Have you noticed that food is seriously popular right now? We wait two hours to get a table at that trendy new restaurant, we take a knife-skills class to learn how to properly supreme citrus, we may only date slow-food devotees or whole-beast eaters. The various food movements sound complicated and how we actually arrived at this place in our culture that so esteems food can seem a mystery. But now, Adam Gopnik, best-selling author and veteran writer for The New Yorker, takes an intellectual stab at the basis of how we eat and why we eat what we eat in his latest book, The Table Comes First.

As if a hungry philosopher were speaking to you, Gopnik takes a scholarly approach to the history of food yet still manages to make it all so delicious. Among other tasty tidbits, he traces the origins of the restaurant (not surprisingly, it started in Paris in the late eighteenth century), gives an endearingly cranky opinion on the usage of salt, and describes the transformations of today's cookbooks, which, as he sees it, have changed from recipe books to personal storytelling and revelations from celebrity chefs.

Throughout, Gopnik also writes imaginary e-mails to Victorian food writer Elizabeth Pennell, whom he greatly admires: "She had scarily good taste." These notes focus on the epicurean and practical usage of food as ingredients, and we get useful tips and recipes through his correspondence, such as his four essential savory secrets: anchovies, bacon, cinnamon, and saffron; and his succulent recipe for the perfect "lemon-up-the-bum chicken."

We come to know Gopnik as he educates himself and us; he travels the world to taste the most celebrated dishes, experiments with food, and tests theories. As philosophical as he is, he loves cooking: At home with his family in New York City, he prepares a local meal — chicken from a Bronx slaughterhouse, Staten Island peppers, a spicy Brooklyn arugula salad. Verdict? It indeed tastes better when the ingredients are locally sourced.

Another interesting point is his dissection of our lust for desserts. "Our nearest relations among the primates, particularly chimps … love sweets and will practically die to get them." Oh, so that explains it. We evolved to want cheesecake.

This is a food book unlike any other food book you’ll encounter. It's a concoction of abstract and visceral takes on eating, much like the best recipe that produces a wonderful tagine with a hint of sweetness and umami. It's definitely amusing, interesting, and personal, with a heck of a lot of amazing food knowledge thrown in, almost like a confessional cookbook from a celebrity chef — no, just kidding. My only advice? Do not attempt to read this book on an empty stomach.