loss, “The Loudproof Room,” originally published in New England Review, was anthologized in Best American Essays 2015.
Her poems and essays have appeared in This is the Place: Women Writing About Home, Ghosts of Seattle Past, Best New Poets, Gettysburg Review, Willow Springs, Moss, Catapult, and Poetry Northwest, among other places.
Through the Center for Washington Cultural Traditions she is an apprenticed cheesemaker to Lora Lea Misterly of Quillisascut Farm. She lives in Spokane, Washington.
Her poems and essays have appeared in This is the Place: Women Writing About Home, Ghosts of Seattle Past, Best New Poets, Gettysburg Review, Willow Springs, Moss, Catapult, and Poetry Northwest, among other places.
Through the Center for Washington Cultural Traditions she is an apprenticed cheesemaker to Lora Lea Misterly of Quillisascut Farm. She lives in Spokane, Washington.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
June 6, 2021
It strains my credibility when an author writes, "of a crystal realigning cells like a magnet through iron filings" and spends the chapter on X, xylitol (which is a sugar alcohol derived from birch bark and certain fibrous plant matter, including fruits) talking about crystals (to keep in her bra) and relationships and what not. It strains my interest even further than credibility when I thought I was going to read about "difficult" fruits.
Not that all of the fruits are fruits, or if they are, they aren't ones anyone would identify as such.
'Faceclocks' are dandelions, I've never heard them called 'faceclocks', have you? Neither wheat nor sugarcane are fruits. And some I find 'difficult' to understand why they are "difficult fruits" - cherries, gooseberries, kiwis, pomegranates and zucchini.
The chapter structure which isn't always adhered to is to introduce a fruit, write pages and pages about her personal life. Some of which is less than enthralling - doing the accounts in a nursing home for old people, others of which I just skimmed over so I wouldn't know. Then there is a bit more about the fruit, some history, maybe a quote from Shakespeare or someone, then a couple of recipes some of which are for hand lotion or bath oil.
The only really good bit was talking about medlars which were a great deal more popular in Tudor times than today. They had a funny name (you'll need to look at the pic link to get it) in Shakespeare's time 'open-arse' because it looks "like the pucker of an anus". When Romeo is pining for Juliet, his friend Mercutio says, "Now will he sit under a medlar tree. And wish his mistress was that kind of fruit, As maides call medlars when they laugh alone. Oh that she were! Oh that she were an open arse, and thou a poperin pear". Quite!
The book read like two books in one the personal one, stories of her family and friends and herself (mostly) and one about fruit. I wish it had been one or the other. I bought the book because I wanted to read about difficult fruit and I was disappointed. I suppose people feel like that about some of my 'reviews' where I write about my life or some rant or other and not the book but Goodreads is a social site not one of professional reviewers paid to stick to the point and try and keep to it's good points.
2.5 stars, but rounded up because I understand all about not sticking to the point. The author writes well, so I'm going to put it down to bad advice from an editor not helping the author write a really cracking book. Or two.
Not that all of the fruits are fruits, or if they are, they aren't ones anyone would identify as such.
'Faceclocks' are dandelions, I've never heard them called 'faceclocks', have you? Neither wheat nor sugarcane are fruits. And some I find 'difficult' to understand why they are "difficult fruits" - cherries, gooseberries, kiwis, pomegranates and zucchini.
The chapter structure which isn't always adhered to is to introduce a fruit, write pages and pages about her personal life. Some of which is less than enthralling - doing the accounts in a nursing home for old people, others of which I just skimmed over so I wouldn't know. Then there is a bit more about the fruit, some history, maybe a quote from Shakespeare or someone, then a couple of recipes some of which are for hand lotion or bath oil.
