Women's relationships with food are passionate and obsessive, embracing and comforting, complex and frustrating. This sampling of stories - by some of the writers in and out of the food and travel fields - journeys to the heart of these age-old relationships, taking readers from the kitchens of contemporary America to the far reaches of the globe.

Women's relationships with food are passionate and obsessive, embracing and comforting, complex and frustrating. This savoury sampling of stories - by some of the best writers in and out of the food and travel fields - journeys to the heart of these age-old relationships, taking readers from the familiar kitchens of contemporary America to the far reaches of the globe. In France, an over-enthusiastic waitress serves M. F. K. Fisher the lunch of a lifetime to sustain her on a walk to Avallon. In Tunisia, Ruth Reichi dines at the home of a local, where the meal is eaten with the hands and a dash of sensuality. And in Fiji, where the women are big and beautiful and walk like royalty, Laurie Gough encounters food as a grand and constant celebration. The lively, literate tone of "Her Fork in the Road" makes it both an enduring read and an ideal companion for the kitchen or the road.