Saints Well Seasoned: Musings on How Food Nourishes Us Body, Heart, and Soul Edited by Linda Hoffman Kimball Deseret Book (Salt Lake City), 1998. 208 pages. ISBN: 1-57345-288-2 Suggested retail price: $16.95 (US)
Reviewed by: R. W. Rasband

For this book, Linda Hoffman Kimball asked 30 LDS authors to each write a short essay on what might be called "the Mormon Meaning of food" and include a recipe. The result is this entertaining collection, a combination cookbook and anthology of thought-provoking pieces (in other words, for literary types who like to eat, this is very nearly an ideal book.)

It covers a surprising amount of ground. There are traditional edibles like Dean Hughes' rolls; the recipes of Edward L. Kimball's mother, Camilla; Bruce and Margaret Blair Young's trifle; and Richard Cracroft's Yorkshire pudding, with amusing "anglophile" essay included. There are recipes that might be called exotic (at least to this Utah Mormon boy): Orson Scott Card's Brazilian Feijoda (and how it cured him of being a finicky eater on his mission); Kathryn H. Kidd's "nikudango" appetizers. There are even recipes for the cooking- challenged among us: Steve Walker's recommendation for food to accompany driving across the great spaces of the American west is Twizzlers' Strawberry Licorice every twenty minutes; Chris Crowes muse-food for writers is a big bowl of Pringles mixed with M&M's, peanuts and malted milk balls.

Many of the essays are tinged with nostalgia for places and people that are gone. One character trait Mormons share with Jews an an almost ritualistic use of food to sanctify the quotidian. It's with us at the most important events of our lives -- Sunday dinners, wedding receptions, missionary comings and goings, funerals. This celebration of food is one of the ways we have left Calvinism behind. We enjoy the fruits of the earth. We bring heaven and earth together at the meals lovingly prepared to accompany our spiritual occasions. This tasty book reminds us of our LDS heritage of practicality and competence in "this-worldly" matters and providing hospitality and making room for the sojourners and newcomers among us.

R.W. Rasband
Heber City, UT
wh958@victoria.tc.ca