Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink

Since its earliest days, The New Yorker has been a tastemaker--literally. In this indispensable collection, M.F.K. Fisher pays homage to "cookery witches," those mysterious cooks who possess "an uncanny power over food," and Adam Gopnik asks if French cuisine is done for. There is Roald Dahl's famous story "Taste," in which a wine snob's palate comes in for some unwelcome scrutiny, and Julian Barnes's ingenious tale of a lifelong gourmand who goes on a very peculiar diet.

Selected from the magazine's plentiful larder, Secret Ingredients celebrates all forms of gustatory delight. A sample of the menu:

Roger Angell on the art of the martini - Don DeLillo on Jell-O - Malcolm Gladwell on building a better ketchup - Jane Kramer on the writer's kitchen - Chang-rae Lee on eating sea urchin - Steve Martin on menu mores - Alice McDermott on sex and ice cream - Dorothy Parker on dinner conversation - S. J. Perelman on a hollandaise assassin - Calvin Trillin on New York's best bagel

Whether you're in the mood for snacking on humor pieces and cartoons or for savoring classic profiles of great chefs and great eaters, these offerings from The New Yorker's fabled history are sure to satisfy every taste.