Many of the essays are accompanied by a recipe or two, though this is not a cookbook rather, Lebo effectively uses fruit as a starting point for exploring raw feelings and offering wry observations about her life, friends, and family. Chapters progress alphabetically, investigating familiar fruits such as blackberries and rhubarb, and (possibly) introducing readers to new tastes like durian and medlar.

Lebo’s meditations on “difficult fruits” and difficult feelings give readers an opportunity to explore new culinary creations and reflect on how we create our lives through our choices and relationships. Includes black and white illustrations.Lebo ( Pie School A Commonplace Book of Pie) begins her latest book by perfectly capturing the difference between reading and executing recipes, which “blend the precision of an instruction manual with the faith of a spell.” As a poet, essayist, and baker, the author crosses genres in this essay collection. 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.

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. A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. 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 kate lebo