Jonathan Safran Foer recalls his grandmother, who survived World War II, or “the War,” which was fought between and in multiple countries between 1939 and 1945. He remembers how she would take measures to acquire excess food for their family in contrast to the ways in which Foer’s more immediate family wasted food and purchased luxury foods. His grandmother’s perspective on food is that all foods are good for one’s health, and that people should eat frequently. Her one recipe is only chicken and carrots, but Foer links the family’s love of that recipe to their identity as a family, like the stories they tell to and about each other.

Foer notes that he decided to write this book as he approached fatherhood, and he recounts a babysitter that exposed him to vegetarianism as a child. He wavered between eating meat and abstaining throughout his childhood. After a two-year period as a vegetarian, brought on by his philosophy major, Foer went back to eating meat. He and his future wife agreed that vegetarianism is ethical, but they had a hard time sticking to their beliefs even after marriage. After their son is born, Foer connects eating and storytelling, linking how stories create rules to the ways that foods are reminiscent of stories.