A wise person once said: "The mouth is the window to the soul."

Well, if they didn't say it, they should have, judging by the flood of culinary memoirs suddenly crowding the shelves. There seems to be an insatiable appetite among readers for the remembered meals of others.

The genre isn't new, as fans of Marcel Proust, M.F.K. Fisher and Calvin Trillin know, but a genuine foodie memoir boom was ignited several years ago with the publication of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Anthony Bourdain's sex-, drugs- and rock 'n' roll-spiced expose of the chef's life was an immediate success.

This was soon joined on the best-seller lists by the entertaining Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by former New York Times dining critic Ruth Reichl, and her follow-up volume, Comfort Me with Apples.

Suddenly, the rush to publish was on. In April alone, at least four new memoirs by chefs and cooks will be published. The most notable among them is chef Jacques Pepin's captivating and well-written The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen.There's no doubt the genre is becoming more popular.

"Proposals for that sort of book have become a dime-a-dozen at publishing houses," said Rux Martin, the editor who worked on Pepin's memoir. "Following after Ruth and Tony were a lot of imitators, but many couldn't write well. The good ones have the ability to get the reader on their side. You identify with them."

What separates the good memoirs from the boring ones is that they are about much more than cooking.

"It isn't the food we love, it's what it says about the person," Martin said.

The people who are buying these books are a diverse crowd.

"It goes well beyond the cookbook audience. These books aren't rec- ipe-driven. You don't have to know how to cook," Martin said.

The gradually growing culinary sophistication of the readership, coupled with the rise of celebrity chefs and the exposure of the Food Network have all fed the trend.

Cathy Langer, a book buyer for Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store, has noted a sharp increase in interest in the past year in volumes that view the past through the food that the autobiographer saw, dined upon, bought, fantasized about or cooked.

"People love them. It's a comfort read and an escape," she said.

John Lehndorff