Great Books, literature, reading

I recently read Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table (Ruth Reichl). I have wanted to read it for a long time and was glad I finally did.

She tells her tales with passion and makes me laugh. I'm sure many of you have already read that one. Soon I'll read Garlic and Sapphires: the Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, her newest title.

I'm wondering if you have some food-related titles to share. If it added joy to your life, I'm interested. Thanks

Consuming Passions : A Food-Obsessed Life (Amazon link)
by Michael Lee West
ISBN: 0060984422

was very enjoyable. I didn't try the recipes in the book, only because I wanted to keep reading.

I have taught courses in food history, and two books that I've used with great success are now back in print: Betty Fussel's The Story of Corn, which is a comprehesive and delightfully written history of corn, from its origins in Central America through to its ubiquitous presence (as corn syrup, corn starch, and sucrose) in nearly everything we encounter today (and not just what we eat). It's lively, funny, and quite political, and nicely illustrated. Arlene Avakian's Through the Kitchen Window: Women Writers Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking is, as it says, a collection of essays (most are brief, and they are literary and autobiographical, not academic) on food by a range of women writers, representing a host of different ethnic and cultural traditions. All the selections are thought-provoking, some are funny, some are moving, and (hooray!) many include recipes. The armenian lamb recipe included in the book is now one of my favorites. Both books are available on Amazon, though I think the Avakian collection is special order.

I don't do a lot of food reading beyond the web and magazines. Of the little that I've read, my favorites are pretty popular:

"Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour" by
Anthony Bourdain

"The Man Who Ate Everything" and "It Must've Been Something I Ate" by Jeffrey Steingarten

Best,
Michael / EC

eatchicago wrote:I don't do a lot of food reading beyond the web and magazines. Of the little that I've read, my favorites are pretty popular:

"Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour" by
Anthony Bourdain

"The Man Who Ate Everything" and "It Must've Been Something I Ate" by Jeffrey Steingarten

Best,
Michael / EC

I agree wholeheartedly with both recommendations, and would add Harold McGee's new, revised "On Food and Cooking." Not a cover-to-cover read, but fun to flip through.

I threw Bourdain's first book across the room after I read it -- he is way too full of himself for me.

The first of Reichl's self-indulgences was likewise enough. Having read it in short order with Fussell's strangely foodless autobiography and somebody or other's book on M.F.K. Fisher, I concluded that to become a famous food writer you must first engage in scandalous love affairs and have near relatives commit suicide.

McGee's very useful and erudite reference book is another kettle of fish altogether.

Here are three charming, food-related memoirs that I highly recommend:

Garlic Is Life: A Memoir With Recipes by Chester Aaron

Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm by David Mas Masumoto

The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World by Mimi Sheraton

A particularly joyful cookbook:

The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon

I own hundreds of culinary reference books, and scores of works about herbs and spices, but this one always makes me smile:

Hints and Pinches: A Concise Compendium of Herbs, Spices, and Aromatics With Illustrative Recipes and Asides on Relishes, Chutneys, and Other Such Concerns by Eugene Walter

I would also recommend, to those who haven't yet discovered them, all of M.F.K. Fisher's own books, Calvin Trillin's food travelogues and the novels of Nan & Ivan Lyons.

A favorite of mine is "Bruculinu, America: Remembrances of Sicilian-American Brooklyn, Told in Stories and Recipes" by Vincent Schiavelli. (He is a Hollywood character actor whose face you would recognize for his "sad" eyes) The book's format is a series of recollections of Schiavelli's boyhood with his extended Sicilian family in Brooklyn in the 1950's, told with recipes. Some of the recipes come from his grandfather, a Sicilian monzu (chef). His grandfather's story is contained in another book, "Papa Andrea's Table".[/b]

I didn't have any interest in "A Cook's Tour" (although I liked the series a lot), but I liked "Kitchen Confidential" enough to be nervous about the Fox sitcom adaptation this coming TV season. (Although it will follow the renewed "Arrested Development" Monday nights, and Fox execs say they planned that combo, so who knows.) I similarly like Steingarten's books, although I think he really meets the definition of "full of himself" -- he's about as pompous a writer as I can take.

