New book lauds comfort foods

Food, like music, will forever be tied to emotions. If you like food memoirs, you’re likely to enjoy “Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love,” a collection of short stories by Lara Vapnyar (Pantheon Books, $20).

While technically not memoirs, since the book is fiction, each of the short stories features a different (often comfort) food and explores the sensual qualities that you might not expect those foods (like borscht or meatballs) to bring out. Some tales are intertwined with love stories (like Luda and Milena, who battle for the affections of a widower in their English class with competing dishes of food), others are more about the comfort brought on by certain foods and the feelings the dishes invoke about the people who make them.

Vapnyar, who emigrated from Russia, appears to follow that writer’s mantra, “write what you know,” and the end result is a true success. The stories are beautifully written, filled with colorful characters and, as they’re short stories, you can sample them as time permits. When you’re done, try some of the author’s not-traditionally romantic recipes, which she’s included at the end of the book, for your own sweetie.