Book review: A Moveable Feast

When did the words travel and food become one and the same? These days, food tourism has worked its way to the tip of every well-heeled traveler’s tongue, whether it’s a search for Hong Kong’s best wonton noodles on foodie-travel favorite website Chowhound or the neverending food voyeurism of Travel Channel favorites Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. It’s at exactly this zenith of food-focused travel that Lonely Planet has released A Moveable Feast, the latest entry in the guidebook publisher’s growing library of travel-focused literature.

A Moveable Feast, which came out this past October, represents a curated banquet of 38 “life-changing food adventures” from around the world. The anthology was curated by well-known Lonely Planet editor Don George (full disclosure: Don is Features Editor for Gadling) and includes an appetizer of food-related tales by well-known travel writers including Pico Iyer, Mark Kurlansky and (of course) Anthony Bourdain. There’s a little bit of everything featured in these 38 deliciously entertaining tales, from a love letter to French food by Andrew Zimmern to tales of eating dog in Korea by well-known travel scribe Simon Winchester. We even get a food story by Gadling’s own Sean McLachlan.

What’s the verdict on A Moveable Feast? It’s a fun, easily digestible collection of food-focused tales. Ultimately, reading A Moveable Feast is a lot like the typical Italian or French meal the book’s storytellers might reference: it aspires to be simply what it is. The ingredients will be of the utmost quality, and you will savor the details: the amusing anecdotes, the well-written prose and the vibrant descriptions. All in all, a collection of stories that is at once nourishing and entertaining – the perfect fuel for any food-loving traveler.