Well, as this thread demonstrates, I'm more interested in the kitchen confidential of 75 years ago than the present. Or maybe it's just that I'd rather live in the mythical midcentury past occupied by Humphrey Bogart and P.G. Wodehouse than the Brittany and vengeful Sith present. Which is why probably the most interesting food memoir I've read is Life a la Henri, by Henri Charpentier, whose Henri's was one of the first true French restaurants in New York (at least that's what he says; he also claims to have invented crepes suzette), and who later also ran restaurants in Chicago and Beverly Hills. (He seems to have been good at packing them in, less good at making a profit doing so, as his places tend to be wildly popular for ten years until they suddenly close.)

The book basically divides into two parts. The first is the story of a young boy who learns the priceless art of kissing ass in the hotels of the Riviera; he becomes so good at charming the royalty of the pre-WWI era that he gets used to gold coins for tips and returns to his village at 10 as the richest person any of them have ever seen. (Not all of this part is sweetness and light, however; he discusses one winter in London where, having lost his position, he acknowledges he was in the later stages of starving to death.) It's a bit like Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, but from the point of view of someone who, though poor and humble, counts Austrian empresses and American tycoons as his friends-- and at least seems to believe that that's exactly how the world should be. (Well, from the early 1940s the 1910s must indeed have looked like paradise lost.)

The second part is about his days in the restaurant biz; it's less vivid than the other part (and it's written before his time as a Hollywood restaurateur, which would have been a better companion piece to the tales of royalty in the first half), but the picture of the martial kitchen of those days (his older brother fires someone to boost the morale of the remainder, a piece of French management practice instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen Paths of Glory) and of his struggle to bring French standards to American cooking practice is still interesting. His comments about the need for fresh vegetables and cultivating better suppliers are 40 years ahead of Alice Waters (who as it happens provides an introduction to the current paperback edition).

P.S. The same series has reprinted Robert Farrar Capon's The Supper of the Lamb, which LAZ recommends and I concur; it's like an Episcopalian foodie version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

outside of M.F. K. Fisher:

Appetite for Life(the biography of Julia Child)-Noel Riley Fitch

Endless Feasts(60 Years of Writing from Gourmet)-ed. Ruth Reichl

Near A Thousand Tables-Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

A Bowl of Red-Frank X. Tolbert

I also enjoyed Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef and to a lesser extent his, The Soul of a Chef.

I recently saw a piece on CBS Sunday Morning on R.W. Apple. I just picked up the book mentioned in the program from the library. It includes culinary and other destinations. Don't know if it's good yet, just haven't had a chance to start it.

Apple's America : the discriminating traveler's guide to 40 great cities in the United States and Canada Apple, R. W. (Raymond Walter)

" Johnny Apple explores the landmarks, architecture, business, culture, and, of course, the food and beverages of his favorite urban communities. "

http://www.fsgbooks.com/fsg/apples_america.htm

Bob S. wrote:I similarly like Steingarten's books, although I think he really meets the definition of "full of himself" -- he's about as pompous a writer as I can take.

For a truly pompous, full-of-himself read, try Jeremiah Towers' California Dish : What I Saw (and Cooked) at the American Culinary Revolution. Includes somewhat explicit details about the sex he had with both Alice Waters and James Beard.

Makes Steingarten look almost shy.

Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell.

Stand Facing the Stove is an interesting read regarding the creation of The Joy of Cooking.

The Apprentice by Jaques Pepin.

Anything by Michael Ruhlman.

First, Apple's America. I've read it and am highly dissapointed with it. I've half penned a review. I will post the review one of these days...

Now, for Mike, as I share the interest in historical. Have you read any of AJ Lieblings stuff? Fantastic examples of what it is like to be a well endowed trencherman at the dawn of the modern era.

Another book I enjoyed, which is not *that* old, but at this point in the era of ChefG seems wholly dated is Lutece : A Day in the Life of America's Greatest Restaurant by Irene Daria. She actually spends a year with Andre Solner, which allows her to really dig deep into what it is like behind the scenes at at top restaurant. The day begins with the earliest prep work and ordering thru lunch service and dinner. Along the way the reader learns a lot about Solner and his wife. Highly recommended.

I'm also a sucker for James Villas's works. Again, he is historical but not truly historical, but I love reading his ultra snobbish adventures such as his report on dining on the SS France.

The St. Francis Cookbook from 1910 was widely published and relatively easy to get (cheaply). It very plainly lays out what one was eating at that time in a fancy restaurant. The recipes are vague to the point of I do not know if anyone could use them.