The only really good bit was talking about medlars which were a great deal more popular in Tudor times than today. They had a funny name (you'll need to look at the pic link to get it) in Shakespeare's time 'open-arse' because it looks "like the pucker of an anus". When Romeo is pining for Juliet, his friend Mercutio says, "Now will he sit under a medlar tree. And wish his mistress was that kind of fruit, As maides call medlars when they laugh alone. Oh that she were! Oh that she were an open arse, and thou a poperin pear". Quite!
The book read like two books in one the personal one, stories of her family and friends and herself (mostly) and one about fruit. I wish it had been one or the other. I bought the book because I wanted to read about difficult fruit and I was disappointed. I suppose people feel like that about some of my 'reviews' where I write about my life or some rant or other and not the book but Goodreads is a social site not one of professional reviewers paid to stick to the point and try and keep to it's good points.
2.5 stars, but rounded up because I understand all about not sticking to the point. The author writes well, so I'm going to put it down to bad advice from an editor not helping the author write a really cracking book. Or two.
August 23, 2022
It seems most of the lower rated reviews are from people who struggled with the book’s refusal to be categorized into a standard genre. This is understandable, as the title and cover don’t really hint at the personal depths of the author’s story reached in the essays. Only a few readers might happen to notice that the library call number is 814.6: Essays - not cookbook, not memoir, not botany. It’s also understandable if you struggle with the author’s interpretation of ‘fruit’, but only if you stick to a strict (and possibly incorrect anyways) definition of what a ‘fruit’ is. What is a difficult fruit? The book is difficult fruit. We are difficult fruit.
December 7, 2021
I have a soft spot for uncategorizable nonfiction like this. My expectation was for a food memoir, but while the essays incorporate shards of autobiography and, yes, recipes, they also dive into everything from botany and cultural history to medicinal uses. Kate Lebo has a finger in many pies – a figure of speech I use deliberately, as she is primarily a baker (but also a poet) and her three previous books are about pie.
You won’t find any ordinary apples or oranges here. Difficult fruit – “the Tart, Tender, and Unruly,” as the subtitle elaborates – is different: rarer to find, more challenging to process, perhaps harder to love. Instead of bananas and pears, then, you’ll read about the niche (aronia and thimbleberries), the rotten and malodorous (medlars and durian fruit), and the downright inedible (just one: the Osage orange, only suitable for repelling spiders or turning into decorations). These fruits might be foraged on hikes, sent by friends and relatives in other parts of the USA, or sold at Lebo’s local Spokane, Washington farmer’s market. Occasionally the ‘recipes’ are for non-food items, such as a pomegranate face mask or yuzu body oil.
The A-to-Z format required some creativity and occasions great trivia but also poignant stories. J is for juniper berry, a traditional abortifacient, and brings to mind for Lebo the time she went to Denver to accompany a friend to an abortion appointment. N is for the Norton grape, an American variety whose wine is looked down upon compared to European cultivars. Q is for quince, what Eve likely ate in the Garden of Eden; like the first humans in the biblical account, Lebo’s pair of adopted aunts were cast out for their badness. W is for wheat, a reminder of her doomed relationship with a man who strictly avoided gluten; X is for xylitol, whose structure links to her stepdaughter’s belief in the power of crystals.
Health is a recurring element that intersects with eating habits: Lebo has ulcerative colitis, depression and allergies; her grandfather was a pharmacist and her mother is a physical therapist who suffers from migraines and is always trying out different diets. The extent to which a fruit can genuinely promote wellness is a question that is pondered more than once. Whether the main focus is on the foodstuff or the family experience, each piece is carefully researched so as to be authoritative yet conversational. The author is particularly good at describing smells and tastes, which can be so difficult to translate into words:
Two essays in a row best exemplified the book’s approach for me. The chapter on gooseberries, the cover stars, captures everything I love about them (we have two bushes; this year we turned our haul into a couple of Nigel Slater’s crumble cakes and a batch of gingery jam) and gives tips on preparation plus recipes I could see myself making. “Gooseberries are sour like you’ve arrived before they were ready for company, like they wanted you to see them in a better dress,” Lebo writes. The piece on huckleberries then shares Indigenous (Salish) wisdom about the fruit and notes that in a Spokane McDonald’s you can buy a huckleberry shake.
