"Secret Ingredients" - A Dandy Book!

[Sherry B]

If there's a thread on this book, I've missed it. I got this for Christmas, and it was a delight.

Has anyone else read it? I mean....even the wine section was good, and I drink beer! Or scotch!

[The Naughti Literati]

This book definitely deserves a thread of its own and I'm glad you started it! I snatched the book up the week it was released and am reading it from cover to cover when the mood strikes. I've enjoyed everything but standouts were the history of beefsteaks and that LONG profile of Euell Gibbons, the forager. It was also interesting to read about the fisherman culture (the oyster folks and then Joe Pasternack). I'm looking forward to the fiction section!

My favorite cartoon is the one where the man is sitting at the dinner table in front of a place setting with his dog, and when the wife arrives home, the dog points to the hubby and says to her, "Thank God you're here! His bowl is empty." LMFAO!

Damn, now I gotta go read some more RIGHT NOW.

Edited January 11, 2008 by The Naughti Literati (log)

[zeffer81]

I knew I was going to like it when I LOVED the introduction--the introduction! What a holiday treat!

[mrsadm]

I got this for Christmas too. Of course I looked at all the cartoons first! I'm just at the section about beefsteaks in New York city, how wierd!

[MaxH]

Amazing! I'm marveling at yet another book with this title -- we just had a thread on the previous one, by Innes, a few months ago. Carrot Top mentioned this newest one in September, and last year's thread on the previous one begins Here. That makes at least three modern popular food books (and I think I remember a fourth) with the same title (Robert's somewhat-classic about ingredients, a modern pioneer in the now-busy genre of food science for general readers, reissued 2001; Innes's appeared at the end of 2005).

Obviously it's a side point from details of the new book, but this title has been used so much now and is so familiar through the other recent books that there's apt to be a little confusion. Again I wonder if reviewers have been pointing it out?

[The Naughti Literati]

I thought I had seen a few books with the same title, as recently as a few weeks ago at B&N Union Square! I guess since The New Yorker is such a heavyweight they weren't concerned with confusion or even creativity when it came to naming the collection because people were going to buy it regardless. I know I was pining for it when I saw the ad in the food issue back in September!

I haven't read anymore lately because I got into Best Food Writing 2007, but am at a Bill Buford piece on oysters. Not all that crazy about them, but the writing is great. I agree, Sherry!

Edited January 16, 2008 by The Naughti Literati (log)

[kiliki]

I LOVED it!! Even the fiction section, and I'm not usually a big fan of the New Yorker short stories. I got it from the library but may need to buy my own copy.

[The Naughti Literati]

NYT article on Beefsteaks!!! I *have* to go to one...the video is making me NUTS!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/dining/3...&pagewanted=all

Edited January 30, 2008 by The Naughti Literati (log)