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The 10 Best food memoirs

From life in a top-end New York kitchen to dinner parties at the height of the Raj, here are culinary tales to chew over...

Samuel Muston

Thursday 08 November 2012 21:00 GMT

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1. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Bloomsbury, £10.99

Bourdain's no-holds-barred account of life in American kitchens is both a memoir and an insider's guide to the tricks of the trade.

2. Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by MFK Fisher

£6.99, penguin.co.uk

Combines recipes with anecdotes about lunches had and wines drunk. A book as well-crafted as the patisserie she loved.

3. Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey

£7.99, eburypublishing.co.uk

Jaffrey is Britain's most highly regarded Indian cookery writer. Her life in food began in the days of the raj in Delhi.

4. Between Meals by AJ Liebling

£10.99, amazon.co.uk

The New Yorker writer's memoir charts an amusing culinary coming-of-age in the Paris of the 1920s, where he spent a good deal of his family money on food and wine.

5. J'aime New York by Alain Ducasse

£35, hardiegrant.co.uk

Not a memoir in the traditional sense, rather it recounts the 156 restaurants he has frequented since his first time in NYC in 1976.

6. Memories of Gascony by Pierre Koffmann

£30, octopusbooks.co.uk

Koffman takes us on trip through his childhood in Gascony by giving us the recipes he ate then and still cooks now.

7. Toast by Nigel Slater

£8.99, harpercollins.co.uk

Each chapter is a bacchanalia of suburban treats as Slater gives us a grand tour of the family's larder – rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda and all.

8. Heat by Bill Buford

£8.99, vintage-books.co.uk

Having previously gone undercover with football hooligans in Among The Thugs, Buford goes under the pan lid as he blags a position in Mario Batali's staff.

9. A Recipe for Life by Antonio Carluccio

£20, hardiegrant.co.uk

Carluccio remembers the first time his taste buds felt the zing of a well-cooked meal. This is his life... in the kitchen and on TV.

10. My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme

£8.99, ducknet.co.uk

Once a brash California girl who didn't speak one word of French. This traces the beginnings of her love for French food.