Rob

Great thread. Below are a dozen generalist books and a dozen academic books that I have enjoyed reading (one of the twenty-four is mine, so that one I enjoyed writing) and that have not otherwise been mentioned on this thread (I don't mention M.F.K.Fisher or George Orwell, for instance). All of the academic books are readable by non-specialists, although some more than others:

Generalist:

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses
Nelson Algren, America Eats
Jeremy Iggers, The Garden of Eating
Leon Kass, The Hungry Soul
A. J. Liebling, Between Meals
John McPhee, Giving Good Weight (the first essay, "Giving Good Weight" and the last, "Brigand de Cuisine")
Kathy Neustadt, Clambake: A History and Celebration of an American Tradition
Jean-Francois Revel, Culture and Cuisine: A Journey Through the History of Food
Raymond Sokolov, Fading Feat: A Compendium of Disappearing Regional American Foods
Richard Sterling, The Adventure of Food: True Stories of Eating Everything
Andrew Toddhunter, A Meal Observed
Calvin Trillin, American Fried (the first of the "Tummy Trilogy")

Academic:

Warren Belasco, Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry, 1966-1988 (American Studies)
Theodore Bestor, Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center fo the World (Anthropology)
Priscilla Ferguson, Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine (Sociology)
Gary Alan Fine, Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work (Sociology)
Donna Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (History)
Marvin Harris, Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (Anthropology)
Lisa Heldke, Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer (Philosophy)
Harvey Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America (American Studies)
Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present (Sociology)
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Anthropology)
Rebecca Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (History)
Amy Trubek, Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession (Anthropology)

Don't miss Liebling, and, among the academic books, Mintz.

I'd forgotten about it, but Mark Kurlansky's "Salt: A World History" was a good historical read as well, I thought. Can't vouch for whether all the history's accurate, though I don't remember any reviews denigrating that aspect of it.

I'll second GAF's recommendation of Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power. I read this for a class I took about the Atlantic Slave Trade and while it doesn't really have any recipes that I'd consider making, it does have a recipe from a book called The Forme of Cury from 1390 for "Chykens in cawdel:"

Take chykens and boile hem in gode broth, and ramme him up{bruised, and pressed close together}. Thenne take zolkes of ayren{eggs}, and the broth, and ayle{mix} it togedre. Do thereto powdor of gynger, and sugar ynowh {enough}, safronn and salt; and set it over the fyre withoute boyllynge, and serve the chykens hole, other ybroken {or cut up}, and lay the sowe {sauce} onward.

Margaret Visser's Much Depends on Dinner

Also Kurlansky's Cod

MFK Fisher translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste(?) I very much enjoyed when I read it years ago.

great thread.

I have stuck with Fisher, McGee & Trillin (is Calvin really the godfather of Chowhoynd, LTH & our ilk?), but I shall be heading to the library with these lists. Great to have my summer reading list all done.

GAF wrote:Nelson Algren, America Eats

America Eats is lots of fun. Algren wrote it during the Depression, well before he achieved fame as a writer, as a hireling of the Works Progress Administration's Illinois Writers Project. "I did it because I needed the money," he wrote, but it's wonderfully evocative of largely vanished American food cultures.

World War II interrupted the WPA project and the book wasn't published till decades later. Famed Chicago Chef Louis Szathmary (The Bakery) bought the manuscript from Algren in 1975 and later saw it published, with his versions of the recipes amended. Thus, it's also an interesting comparison between recipes as transcribed by someone with no particular knowledge of cooking or foodwriting and a skilled chef and cookbook authority.

Here's an NPR program about it.

I have never read Liebling, an obvious omission I suppose. However, I am reading Tsukiji, which reads awfully interestingly for a PhD thesis about a fish market.

A couple more that come to mind:

Dreaming of Cockaigne, by Herman Pleij, is another academic piece. "Cockaigne" was one name for a persistent idea in medieval peasant culture, of a land where food was absurdly, comically abundant, and even part of the landscape (e.g. "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," with its lemonade streams and cigarette trees). (There's a recipe for "Chicken Cockaigne" in Fanny Farmer.) What the book demonstrates, perhaps at more length than it entirely needs, is that this fantasy of relief from constant want was far more prevalent than any ribald fantasy of sexual delights, turning up in everything from stories (Hansel and Gretel) and songs (The Big Rock Candy Mountain) to paintings (Brueghel) up until the very recent moment that industrialization actually made abundance a reality. (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is perhaps the last expression of it in popular culture-- that's my observation, by the way, not his.) The fact that we now all fantasize about dieting, while enjoying all the food we want without thinking about the fact, is one of the biggest changes in human existence, and hardly talked about.