Over the eight months I spent with this collection – picking it up once in a while to read an essay, or a portion of one – I absorbed a lot of information, as well as some ideas for dishes I might actually try. Most of all, I admired how this book manages to be about everything, which makes sense because food is not just central to our continued survival but also bound up with collective and personal identity, memory, and traditions. Though it started off slightly scattershot for me, it’s ended up being one of my favorite reading experiences of the year.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
You won’t find any ordinary apples or oranges here. Difficult fruit – “the Tart, Tender, and Unruly,” as the subtitle elaborates – is different: rarer to find, more challenging to process, perhaps harder to love. Instead of bananas and pears, then, you’ll read about the niche (aronia and thimbleberries), the rotten and malodorous (medlars and durian fruit), and the downright inedible (just one: the Osage orange, only suitable for repelling spiders or turning into decorations). These fruits might be foraged on hikes, sent by friends and relatives in other parts of the USA, or sold at Lebo’s local Spokane, Washington farmer’s market. Occasionally the ‘recipes’ are for non-food items, such as a pomegranate face mask or yuzu body oil.
The A-to-Z format required some creativity and occasions great trivia but also poignant stories. J is for juniper berry, a traditional abortifacient, and brings to mind for Lebo the time she went to Denver to accompany a friend to an abortion appointment. N is for the Norton grape, an American variety whose wine is looked down upon compared to European cultivars. Q is for quince, what Eve likely ate in the Garden of Eden; like the first humans in the biblical account, Lebo’s pair of adopted aunts were cast out for their badness. W is for wheat, a reminder of her doomed relationship with a man who strictly avoided gluten; X is for xylitol, whose structure links to her stepdaughter’s belief in the power of crystals.
Health is a recurring element that intersects with eating habits: Lebo has ulcerative colitis, depression and allergies; her grandfather was a pharmacist and her mother is a physical therapist who suffers from migraines and is always trying out different diets. The extent to which a fruit can genuinely promote wellness is a question that is pondered more than once. Whether the main focus is on the foodstuff or the family experience, each piece is carefully researched so as to be authoritative yet conversational. The author is particularly good at describing smells and tastes, which can be so difficult to translate into words:
My first taste of durian was as candy, a beige lozenge with a slight pink blush that my boss at the time dared me to try. … It tasted of strawberries and old garlic. I had to will myself to finish. … My second taste of durian was at dim sum in New York City, visiting a man who would never love me. The durian was stewed, sweetened, and crenellated with flaky dough. … [It] was like peaches laced with onions, and had a richness that made my chest tight. Each bite was a dare. Could I keep going?
A single medlar that has been bletted outdoors through early December can be eaten in three bites. The first taste will be of spiced applesauce. … The second taste, because the medlar has spent long cold weeks on the branch, is sparkling wine. Not a good sparkling wine, but pleasant enough. Slightly explosive-tasting, like certain manufactured candies. Ugly, but what a personality. The third taste is a cold mildew one usually only smells, and generally interprets as a warning not to eat any more. You have now finished the medlar.
Two essays in a row best exemplified the book’s approach for me. The chapter on gooseberries, the cover stars, captures everything I love about them (we have two bushes; this year we turned our haul into a couple of Nigel Slater’s crumble cakes and a batch of gingery jam) and gives tips on preparation plus recipes I could see myself making. “Gooseberries are sour like you’ve arrived before they were ready for company, like they wanted you to see them in a better dress,” Lebo writes. The piece on huckleberries then shares Indigenous (Salish) wisdom about the fruit and notes that in a Spokane McDonald’s you can buy a huckleberry shake.
