As Gourmet magazine celebrates its sixtieth anniversary, Modern Library Food series editor and bestselling author Ruth Reichl has compiled an enchanting compendium of food and travel essays from the magazine’s extensive archives. Spanning time and place, the writers showcased in Endless Feasts share their memories of exquisite meals and experiences in far-flung locales. Featured are essays such as M.F.K. Fisher’s marvelous “Three Swiss Inns,” about three exceptional restaurants she encountered while traveling through Switzerland. In the most out-of-the-way gasthaus, she finds trout swimming in a seemingly decorative tank, but in the flash of an eye the fish are scooped up in a net and carted off to the kitchen, to appear minutes later cooked to such delicate lightness and tender perfection that one could never hope to duplicate it. Ruth Harkness’s “In a Tibetan Lamasery” is the story of her travels as a single woman exploring Tibet during the Second World War. She describes her crumbling accommodations, the unusual animals caught by hunters, and the estimated ten thousand dollars’ worth of rare pheasants she ate during one winter.

Complete with a new Introduction by Reichl and a sampling of original recipes, this savory collection contains essays by Anita Loos, James Beard, Madhur Jaffrey, Robert P. Coffin, Laurie Colwin, and many others. Sure to become a classic, Endless Feasts is comprised of beautifully rendered stories and descriptions of wonderful food in the most interesting and unlikely places.

Contributors to Endless Feasts include:

James Beard / Cooking with James Beard: Pasta

Ray Bradbury / Dandelion Wine

Robert P. Coffin / Night of Lobster

Laurie Colwin / A Harried Cook’s Guide to Some Fast Food

Pat Conroy / The Romance of Umbria

Elizabeth David / Edouard de Pomiane

M.F.K. Fisher / Three Swiss Inns

Ruth Harkness / In a Tibetan Lamasery

Madhur Jaffrey / An Indian Reminiscence

Anita Loos / Cocktail Parties of the Twenties

George Plimpton / I, Bon Vivant, Who, Me?

E. Annie Proulx / The Garlic War

Claudia Roden / The Arabian Picnic

Jane and Michael Stern / Two for the Road: Havana, North Dakota

Paul Theroux / All Aboard! Crossing the Rockies in Style

Ruth Reichl is the editor in chief of Gourmet and the author of the bestselling Tender at the Bone, a James Beard Award finalist. She has been the restaurant critic at The New York Times and the food editor and restaurant critic as the Los Angeles Times. Reichl lives in New York City.