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food will be fun for those who want a voice like Bourdain's in a historical setting. Stewart Lee Allen looks at food in the context of the seven deadly sins (chocolate and lust, lower-class foods and sloth, that sort of thing); frankly the sketchiness of the citations in the back makes me wonder how true some of this is but it's a fun read regardless.

The Magic Pudding is a children's book written by Norman Lindsay, who is perhaps best known at this moment for being the lustful painter (with a house full of perpetually undressed artists' models) played by Sam Neill in the movie Sirens. Lindsay, who delighted in bringing the Victorian age down to an earthy reality, wrote it after telling some companion that boys didn't want stories about fairies and elves and all that-- boys like two things, eating and fighting, and so the entire book is basically a series of brawls over a pudding that replenishes itself (and generally displays a temper equal to any of the other participants).

Lastly, one of the better restaurant cookbooks I've cooked out of, The Balthazar Cookbook, also has an excellent essay by art critic Robert Hughes on the practical business of running a popular New York bistro, probably written as a bit of a rebuttal to the cynical view of Kitchen Confidential.

Mike G wrote:Lastly, one of the better restaurant cookbooks I've cooked out of, The Balthazar Cookbook, also has an excellent essay by art critic Robert Hughes on the practical business of running a popular New York bistro, probably written as a bit of a rebuttal to the cynical view of Kitchen Confidential.

You read that?

I can never get past the pictures

I also am a big fan of Steingarten and Trillin. Any of the John Thorne books are very good, based on his newsletter Simple Cooking: Pot on the Fire,Outlaw Cook, and Serious Pig. Ray Sokolov was mentioned earlier, and he also wrote Why We Eat What We Eat. Another favorite is Jim Harrison's The Raw and the Cooked, which is not for the easily offended vegan. LTHers will probably like Calvin Schwabe's Unmentionable Cuisine, which covers unusual ingredients.
-Will

A Debt to Pleasure
John Lanchester

Great summer reading, I thought. And for me, the quintessential bouillabaisse "recipe," so because it describes timing and technique (the ingredients are simple and flexible) in prose that really captures the dish.

Had to add this, although it's a little off the mark:

In the '80s there was a comic book produced in Chicago called American Flagg! (actually it was produced around the corner from where I lived in Evanston: one way was First! comics (boy, they liked exclamation points as much as I do parenthetical expressions), the other way lived Howard Chaykin, the creator), and cooking and recipes kept turning up in this near-future satire.

It's where I saw my first recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara (with peas), and another issue featured Pizza Rustica (which was an in-joke, as for several issues the main character, Randall Flagg, had been using the alias Pete Zarustica).

As a counterpoint, I loved Bourdain's A Cook's Tour and his full-of-himselfness made it a blast, especially the chapter where he's describing having to film the introduction segment after getting completely sh*tfaced drinking vodka in Russia. I'm hoping to snag Kitchen Confidential or one of his mysteries at Brandeis or Printers' Row.

Just a heads-up: Kitchen Confidential, along with Steve Almond's amusing CandyFreak and a number of other books, is part of a buy-two-get-one-free sale at Borders currently (well, as of two days ago; if it's ended since then, I apologize). I don't know if the offers can be combined, but the store also has a coupon good for 25% off one book, good through next Monday.

Not a shill for Borders, or even necessarily a fan, just passing along the info.

(And while CandyFreak was amusing, I wouldn't put it on a must-read list. I would've preferred more candy and less Almond.)

A fascinating book dealing with the trials and tribulations of a restaurant attempting to receive 3 stars from Michelin is Burgundy Stars, by Bernard Loiseau. It's an amazing story of the fanaticism it takes to achieve that rating. Chef Loiseau finally attained his 3rd star, only to lose it a number of years later, leading him to commit suicide. Sure seems like Hot Doug's may be the way to go.

Wow, great thread and obviously inspiring!

