SOURCE: Caso, Frank. Review of The Devil's Larder, by Jim Crace. Booklist 98, no. 4 (15 October 2001): 381.

In the following positive review, Caso comments on the role of food in The Devil's Larder.

Whenever Crace's imagination alights on a topic, the reader is rewarded with a gem of a book, [The Devil's Larder] and this time the topic, broadly speaking, is food. Crace explores the complexities of human nature, as well as its foibles, in 64 short fiction pieces (many of them short-shorts, actually) that cover the full gastronomic range, from soup to nuts. The stories are set in a fictional coastal town and the surrounding countryside, wherein we find legends, myths, miracles, eccentricities, class warfare, fast-talking spongers, remembrances of delicious home-cooked meals, and, caveat emptor, death and illness from food poisoning. That the pieces never flag is a tribute to Crace's ability to overlay the voices of a multitude of narrators...