A spirited, abundantly illustrated food history.
A celebration of American diversity as seen through its food.
Freedman (History/Yale Univ.; Ten Restaurants That Changed America, 2016, etc.) offers a sweeping, thoroughly researched social and cultural history of America through its changing food habits and practices, from the nation’s founding to the current trend of farm-to-table cuisine. Drawing on cookbooks, culinary histories, advertisements, restaurant menus and reviews, guidebooks, and chef’s memoirs, the author argues convincingly that Americans do have “well-defined and consistent tastes” in food: a “national fondness for sweet, spicy, and salty combinations” and enthusiasm both for regional traditions and for variety. In examining culinary delights from different regions, Freedman points out that “invented traditions infuse regional cuisines, just about everywhere and many ‘traditional’ foods are not as old as most people believe.” If grits and barbecue are unknown in some parts of the South, still, roadside restaurants and cookbooks long have featured dishes—stewed clams from North Carolina and cranberry chiffon pie from Georgia, for example—that evoke particular areas. Variety, though, has been compromised by the rise of agribusiness and supermarkets. Freedman notes that in 1905, 14,000 varieties of apples were grown in the U.S.; by the 1960s, only three were sold in supermarkets. By the end of World War II, processed foods came to be less expensive than fresh ingredients and tempted homemakers with more time for “work, family, and active leisure.” For many decades, consumers accepted processing and lack of diversity as trade-offs for the advantages of “hygienic safety, consistency, [and] affordability.” The author locates the movement against homogenization and standardization in the 1970s, which also saw a decline of French haute cuisine as the ultimate tastemaker. “All the pieces of New American cuisine—farm-to-table, seasonal, and local—were in place by the end of the 1980s,” he writes. Freedman also offers entertaining profiles of many notable chefs, including Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, and René Redzepi, whose influences have reformed how many Americans eat.
A spirited, abundantly illustrated food history.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63149-462-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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