These are in no particular order. Although I have to give credit to Amazon for there Listmania marketing. Three that I like follow, you will see several of the most popular choices:

Listmania! You are What You Eat: Food, History, and Culture by Gary Hatch, I like to read---and eat.

Listmania! monomaniacal history of foodstuffs
by Shel Kaphan, humble student of ingredients

Listmania! Favorite Food Writing by J. Adam Bolster, no particular order

Here is my short list:

Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the Worlds Most Seductive Spice by Pat Willard

I thought this was a very interesting read and then you get to the last chapter and Ms. Willard ties it all up so well in a nice package I about cried…o.k., I did.

Best Food Writing 2004 by Holly Hughes

For all around good essay reading. I remember one of the early editions, perhaps 2000, almost one-third of the articles were from Saveur…subscribing was an easy call. Interesting to see where some of the best food writers come from. Ms. Hughs includes blogs, newspapers, books, etc.

The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison

"The idea is to eat well and not die from it-for the simple reason that that would be the end of your eating..."

Jim Harrison had been one of my favorites since I used to read him in Esquire while waiting for the barber. Sadly Jim neither writes for esquire, nor do I have a need to be in the barbershop. I still love his irreverent style, Bryson writes like him. Patrick McManus also has incorporates the use of non sequitur logic like the quote above.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the Worldby Mark Kurlansky

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

I enjoyed both of Kurlansky’s books. If you are one of the folks on the planet that has not yet read salt…I would suggest reading Cod first. I have not been able to get into reading his book on Portugal, nor have I read his collection of food writings…I own both.

Caviar : The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy by INGA SAFFRON

A much better read that I first imagined. One of the more enlightening facts was that the United States of America at one point produced more caviar than the Caspian.

Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture by Marvin Harris
I thought this book a very interesting read. However, I think Dr. Harris is a little fast and loose with some of his conclusions.

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz, Sally Fallon

This book written by former New Yorker and self-described queer who developed AIDS and now lives in a queer community in the Appalachian foothills is a fantastic read. Not only does the book convey a lot of good information about fermentation, it provides an interesting introspection of living in harmony with a world filled with microbiotics, rather than at war with them. Fun projects for kids of all ages. Sandor Kraut, as he is known, also runs a nifty website with links to other fermentation information.

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection by Michael Ruhlman

I loved this book…standout sections include the CIA exam and Thomas Keller. Although I liked Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Cook’s Tour, I read all three of these at the same time and this is still my favorite. My boss told me a few days ago that he is re-reading the copy I gave him. One of the Chef’s worked at his country club.

Lonely Planet World Food Vietnam (Lonely Planet World Food Guides)
by Richard Sterling

The Lonely Planet World Food Guides will change perception of any ethnic cuisine, particularly if you only have mild familiarity. After reading the LPWFG-Vietnam, walking through the stores on Argyle that I had been in several times made it seem like I had never been there before. The series is great: food, culture, ingredients and a few useful phrases. Buy them all…I did.

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 2005 Edition : A Lively Guide (Windows on the World Complete Wine Course)
by Kevin Zraly

While I enjoy the Wall Street Journal columnists husband and wife team, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher for their down home no nonsense guides to wine and its everyday use and enjoyment, by far the book I purchase most often for friends is Kevin Zraly’s book. The book was originally teaching materials for the waitstaff of Windows on the World Restaurant in the fated World Trade Center. Mr. Zraly, as beverage manager, needed a concise and easy to remember way to teach the waitstaff how to market wines from a 5,000 bottle collection. I worked great, he turned into a book. A weekend spent with this book and you will have a leg up on just about any wine conversation. Last time I bought a few copies, a portion of the proceeds were still set aside for some of the restaurant’s employees.


Thank you again for all of the wonderful ideas. Like others, downloaded and printed this thread. Even while looking up links for some of my favorites, I came across a few books I need to read. Too many books….

Great suggestions here.

A couple more that I've enjoyed:

A Goose in Toulouse: and Other Culinary Adventures in France

First sentence:
"Only in France could a loaf of bread come with a technical support phone number ..."

And an old one:

Beard on Food

A collection of newspaper columns that went out under his moniker (although, reputedly, most of it was written by others after brief conversations with Mr. Beard).

I saw a segment on a talk show just this week on Linda Ellerbee's new book 'Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table'. It sounds interesting. She was quite engaging as well as insightful on the show she was on, so it should be a good read.

Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table (Hardcover)

Christine