Cookbooks offer food for the soul
Saturday, December 17, 2005
By MARY A. JACOBS
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

A spate of cookbooks with a spiritual spin has been adding flavor to bookshelves lately.
Among the enticing titles of the past few years: Church Suppers, What Would Jesus Eat? and Cooking With the Saints.

Many are emerging from the kitchens of monasteries: The Zen Monastery Cookbook and Twelve Months of Monastery Salads: 200 Divine Recipes for All Seasons.

Even fictional characters are weighing in with their favorite recipes. Fans of the Mitford series can find out how to prepare Father Tim's beef tenderloin in Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader.

While demand for spiritually themed publications has been strong for a decade or so, the cookbooks seem to represent a trend. "We're in a food cycle now," said Jana Riess, religion book review editor for Publishers Weekly, a journal of the book publishing industry. "We're seeing an uptick in food-related titles." Story