Taste: A Book of Small Bites

 Taste is a lyric meditation on one of our five senses, which we often take for granted. Structured as a series of "small bites," the book considers the ways that we ingest the world, how we come to know ourselves and others through the daily act of tasting.

Through flavorful explorations of the sweet, the sour, the salty, the bitter, and umami, Jehanne Dubrow reflects on the nature of taste. In a series of short, interdisciplinary essays, she blends personal experience with analysis of poetry, fiction, music, and the visual arts, as well as religious and philosophical texts. Dubrow considers the science of taste and how taste transforms from a physical sensation into a metaphor for discernment.

Taste is organized not so much as a linear dinner served in courses but as a meal consisting of meze, small plates of intensely flavored discourse.

Review: Poet Dubrow (Wild Kingdom) considers the five basic tastes-sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami-in this amusing collection of essays. . . Dubrow's musings are at once sober and evocative, and she succeeds admirably in getting "around the ungainliness of words by finding metaphors for taste." These thoughtful meditations offer lots to savor. * Publishers Weekly *
Captivating, engrossing, and thought-provoking essays. -- Chris Manno * Lone Star Literary Life *
If 'tasting may begin with sight' (and what a synaesthetic provocation that is!) Dubrow goes on to show this strangely elusive sense manifesting in every form of perception-mind, body, and soul. She writes: 'We acquire tastes just as we acquire knowledge: with time and patience, a belief that the pursuit can lead to something delicious'-and something delicious describes this trove of riches perfectly. -- Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers
Jehanne Dubrow is an intellectual sensualist, a writer of sometimes lyrical, sometimes directly colloquial, and always critical sensibility, her mnemonic taste buds open to memory's compromised dishes, its condiments and aftertaste. While other food-memory books sometimes threaten an overindulgence of richness, in Taste, Dubrow's sharp wit and self-awareness serve as the perfect digestivo. -- David Lazar, author of Celeste Holm Syndrome: On Character Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age
This is a book I wish I had written. In Taste, Dubrow's range of allusions, from visual arts to poetry, are movingly conveyed. It is to be sampled as a cornucopia of 'small bites.' A viaticum of sorts, and a damn good read. -- Albert Sonnenfeld, translator of Food: A Culinary History
In the form of a very elegantly written essay, Dubrow argues that taste is the main form of access to the world and others. And also, and most importantly, to ourselves. A poetic homage to the power and mysteries of taste. -- Barbara Carnevali, author of Social Appearances: A Philosophy of Display and Prestige