Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War

In her extraordinary debut, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War, Annia Ciezadlo turns food into a language, a set of signs and connections, that helps tie together a complex moving memoir of the Middle East. She interweaves her private story with portraits of memorable individuals she

comes to know along the way, and with the shattering public events in Baghdad and Beirut. She does so with grace and skill, without falling into sentimentality or simple generalizations.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member wakela

Annia took us to places that most people fear to go. And that is into the war zones. However, instead of focusing on the fighting and the soldiers as most “war” stories do, she focuses on the everyday person and how they live their daily lives in spite of bombs going off around them.

She does

discuss some of the politics that are taking place at the time of her life in Baghdad. However, this is not at the forefront of her book. This is more like a side note in order for the reader to understand the conditions that these people endured. And also to give a frame of reference to everyone else.

This story unfolds one dish at a time. Annia talks about the fact that human civilization revolves around meal times. It is common for people to set aside their differences over a simple meal. How many times have you suffered through Aunt Sally, Uncle Joe, or those annoying cousins because you had to act civil over dinner? Think of those holiday dinners and then enhance it to a global scale.

Annia has a wonderful way of words that you can almost smell the herbs, spices, and meats as they cook.

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LibraryThing member PennyMck

A thought-provoking book about living in a war zone and establishing connections and forming a community around food

LibraryThing member cygnet81

The book is a bit convoluted (moving between Lebanon and Iraq with lots of secondary characters) but it is well written. The author's style is lyrical and I always like reading memoirs about travel or food and this had both.

LibraryThing member reader1009

Adult nonfiction; memoir. This was ok, I just couldn't finish it because I didn't have time.

LibraryThing member PattyLee

This starts out fine, slows down with a bit of a small sigh and then picks up again very quickly. It is a personal memoir of sorts by a young woman who is fascinated by food, culture and war. She writes very well (some phrases and sentences just sing..)and I learned more about Iraq, Iran and

Lebanon in this book than in many another more formal history. It also made me fascinated with the food she describes. Most importantly, she brings home the real human cost of wars and the differences between those who start them, those who fight them and those who must carve out a life from the rubble left behind. Worth it!

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