Early Reviewer: Fannie’s Last Supper December 17, 2010

Fannie’s Last Supper by Chris Kimball was a fun book. The premise is as follows: Kimball, founder and editor of the magazine, Cook’s Illustrated, and host of the PBS show America’s Test Kitchen decides to create and served 12-course, Victorian dinner from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Cookbook. As you can imagine recreating recipes from 1896 is a challenge, and sometimes fairly gross (Mock-Turtle Soup, made with a calf’s head. Ugh.). It was interesting to see how much cooking had changed in just over 100 years, and while it was really fun to read about this different food and to get a little history into how this country ate, it made me glad that I live when I do now when cooking doesn’t take all day and I never have to make gelatin from calves’ feet.

While the planning and preparation for this dinner took two years, and the books covers this, there was also a documentary made of the dinner itself, which is supposed to be showing on PBS “during the holidays”. So far I haven’t seen it listed on my local PBS station, but I am hoping to catch it when it airs. It would be interesting to actually see the food described in the book.

Two about Food October 13, 2008

I’m back on a reading kick, which so far means reading my favorite types of books – mysteries and books about food. They are my total “comfort reading”. More on the mysteries later – now it’s time for food!

The first food book I read in the past week was No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain. I’ve been meaning to read some of his writing for a while, since folks seem to like it, so when I stopped by the library last week to pick up a book for the metro ride home, I thought I would pick up one of his. This was the only book by Bourdain on the shelf at the library, which is why I picked it. I didn’t take a good look at it before I left and I was surprised to find out that it was really more of a photo essay book, than a memoir or book of essays. It was fine, but didn’t give me much of a sense about Bourdain’s writing – although I really enjoy the essay about Beirut, where Bourdain found himself during Israel’s bombing back in 2006. It gave a real sense of what was lost in that bombing and made this event, which had been an abstract thing to me before, very personal.

Yesterday I finished Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey through China by Jen Lin-Liu, which combined three of my favorite book attributes: writing about food, writing about China, and memoirs. Lin-Liu is a Chinese-American journalist who moved to China in 2000 and eventually decides that she wants to learn how to cook. This book follows her through her course at a Chinese cooking school, studying for her chef exam, and then internships in Chinese restaurants, both small and grand. I found the book enjoyable and the descriptions of food interesting – some sounded delicious, some sounded like I would rather miss them (the restaurant that served the genitals of male animals, for example). I read about Lin-Liu and her book in the Food section of the Post a few weekends ago, and I’m glad I check it out. It made for an enjoyable weekend of reading.

Golden Arches East July 23, 2008

Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia is edited by James L. Watson with articles by a handful of authors regarding McDonald’s influence in five different Asian communities (Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea). It’s an academic book and the authors are all anthopologists with lots of experience in the communities they write about. It’s a very interesting look at how Western companies interact with non-Western communities and the way that they both influence the other. The book was written in the mid-90s and I am curious how things have changed in the last decade plus. One thing that I thought was really interesting about the book was that pretty much all the authors said that McDonald’s has become “local” in East Asia, and isn’t really seen or treated as “foreign” – even though it is providing decidedly non-local types of food (whose ingredients are usually bought locally). I read a photo essay book a year or so ago that made a great visual point about the globalization of food products – Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Also definitely worth taking a look at if you are interested in this topic. (Or just curious about other people’s lives, like me).

One Weekend, Two Books June 17, 2008

I finished two books this weekend, both relating to food.

The first book was Third Helpings by Calvin Trillin, a thin, humorous volume written in the 1980s. I read a selection of Trillin’s writing in American Food Writing and enjoyed it, so I added him to my “to read” list along with quite a few others. His writing reminded of nothing so much as Erma Bombeck, a writer who I had entirely forgotten until I read this book - even though I (embarassingly) read all the books of hers that my library had when I was in junior high. I enjoyed this book, but I think it was good that it is a short one, because his writing becomes rather predictable pretty quickly. I don’t think I need to read any of his other offerings, but this one was just the humorous break I needed for a day or so.

The second book I read this weekend (okay, okay, I finished it Monday morning on the train to work), was Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey. Jaffrey is a noted actress and cookbook author and this is her memoir of growing up in India. As you might expect, the book contains a lot of discussions of food, but it is also an interesting, personal look at the time surrounding Indian Independence from the eyes of a child. I love memoirs, and I think one of the things that I like about them, in addition to the fact that they are intensely personal, is that they are often self-limiting, dealing only with a certain phase of a person’s life. I think this focus makes the books stronger, and Jaffrey’s restriction of the book to her childhood, certainly does that for me here.

American Food Writing June 3, 2008

I like to read about food. This may be related to the fact that I like to eat food. Or even to the fact that I like to cook food. But mainly I think it has to do with the fact that I really like non-fiction, but I especially like non-fiction that is personal. I like memoirs. I like social history. I like finding out about other people’s lives. And food is nothing if not personal, so that makes it a perfect non-fiction subject for me.

American Food Writing, edited by Molly O’Neill, is a creatively named anthology of writing selections dating back to the country’s inception. They are arranged chronologically and it is interesting to see American food evolve (and diversify) over time. The pieces are all fairly short (I don’t think any was more than 10 pages or so), which made it the perfect book to keep in the house and pick up any time I had a few minutes. (It’s over 700 pages long, so it can also last you for a good, long while). As a bonus, it introduced me to quite a few new food writers who I am eager to check out. I think it’s always a good sign with a book leads you to other books.