The Bread and the Knife: A Review

The Bread and the Knife: A Life in 26 Bites Hardcover by Dawn Drzal (2018), 257 pp. Arcade. $19.99

I read the book “The Bread and the Knife” not knowing what I would be getting. I think I had assumed it would be several essays on food, the kind of book I have read several times in the past and had enjoyed. While this book is essentially that, it’s also very much “not” an anthology of essays on food. Dawn Drzal has crafted an interesting collection in that so much of it is unlike the previous chapter that it’s more like an anthology by different writers. This is not to say that Drzal does not have an identifiable style of writing, but that the content of each of the chapters is vastly different in tone and content as to be a hodgepodge rather than some symmetrical whole.

The collection of stories was written with each of the titles having a letter in the alphabet (A is for, etc.) so that each of the titles was systematically listed alphabetically. Some of the collection is very short (Liquid Pimento Olive, not listed alphabetically) and others are longer, although all are for the most part short essays.

There were stories that made me laugh out loud (G is for Gruel) as well as stories that made me feel uncomfortable, (P is for Passion Fruit), some simply were lovely, secretly shared intimacy full of vivid impressions of sense. You get…