From bangers and mash to pâté

"Fair Shares For All: A Memoir of Family and Food" by John Haney

Random House, 279 pp., $26

Food writing is everywhere these days — and not just in the cookbook section. Food magazines abound. Talking about food is everywhere these days, too. One national cable TV channel shows food programs 24/7 and has made celebrities of Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, among many others.

Yet amidst the proliferation of food books, food magazines and food television, John Haney's memoir is sui generis. It is rollicking, unzipped and sometimes incomprehensible to American readers less than intimate with British cockney English. And it's altogether unforgettable.

Given Haney's current vocation — an editor at Gourmet magazine — it perhaps seems obvious that he would write a book focused on food. But Haney did not grow up in a realm of fine dining. Quite the opposite. He grew up in a remote suburb of London, lower-middle-class in a class-bound society, frequently eating unhealthy meals that sound dreadful when described on the page. Here is one of many such examples: A "pile of cold baked ham and the hatbox of a pork pie, with a hard-boiled egg imprisoned at its core ... good crisp lettuce, stinging spring onions, cold new potatoes and dollops of a mayonnaise (organic) that bore a blessedly striking resemblance, both in taste and texture, to Heinz Salad Cream."

Haney, however, does not remember most of the food served at those meals as dreadful. In fact, he relates almost every event of his life, starting with his childhood in the late 1950s, to the food he consumed at the time.

Haney's mother, father, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, girlfriends and wife are all rendered while chewing, so to speak. Based on the photographs, Haney does not appear to be overweight. Surely, though, he is a compulsive overeater, at least the way that term is used by those I know who inhabit that realm: They say a compulsive overeater is anybody who lets thoughts of food control his or her life. Lots of compulsive overeaters battle that control. Haney glories in it. He is completely unselfconscious about the centrality of meat, fruit, vegetables, sweets and beverages (mostly alcoholic but not always) to his daily relationships.

The memoir is filled with dialogue, and one of the most telling passages appears on page 190. Haney, who has moved to the United States, started work at a sophisticated food magazine and developed expensive tastes, is chatting long-distance with his sister Joy, who lives in England. He tells Joy that his American taste for foie gras and champagne is merely his "cosmopolitan side. Sheer pretense. Smoke and mirrors. Solely for consumption over here."

Joy: "Rubbish."

John: "It's true. Kick me out of a cab on Mornington Road and I'll probably end up ... asking Dad if he's got any fish sticks or cannonball peas in the house."

Joy: "Dad never touches fish fingers [anymore]. He can't stand them."

John: "That's not the point. I'm talking about my basic preferences."

Haney's memoir is not a book just for foodies. It is a book for any reader who appreciates artful memoir. Yes, Haney raises questions by presenting details from his childhood that 5-year-olds seem unlikely to recall. But he grapples with the dilemmas of absolute accuracy within the memoir form as part of a thoughtful Author's Note, so mostly he is off the hook when it comes to possible fictionalization.

The artfulness of how Haney re-creates working-class London and environs from the 1950s through present day constitutes reason enough to read "Fair Shares for All." The food writing will serve as the main course for some readers; for others, it will serve as the dessert.

Steve Weinberg is a director of the National Book Critics Circle.