What food-related books are you reading? (2016 -)

[liuzhou]

A couple of days ago, I was searching for a reference to something and vaguely recalled it was in Fuchsia Dunlop's "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China. It wasn't, but I idly started re-reading it and before I knew what had happened I'd read the whole thing again.

Edited July 12, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[ProfessionalHobbit]

Miriam's Kitchen:  https://www.amazon.com/Miriams-Kitchen-Memoir-Elizabeth-Ehrlich/dp/014026759X

 

There's also Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine by Lidia Bastianich:  https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_24?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=lidia's+mastering+the+art+of+italian+cuisine&sprefix=lidia's+mastering+the+art+of+italian+cuisine%2Cstripbooks%2C293

 

and Inside the California Food Revolution by Joyce Goldstein:  https://www.amazon.com/Inside-California-Food-Revolution-Consciousness/dp/0520268199  

 

Just finished a biography of Julia Child.

[DianaB]

Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Consider-Fork-History-How-Cook/dp/0141049081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469791090&sr=8-1&keywords=consider+the+fork

 

An account of kitchens and their equipment through the centuries taking a kind of global approach (I particularly enjoyed the section on knives that spoke of cultural differences between China and Europe, would be interested to know if it is accurate but haven't consulted further as yet). The book gets less informative as it continues, almost as if the author gave up as a deadline approached.  Worth a read though in my view unless you are already knowledgeable in the subjects.  More images would have been welcome but many items discussed can be found online.

[Anna N]

Just started reading "Work Clean" by Dan Charnas.  The author takes the concept of mise en place  and builds a philosophy of life and work around it using examples from cooking schools, restaurants and well-known chefs.  

 

"That mise-en-place might be useful outside the kitchen, and that the chef’s philosophy of working might be as nourishing to our minds as the chef’s food is to our bodies—those ideas are why this book exists."

[kayb]

I have done something I don't like to do -- gotten a cookbook I really wanted, on my kindle. I find it not friendly for browsing/looking at recipes, and I just prefer to have hard-copy cookbooks. But when a discount book "deal-finder" to which I subscribe offered me French Country Cooking, by Francoise Branget, for $1.99, I couldn't resist. The first few electronic pages have me contemplating ordering the dead-tree edition.

 

 

[Anna N]

I am now so accustomed to reading ALL my books on a Kindle that I have no patience whatever with hard copies. They are too heavy, have no lookup features, fall over if you stack them, can never be found when you really, really need them (like in the grocery store) etc. etc.  Vive la difference. But I still get tempted and buy a few hard copies only to try and get the Kindle version if I really like them. 

 

I am trying to read "What Katie Ate on Weekends" and "Falling Cloudberries" in hard copy but finding it a tough row to hoe. 

[kayb]

I will confess I do find it tough when I can't increase the text size.

 

[gfron1]

Food to me, I'm now reading Oak: The Frame of Civilization

Edited August 7, 2016 by gfron1 (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

Found last night at my favorite used bookstore.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2016 by FrogPrincesse
Removed unnecessary spaces (log)

[Okanagancook]

I will be interested about what you think of Taste.  I lost interest after the first 100 pages.  Too repetitive and no real info.  However you will love Culinary!

[FrogPrincesse]

6 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

I will be interested about what you think of Taste.  I lost interest after the first 100 pages.  Too repetitive and no real info.

So far so good! I am at page 43.

 

Have you done any of the experiments from the book? They look like fun.

 

[Okanagancook]

No I have not.  My DH unfortunately isn't into food/etc as much as me.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I read Taste and enjoyed it.  Have not read (nor even seen, which is odd since I work in a library that loves to purchase food related books) Culinary Arts.

 

[FrogPrincesse]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I read Taste and enjoyed it.  Have not read (nor even seen, which is odd since I work in a library that loves to purchase food related books) Culinary Arts.

 

Culinary Artistry is the exact title. I believe a few other eG members have it. I have The Flavor Bible by the same authors, a more recent book that has some overlap based on what I read, but a different scope overall.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 11:39 AM, gfron1 said:

Just got Real Food Fake Food by Larry Olmsted after hearing his NPR interview. Really looking forward to being discouraged.