Over the eight months I spent with this collection – picking it up once in a while to read an essay, or a portion of one – I absorbed a lot of information, as well as some ideas for dishes I might actually try. Most of all, I admired how this book manages to be about everything, which makes sense because food is not just central to our continued survival but also bound up with collective and personal identity, memory, and traditions. Though it started off slightly scattershot for me, it’s ended up being one of my favorite reading experiences of the year.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 7, 2021
Full disclosure: I won a free ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
As the title would suggest, this is a book mostly about different kinds of fruit. There are recipes, both for food and for health and beauty products, as well as scientific facts, autobiography, history, myth and folklore, and pretty much whatever it occurs to Lebo to write about in conjunction with each one. It's not as disorganized as that sounds. Each chapter serves as a sort of poetic portrait, and her prose is rich and descriptive.
There are twenty-six chapters, with a difficult fruit for each letter of the alphabet. Some of the choices are pretty obvious. Durian, for example, is probably the first thing literally anyone comes up with when they hear the phrase, "difficult fruit." And how many fruits beginning with Q are there besides quince? X for xylitol is kind of a stretch, but it can be derived from birch bark, so it sort of fits. And most people might not think of zucchini as a fruit, but again, how many fruits beginning with Z are there anyway?
The recipes seem straightforward enough, though most also seem to be beyond my current meager skill set. I appreciate having them, but don't think I will be attempting any in the foreseeable future. Style-wise, the book reminds me of William Least Heat Moon or Robert Pirsig in that Lebo will start out talking about one thing, and then shift to something else, and then another something else, and then suddenly manage to tie it all back to the first thing in a surprising way. It's too coherent to be rambling, but too unfocused to really be on target, if that makes any sense. There's a feeling of wisdom and folksiness, of someone who can come up with something interesting to say about literally any topic. It's very readable, and I enjoyed this book a great deal.
This isn't a book you simply read so much as welcome into your life. It amply rewards the time spent with it. Highly recommended!
As the title would suggest, this is a book mostly about different kinds of fruit. There are recipes, both for food and for health and beauty products, as well as scientific facts, autobiography, history, myth and folklore, and pretty much whatever it occurs to Lebo to write about in conjunction with each one. It's not as disorganized as that sounds. Each chapter serves as a sort of poetic portrait, and her prose is rich and descriptive.
There are twenty-six chapters, with a difficult fruit for each letter of the alphabet. Some of the choices are pretty obvious. Durian, for example, is probably the first thing literally anyone comes up with when they hear the phrase, "difficult fruit." And how many fruits beginning with Q are there besides quince? X for xylitol is kind of a stretch, but it can be derived from birch bark, so it sort of fits. And most people might not think of zucchini as a fruit, but again, how many fruits beginning with Z are there anyway?
The recipes seem straightforward enough, though most also seem to be beyond my current meager skill set. I appreciate having them, but don't think I will be attempting any in the foreseeable future. Style-wise, the book reminds me of William Least Heat Moon or Robert Pirsig in that Lebo will start out talking about one thing, and then shift to something else, and then another something else, and then suddenly manage to tie it all back to the first thing in a surprising way. It's too coherent to be rambling, but too unfocused to really be on target, if that makes any sense. There's a feeling of wisdom and folksiness, of someone who can come up with something interesting to say about literally any topic. It's very readable, and I enjoyed this book a great deal.
This isn't a book you simply read so much as welcome into your life. It amply rewards the time spent with it. Highly recommended!
May 3, 2021
Much like a neglected Italian plum harvest, this book was an absolute mess. It tried to do way too much within the overly rigid, contrived structure of A-Z fruits (including some that are decidedly not fruits at all: wheat, xylitol) and therefore didn't quite do enough? Nevertheless, some interesting tidbits here and there and a few flagged recipes to try.
August 13, 2021
There are some interesting facts about fruit that I didn’t know and some about fruits that I was unfamiliar with. The essays also include some personal information, but overall the reading experience is very uneven with some focused on memoir and some on fruit facts.
