Yes and no.
I like food. I love good food. I probably eat too much.
So while I enjoy novels with food themes, they make me hungry—and sometimes they make me hungry for food I can’t have.
For example, I recently read Much Ado About a Latte by Kathleen Fuller, which features a heroine running a food truck serving Mexican food. I love Mexican food, but it’s hard to get good Mexican food in New Zealand (Taco Bell doesn’t count).
Anyway, that novel got me searching town for somewhere I could get a good fish taco (I did succeed, but it was a distraction.)
One of the scenes showed the heroine making tamales. I’ve never had tamales, and that scene showed me two things: I’d like to try them, but I don’t want to make them myself. It looks like a lot of effort, and I’d have no idea if the result was any good as I have no basis for comparison.
When I read foodie novels, I especially like it if there are recipes in the back, even if the recipes are full of unfamiliar ingredients or if I can’t buy the ingredients locally (e.g. a can of pumpkin pie filling).
Another great food novel (well, series) was The Saturday Night Supper Club by Carla Laureano. It was fine dining, so definitely not what I cook, but I loved reading about all the creative dishes.
