Hunger Like a Thirst: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table

by Besha Rodell

Overview

A witty and lively memoir from food writer and New York Times contributor Besha Rodell, (formerly) one of the world’s last anonymous restaurant critics

When Besha Rodell moved from Australia to the United States with her mother at fourteen, she was a foreigner in a new land, missing her friends, her father, and the food she grew up eating. In the years that followed, Rodell began waitressing and discovered the buzz of the restaurant world, immersing herself in the lifestyle and community while struggling with the industry’s shortcomings. As she built a family, Rodell realized her dream, though only a handful of women before her had done it: to make a career as a restaurant critic.

From the streets of Brooklyn to lush Atlanta to sunny Los Angeles to traveling and eating around the world, and, finally, home to Australia, Rodell takes us on a delicious, raw, and fascinating journey through her life and career and explores the history of criticism and dining and the cultural shifts that have turned us all into food obsessives. Hunger Like a Thirst shares stories of the joys and hardships of Rodell’s coming-of-age, the amazing (and sometimes terrible) meals she ate along the way, and the dear friends she made in each restaurant, workplace, and home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250807120
Publisher:	Celadon Books
Publication date:	05/13/2025
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Besha Rodell is a James Beard Award–winning food writer, editor, and restaurant critic who has been obsessed with eating out since she was a child. Born in Australia in a bungalow on a farm her father dubbed Narnia, she moved to the United States as a teenager. She has been writing professionally for more than two decades, and her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Travel + Leisure, PUNCH, Eater, Gravy, and many others. She was the restaurant critic at LA Weekly and was a critic and columnist for The New York Times, where she is still a regular contributor. In 2019 Besha was tapped by Food & Wine to be their global critic, traveling the world solo to pick the best restaurants for an annual list. She is currently the chief restaurant critic at The Age, the daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia. Besha moved back to Australia in 2017, and lives in Melbourne with her husband, Ryan; her parrot, Chobi; and a rotating menagerie of foster cats.

Editorial Reviews

Beautifully written, deeply moving, and a fascinating social document.”

—Nigella Lawson

"This hearty, heartfelt missive will appeal to anyone who likes to wax poetic about a memorable meal."

—Publishers Weekly

"A meld of autobiography and culinary memoir with meat on its bones... It is Rodell’s candor, her gift for asking so many savory, enlightening questions, that rewards the reader’s palate. Structured like a good meal, or a good review, rendering a superb memoir."

—Kirkus

"Rodell delves into the glory years of making her bones as a female food writer in the male-dominated, early aughts restaurant industry... Her writing is fresh, biting and accessible. And her food descriptions are mouthwatering and luscious."

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

From the Publisher

2025-04-04
A meld of autobiography and culinary memoir with meat on its bones.

“I’m not sure on which planet I belong,” says Rodell in the closing pages of this consistently engaging chronicle of her life so far. And the statement is understandable: Though the James Beard Award–winning food writer, editor, and restaurant critic is back home in her native Australia, she spent many of her formative years finding her way and forging a career in the U.S., with which she harbors a conflicted relationship. Formerly a critic forCreative Loafing,LA Weekly, theNew York Times, andFood & Wine magazine, Rodell is today the rather less peripatetic restaurant critic at theAge in Melbourne. She cut her teeth in the restaurant trade in America and retains a keen understanding of the camaraderie (and brutalities) experienced by its workers. Often joyous, sometimes melancholy, her first book recounts a lifelong hunger for discovery and meaning, with exceptional food as both focal point and an end in itself. She provides observant capsule histories of the landscape relating to food and service, all while charting the rise of the contemporary dining craze and celebrity chefs. Also on the menu are recollections of financial struggle and sexism, marriage and motherhood, the stew of guilt and Lucullan pleasures that accompany a life on the road, the delights of cocktail culture, the origins of the American hospitality ethos, a billet-doux to Melbourne, and a reflection on the late Anthony Bourdain. Her incisive writing, which chooses to reveal the cultural and historic backstories of the cuisines and locales she reviews, is what makes her work so distinctive. But above all, it is Rodell’s candor, her gift for asking so many savory, enlightening questions, that rewards the reader’s palate.

Structured like a good meal, or a good review, rendering a superb memoir.

Kirkus Reviews