June 12, 2021
This contains such a memorable and delightful reading experience, like a cabinet of curiosities in book form. Kate Lebo uses each fruit to blend the personal with commentaries on colonialism, herbal knowledge, wellness fads, mythology, history, and more. I have a newfound desire to make lots of jam!!
Want to read
April 5, 2021From Vogue:
Lebo, a pie maker—who has published several cookbooks, manifestos, and poetry zines that explore sweets in the past—weaves in historical and scientific information about fruit with her own personal history. There is discussion of invasive species and the way stone fruits' pits contain a compound that the body can digest into cyanide. Samin Nosrat has called the text at once “dazzling” and “thorny.”
Wow, yes please!
Lebo, a pie maker—who has published several cookbooks, manifestos, and poetry zines that explore sweets in the past—weaves in historical and scientific information about fruit with her own personal history. There is discussion of invasive species and the way stone fruits' pits contain a compound that the body can digest into cyanide. Samin Nosrat has called the text at once “dazzling” and “thorny.”
Wow, yes please!
March 17, 2022
Because I love to cook I was excited to read this book of essays. I live in the PNW so I particularly enjoyed reading about the fruits that thrive in this environment. There are wonderful tidbits of information and some decent recipes included in the book. This could be characterized as a botanical memoir. The author herself might be described as difficult, tart, tender and unruly. I liked her. I think the structure of A-Z was a hindrance. L for Lump? X for Xylitol? Some entries were a stretch. In the end by trying to accomplish too much the book suffered.
January 25, 2021
I love good food meditation essays, and this author does not disappoint. Her walk through the rare and unique alphabetized list of fruit is probably too specifically weird for some readers, but I loved her writing that is smattered with intimate gleanings of her personal life so much that I really flew through it. I do wish she had written an afterword to sum up so much depth of knowledge on her long journey discovering all these difficult fruits, but otherwise, I would happily recommend it to foodies and lovers of good writing everywhere.
Read
June 25, 2021GUTGed on p. 156.
What I learned from trying to read this book is that 1.) my interest in fruit is finite and 2.) while I admire the writer's ambition, and the stylistic hook, the end result is ponderous and dense, like a difficult fruitcake.
Evidence mounts that I'm simply maxed out on the personal essay genre!
What I learned from trying to read this book is that 1.) my interest in fruit is finite and 2.) while I admire the writer's ambition, and the stylistic hook, the end result is ponderous and dense, like a difficult fruitcake.
Evidence mounts that I'm simply maxed out on the personal essay genre!
January 8, 2021
I've liked Kate Lebo's work since I first read her cookbook (Pie School) and her illustrated zine (Commonplace Book of Pie), the latter of which seems like the origin story for her alphabetical approach to this collection. Framed by difficult or unusual fruits, Lebo's essays discuss her family's secrets; her own disability (Lebo is hard of hearing and has an autoimmune disorder); and her depression. She also explores the impact of white colonialists on indigenous communities, as well as how myth and folklore shape our understanding of the natural world.
Lebo's writing is a little mystical, intimate, and it's also practical. Her recipes are written in a slightly lyrical style. This book will likely appeal to fans of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's memoirs (though Lebo has more bite and drama to her writing), or to those who enjoy poetic language but aren't quite sure if they like poetry. It may also appeal to experimental home cooks and foragers.
Lebo's writing is a little mystical, intimate, and it's also practical. Her recipes are written in a slightly lyrical style. This book will likely appeal to fans of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's memoirs (though Lebo has more bite and drama to her writing), or to those who enjoy poetic language but aren't quite sure if they like poetry. It may also appeal to experimental home cooks and foragers.
