Do you know Reef, a novel by Romesh Gunesekera? It's set in Sri Lanka, and it talks a lot about food and cooking. Here's an excerpt to tempt you:

Lucy-amma was cutting onions, Bombay onions. The beards sliced off each onion were heaped on one side. She worked the knife like a stern goddess -- a devatara -- slicing translucid, perfect semicircles. She was always cutting onions. I learned something from that: the omnipresence of the onion, constantly appearing like the heart's throb of our kitchen life. For breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for every meal it turned up: sliced or chopped.