The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly by Kate Lebo

  • Aronia smoothie (page 15)

    from The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo

    • Categories: Beverages / drinks (no-alcohol); Cooking for 1 or 2
    • Ingredients: greens of your choice; ginger tea; frozen aronia berries; bananas
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Notes about this book

  • yelizaveta_38dvwk on May 06, 2026

    Such a gorgeous, odd little book. A favourite.

  • DKennedy on December 03, 2022

    A gift from Carol on my 59th birthday

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Reviews about this book

  • Seattle Times

    “My foremost concern with the book is making art, and that I got to kind of try to understand relationships within my family through the act of art making feels lucky.”

    Full review
  • ISBN 10 0374110328
  • ISBN 13 9780374110321
  • Published Apr 06 2021
  • Page Count 416
  • Language English
  • Edition Illustrated
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Farrar Straus Giroux

Publishers Text

Inspired by twenty-six fruits, the essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends natural, culinary, medical, and personal history. A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odor--peaches, old garlic. M is for Medlar, name-checked by Shakespeare for its crude shape, beloved by gardeners for its flowers. Q is for Quince, which, fresh, gives off the scent of roses and citrus and rich women's perfume but if eaten raw is so astringent it wicks the juice from one's mouth. In this work of unique invention, these and other difficult fruits serve as the central ingredients of twenty-six lyrical essays (and recipes!) that range from deeply personal to botanical, from culinary to medical, from humorous to philosophical. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine, and more. What if the primary way you show love is to bake, but your partner suffers from celiac disease? Why leave in the pits for Willa Cather's Plum Jam? How can we rely on bodies as fragile as the fruits that nourish them? Lebo's unquenchable curiosity leads us to intimate, sensuous, enlightening contemplations. The Book of Difficult Fruit is the very best of food writing: graceful, surprising, and ecstatic. Includes black and white illustrations.

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