February 6, 2021
This book had me at the description of author Kate Lebo as essayist, poet, and pie lady. This delightful combination of talents comes fully into play in The Book of Difficult Fruit and I adore the results. There is art in Lebo’s words, contemplations on life and love, and exact measurements--sends chills down my spine just typing those words. As you explore the world through Lebo’s ornery fruit, the author offers tantalizing bits of personal narrative, and culinary history. The recipes included in each chapter feel like a warm invitation and are artfully, clearly explained. Full disclosure: our farm’s Osage Orange (hedge apples) feature in the pages. That unruly fruit, and each one included in the book, become an intimate journey in Lebo’s hands. Each meditative chapter teases out bedrock practical advice on handling the tart, tender, and unruly in the kitchen and in life. So delectable.
January 30, 2022
Good bedtime reading when you're not quite drowsy enough to fall asleep.
February 7, 2022
There was something so beguiling about the title, even more so when I discovered that it was indeed a book primarily about difficult fruit. Well, it isn't just that, its also a memoir that uses those difficult fruits - and sometimes things which aren't quite fruit (vanilla beans) and are the only edible substance that begins with X. Because if there is something Kate Lebo likes in this world, beyond making pies, its structure (which to be fair making pies is very much about structure). So in and around an alphabetised discussion of how invasive blackberry bushes are, or how to prepare dandelions to eat (here called Faceclocks because D was obviously taken by Durian), we get the story of her doomed romance with a celiac, the two aunts who were removed from the family and - in L is for Lump - Cancer. And recipes. It is, as mentioned, a very singular book.
So it sits in a weird locus between memoir, alternative medicine, recipe book and natural history, though the writing is engaging on all of the subjects. The alternative medicine / plant based medicine I guess, aspect of the book is as interesting as the other parts, and takes in broad discussions of efficacy vs placebo - in the chapter on Sugarcane (a difficult fruit partially because of the legacy of slavery), she delivers a recipe for Sugar Pills so we can test our own placebo effect. The health side does give it a powerful core though, the chapter on Juniper berries is primarily about abortion (Juniper being a low level abortifacient). Lebo is a personable guide through all of this - I was getting increasingly worried that I wasn't going to discover why her aunts were estranged - and had to wait for the Yuzu chapter to find out.
The Book Of Difficult Fruit can be read through, it was enjoyable to do so - and as you can see there is a loose narrative arc to a couple of the family stories dropped in here. However the recipes and the five minute chapters mean it would also be works a a book to drop in and out of. Its an odd beast neither one thing or the other and because it takes one fruit per chapter, not even comprehensive (the Williams Pear- that most difficult to fruits to get correctly ripened - doesn't get a look in). It also suffers, as these things do, from its very American focus - not so much on the fruits which are global, but naturally of the memoir being Oregonian in the last forty years. There's a sense of place but I have heard stories like these before. Nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable read, there is a Courgette Pickle in here I am definitely going to make, and I thoroughly approve of this kind of mash-up.
So it sits in a weird locus between memoir, alternative medicine, recipe book and natural history, though the writing is engaging on all of the subjects. The alternative medicine / plant based medicine I guess, aspect of the book is as interesting as the other parts, and takes in broad discussions of efficacy vs placebo - in the chapter on Sugarcane (a difficult fruit partially because of the legacy of slavery), she delivers a recipe for Sugar Pills so we can test our own placebo effect. The health side does give it a powerful core though, the chapter on Juniper berries is primarily about abortion (Juniper being a low level abortifacient). Lebo is a personable guide through all of this - I was getting increasingly worried that I wasn't going to discover why her aunts were estranged - and had to wait for the Yuzu chapter to find out.
The Book Of Difficult Fruit can be read through, it was enjoyable to do so - and as you can see there is a loose narrative arc to a couple of the family stories dropped in here. However the recipes and the five minute chapters mean it would also be works a a book to drop in and out of. Its an odd beast neither one thing or the other and because it takes one fruit per chapter, not even comprehensive (the Williams Pear- that most difficult to fruits to get correctly ripened - doesn't get a look in). It also suffers, as these things do, from its very American focus - not so much on the fruits which are global, but naturally of the memoir being Oregonian in the last forty years. There's a sense of place but I have heard stories like these before. Nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable read, there is a Courgette Pickle in here I am definitely going to make, and I thoroughly approve of this kind of mash-up.