 

Reading it now:  "Legend also has it that Hannibal stopped his famed road trip over the Alps to fill his stomach with Parma ham a thousand years ago."

 

I take it the author is not classically educated.

 

[Lisa Shock]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Reading it now:  "Legend also has it that Hannibal stopped his famed road trip over the Alps to fill his stomach with Parma ham a thousand years ago."

 

I take it the author is not classically educated.

 

 

wow, just wow...that's beyond ROTFL...

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Reading it now:  "Legend also has it that Hannibal stopped his famed road trip over the Alps to fill his stomach with Parma ham a thousand years ago."

 

I take it the author is not classically educated.

 

Or is he pointing out (or going on to point out) how misinformed the legend is? If he had missed out the first five words, I would agree with you. But he isn't saying what Hannibal did. He is saying what the legend says.

But I've never read his book and I'm not going to judge on one out of context sentence.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

On 5/23/2016 at 3:11 PM, ElainaA said:

For a dime, I could not resist this

 

For those of us who might not be able to find the actual print copy, here is a very amusing website: The Gallery of Regrettable Foods. I believe it is by the author of ElainaA's book. Here is a sample page. Certainly not high-brow, like many of you have posted, but I can guarantee it's interesting, revolting, and you will get a laugh out of it. 

Edited August 20, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

21 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

Or is he pointing out (or going on to point out) how misinformed the legend is? If he had missed out the first five words, I would agree with you. But he isn't saying what Hannibal did. He is saying what the legend says.

But I've never read his book and I'm not going to judge on one out of context sentence.

 

He is illustrating the antiquity of Parma ham.

 

[liuzhou]

31 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

He is illustrating the antiquity of Parma ham.

 

 

I see. Still doesn't mean he isn't merely quoting a legend rather than getting his facts wrong.

Some types of prosciutto were produced in Roman times and probably before, predecessors of what we today know as Parma ham, even.

I still see no reason to take his mention of the legend as demonstrating any lack of education. If indeed Hannibal did come to what is now Italy looking for a good deli, he was 1000 years before the legend's timing, making the Parma even older.

Sorry, maybe I'm missing your point.

Edited August 21, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Not to belabor it but my point is simply that the book's author and editor screwed up.  I can well believe there is a legend Hannibal sampled Parma ham.  That there exists a legend he did so within the last thousand years strains credulity, as actor Geoffrey Rush might say.

 

Now a question is did Hannibal sample real Parma ham or fake Parma ham?  More interesting from a cultural culinary perspective is would Hannibal -- a Semite and (from his name) a devotee of Baal -- have tasted pork at all?  Several sources suggest eating of pig meat was proscribed to the Phoenicians.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Progressing further in Real Food Fake Food we come to Burgundy.  Many a fine liter and a half of Gallo Hearty Burgundy have I enjoyed in my time.  Digging a bit further down the closet I could find half century Romanee-Conti.  Would anyone on eGullet (or off) confuse the two?  Really?  The author's position is preposterous.

 

Now when it comes to counterfeit fish that requires DNA analysis to sort out the book's argument bears more weight.

 

 

[liuzhou]

13 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

The author's position is preposterous.

 

What is the author's position?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Sorry, the author's position is that it's fraudulent to call any wine Burgundy that's not from the Burgundy wine district of France.  I learned from Wikipedia that Burgundy can refer to an area from the low countries to the Mediterranean.

 

Burgundy is also the color of at least some types of wine.

 

 

[liuzhou]

50 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Sorry, the author's position is that it's fraudulent to call any wine Burgundy that's not from the Burgundy wine district of France.  

Why is that preposterous?

 

50 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I learned from Wikipedia that Burgundy can refer to an area from the low countries to the Mediterranean.

The Wikipedia (fount of all truth) entry that you learned from says that "Historically, "Burgundy" has referred to ... territory from the Mediterranean to the Low Countries." Historically. It certainly doesn't today, nor has it for a long time.

If you read on it says " Today, Burgundy is made up of the following old provinces: "

Not that I trust Wikipedia on anything.

Edited August 22, 2016 by liuzhou (log)