Best Food Writing 2012

Foraging, hunting, gathering: how better to describe the act of assembling an eclectic mix of stories and essays from far and wide, from large publications and small, in print and online—all deliciously about food. Editor Hughes deserves thanks for this year's carefully curated feast of food writing, 50 pieces presented in thematic groupings like "Home Cooking" or "Farm to Table" or even "Dude Food." The volume comes boldly out of the gate with Hank Shaw's "On Killing," a thoughtful and resonant piece on being a hunter, and finishes with Anna Stoessinger's moving New York Times op-ed on being diagnosed with stomach cancer. In between this collection hits many other notes, considering junk food (Maureen O'Hagan), what makes a proper Bolognese (Deb Perelman), turkey disasters (David Leite's "Kitchen Confessional"), and family dynamics, as in Elissa Altman's "Angry Breakfast Eggs."