December 28, 2021
DNF. I thought this would be a zany walkthrough of strange and temperamental fruit, like the Samarkand cookbook or those South American orchard guides with stuff like lucuma to thrill the senses. Instead, it's a sort of memoir cum uncategorizable recipe book that bookends depressing family deaths between each encyclopedia blurb. Kid you not, I'm a fourth through and I've learned more about ulcerative colitis, breast cancer, migraines, and dead relatives than I have about any difficult fruit. The only saving grace is that the author's experience with durian mirrors my own, so I felt validated. Not a bad book by any means, and not badly written, but just a bit of a downer when all I wanted was a peppy tour.
November 27, 2023
Kate Lebo has provided a fruitful treasure in this book (pun intended!).
We are coming to the end of our harvesting, preserving season, and ever curious about fruits I yelped with joy when this came up in Libby as a possible read. . .click and clack and it was ON, I was reading and enforced a strict 3 fruits a day reading schedule.
A totally enjoyable, educative and something completely difference for a palate cleanse. If you are into difficult fruit, which the author deftly applies to the people, circumstances and times of her life and ours, you may very well find this book as much of a pleasure to read as I did. And will again.
BONUS: Recipes+ in every category - not confined to edible only - there's hair and healing receipts (as Granny would say) amongst others herein.
We are coming to the end of our harvesting, preserving season, and ever curious about fruits I yelped with joy when this came up in Libby as a possible read. . .click and clack and it was ON, I was reading and enforced a strict 3 fruits a day reading schedule.
A totally enjoyable, educative and something completely difference for a palate cleanse. If you are into difficult fruit, which the author deftly applies to the people, circumstances and times of her life and ours, you may very well find this book as much of a pleasure to read as I did. And will again.
BONUS: Recipes+ in every category - not confined to edible only - there's hair and healing receipts (as Granny would say) amongst others herein.
October 15, 2021
This was just okay, bound to its format in a really limiting way, until the section on her ex-husband's gluten intolerance which is when the ableism jumped out. I am definitely not a person who wants to be included in the 'we' who resents their loved ones not hiding their physical pain for my emotional comfort and who praises stoicism. This is not a fair stance from anyone, even if they have their own disabilities.
March 3, 2022
I went off track with this author about three pages in when she said she had a naturopath as her general physician. I am an internal medicine primary care doctor. I did continue to skim through the book, and again was thrown off when she gave a recipe for almond extract that a university would not approve of because it might be poisonous. Disappointed in the Osage orange “recipes” (not edible) and the rhubarb. This book was not written for me.
June 6, 2021
This is a unique book. It looks at different fruits from A to Z. Each fruit has some information about it, personal stories, and related recipes.
I think some fruits were only chosen to fit into the A to Z style and seemed to loosely fit. Overall it's an interesting concept and I'd like to try out some of the recipes.
I think some fruits were only chosen to fit into the A to Z style and seemed to loosely fit. Overall it's an interesting concept and I'd like to try out some of the recipes.
June 5, 2021
A really interesting read, a combination of agricultural and food history, memoir, essay, and cookbook. (probably not going to try many - if any - of the recipes, though, I'm not quite that adventurous a foodie) The A to Z arrangement is easy to read and I liked the range of fruits Lebo describes.
April 27, 2023
At times was lackluster, and felt written with a v prescribed idea of the reader - however! Absolutely loved chapters on Elderberry, Huckleberry, Juniper, Medlar & Sugarcane - I learnt a lot and these essays made for great bus reading
October 16, 2021
The metaphors flow;
Un-bury(berry) deed, plumb(plum) seed, au fait;
Recipes I stow.
Tart, tender, unruly grow;
A lyric jam preserves sate;
Ume(乌梅紫苏), Yuzu(柚子/甜橙) glow.
