"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." -- Francis Bacon

• Book Magazine - Sep/Oct 2000, by Marla Abramson - full article

  The northern New Jersey group Mostly We Eat makes food a priority. The members take their motto--Francis Bacon's "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested"--to the fullest. Each discussion is a dinner party in which the food ties in with what they read.

  By pairing book and food, they add another layer to the discussion, giving each read a distinct, appealing flavor. When they read about Trudi Montag, a dwarf living in Germany during the two World Wars, in Ursula Hegi's Stones From the River, they ate small German foods, and they discussed the mysterious magician of Robertson Davies' Fifth Business over foods that had either a filling or secret ingredient...

• New York Times - March 18, 1999, by Pamela LiCalzi O'Connell - full article

  ...Even off-line book clubs can make use of the Net. "The availability of online information on a book often tips the scale" when making a selection, said Tom Smith, a member of a face-to-face (and fork-to-mouth) club in New Jersey that has dubbed itself Mostly, We Eat. At its Web site, the club rates the books it has read. It is also the vehicle the club uses to vote on selections and, of course, handle meal planning -- as the name of the group suggests, culinary concerns loom large. A members-only area of the site contains contact information for all and interactive maps to lead them to the next meeting.

  Most of the other members of the club work for high-tech companies and are self-styled techies, yet they have no interest in meeting online. "It's much more important for the couples to get together socially -- and eat," Smith said. "It would fall flat on its face if we weren't sitting around a table. We need to keep it off line as a counterpoint to our work, where we spend so much time on."

• Investor's Business Daily - Sept 9, 1998, by Tom Gray

  ...[Reading] groups can also take on a life of their own. Some stay together as members change employers. That's the history of Mostly We Eat, a group started early in '93 by five AT&T employees in northern New Jersey.

  The AT&T of those days is no more. But Mostly We Eat hasn't just survived - it's grown as members have married and brought in spouses. It now numbers 13.

  Lucent Technologies' software engineer Mallary Saltzman, who has been with the group from the start, says her husband was a reluctant recruit. ''I sort of dragged him in kicking and screaming,'' she said. ''He loves it now.''

  As the name implies, members of Mostly We Eat get together every two or three months over a meal tied to the theme of a book they're discussing. Recently they whipped up a country picnic for Jane Austen's ''Sense and Sensibility.''

  The group sticks mostly to fiction. But it covers a wide range - from classics like Austen to current bestsellers like Charles Frazier's Civil War saga ''Cold Mountain.''

  With its mix of men and women, Mostly We Eat has some interesting dialogue about the choice of texts, Saltzman says. ''We do have some dissension in the group. The men don't like to read so-called 'chick books,' '' fiction about and aimed at women, she said.

  But ''Cold Mountain'' had something for everybody, she says, with its parallel stories of a soldier deserting the Confederate ranks and a woman crafting an independent life on the home front.

  But a book doesn't have to be that well-written or well-liked for the group to enjoy it, she says. What counts is the discussion. Some of the worst books have provoked some of the best conversations, Saltzman says.

  The group disliked Martha McPhee's first novel, ''Bright Angel Time.'' But members used it as springboard to talk about writers' first books and what tended to go wrong with them. ''And we had good food for that one, too,'' she said.

  Food and friends aside, Saltzman was drawn to the reading group because it brought her back to something she liked doing in college: talking about books. That's a common theme in the world of book groups, where members tend to be college-educated adults. Members of Mostly We Eat range from 35 to 40.

• Entertainment Weekly - July 31, 1998 by Clarissa Cruz

  At Mostly, We Eat, a 12-person group based in ... New Jersey, members partake in sumptuous repasts that are loosely inspired by the books they're discussing, says member Mary Bolster, a magazine editor. For Martha McPhee's hippie-themed novel Bright Angel Time, participants nibbled on dishes containing mushrooms; for Michael Dorris' Yellow Raft in Blue Water (which features a multiethnic protagonist), the group feasted on "fusion foods" such as maize fritters with spicy tartar sauce. "Flavor always wins out over authenticity-- we're very aptly named," says Bolster.

• Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) - Nov 10, 1997, by Allan Hoffman

  ...Some reading groups have even set up their own web sites, using them to share information on the next selection, offer directions to members' homes, and provide a member directory.

  One of these sites reveals the secret to many successful reading groups: food. The site's name says it all: Mostly, We Eat. If the discussion takes a dull turn, at least there's food. The site includes a history of the book club, listing what books were read on what date -- and what food was consumed (Japanese food for "Snow Falling on Cedars," for instance).

• Richmond Magazine - Cuisine Scene, May 1997, by Stephanie Wise

  ...There's even a book group that calls itself Mostly We Eat. They've been meeting every two or three months since 1993. They pick a book to read and a food theme to go with it. For example, recently they read Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain and, naturally, the food theme was Southern. Another time they read a mystery novel, and the cuisine was foods with a filling or secret ingredient.

  Everyone who comes to the meeting must bring a dish that fits the theme. "We have a rule that if you haven't read the book, you can't come to the dinner," explains Elizabeth Rose, founding member. "But," she adds, "[one group member] rarely reads the whole book and always comes anyway. And [another] has slept through several dinners, but he makes a wicked antipasto so he's always forgiven."

Our Next Book

The Cave
by Jose Saramago

Meeting Information

Date: October 2, 2010
Host: Mary & Kevin
Food Theme: TBD