Irina Dumitrescu is a professor of medieval literature at the University of Bonn, but she also has a secret life as a food essayist. She is particularly interested in how food reflects culture, how people use craft and creativity to survive hard times, and the positive uses of imperfection. Her essays on food have been nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, and been reprinted in Best American Essays 2016, Best Food Writing 2017, and Jay McInerney’s Wine Reads: A Literary Anthology of Wine Writing (2018). She joins us to talk about food writing and amateurs, the allure of survivalism, and food writing that isn’t really about food.