Un-bury(berry) deed, plumb(plum) seed, au fait;
Recipes I stow.
Tart, tender, unruly grow;
A lyric jam preserves sate;
Ume(乌梅紫苏), Yuzu(柚子/甜橙) glow.
June 25, 2021
It is a collection of essays from A to Z, so Aronia, Blackberry, Cherry, and Yuza, and Zucchini finish us out. This book uses fruit stories to understand personal stories where nurturing and harm get all tangled up. It touches on the relationship between food and medicine and how we use metaphors and magical thinking to figure out what will heal us and what to eat. In addition to the essays, each essay concludes with two recipes. One you can eat and one that's for a cosmetic or garden or medicinal application.
This book points out that many things are fruits that we don't think about as fruits. A wheatberry is a fruit. A vanilla bean is a fruit and one of the only edible fruits in the orchid family. It's also the most expensive fruit to produce in the entire world. I really love this form of memoir with recipes as a format. I love getting the little bonus gift at the end of a chapter.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/kat...
This book points out that many things are fruits that we don't think about as fruits. A wheatberry is a fruit. A vanilla bean is a fruit and one of the only edible fruits in the orchid family. It's also the most expensive fruit to produce in the entire world. I really love this form of memoir with recipes as a format. I love getting the little bonus gift at the end of a chapter.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/kat...
October 21, 2022
’The Book of Difficult Fruit’ by Kate Lebo is a book that is difficult to place within one genre. A memoir, an essay bundle and a cook book in one. I was really curious about what this book would bring, but unfortunately, the format of the A-Z did not work very well for me. Each chapter promises to discus a ‘difficult fruit’ but quite a few are not fruit at all or the fruits barely feature in the chapter, which made the A-Z feel somewhat forced.
As the book progressed, it became clear that the fruit was meant as a theme more loosely than it seemed at first. A format that Lebo uses to about family, home, health and what it means to belong somewhere. When I realised this, I started to appreciate the memoir more, but I think it would have benefited from making this flexibility of the format clear from the start. Then, it would not feel as much as a constraint as it did now.
The fact that only towards the end the book seemed to come together as a whole made that I did not fully get to appreciate it for what it set out to be. Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this collection of essays and recipes and I learnt some interesting things about fruit along the way.
Thank you to Picador books for sending me a gifted proof.
As the book progressed, it became clear that the fruit was meant as a theme more loosely than it seemed at first. A format that Lebo uses to about family, home, health and what it means to belong somewhere. When I realised this, I started to appreciate the memoir more, but I think it would have benefited from making this flexibility of the format clear from the start. Then, it would not feel as much as a constraint as it did now.
The fact that only towards the end the book seemed to come together as a whole made that I did not fully get to appreciate it for what it set out to be. Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this collection of essays and recipes and I learnt some interesting things about fruit along the way.
Thank you to Picador books for sending me a gifted proof.
March 20, 2023
This is not a "how to" or even truly a book about fruit, however the fruity subject matter is interesting. It's a series of essays. From A-Z was interesting. L was unusual. W was quite unexpected and served two purposes.
December 27, 2023
Sped through this for a book discussion that I may not even attend now. Skimmed much. I liked the memoir portions and preferred these over the fruit lore, which bored me. (But I would not have read an alphabetic meditation on fruit, so . . .) Predict that readers will be divided on this.
January 12, 2022
Recipes as a memoir, sociological exploration, and familial arts lost to time. Lebo writes about fruits like they're people that have to be worked with and in spite of. Utterly enchanting.
February 1, 2023
Meandering essays centered around fruit but also covering so many other topics. Learned about some odd fruit, kind of want to try making kvass or marmalade now.
August 12, 2021
Beautiful, often lyrical and/or funny, well-researched. I’d read anything else by Lebo. If any downsides to this book, that it could be organized/balanced even further between/across chapters
Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews