The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.86 You Save: $12.09 (71%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.35 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Man Who Ate Everything
Book Review: The Omnivore's Specialist
Summary: 5 Stars
Jeffrey Steingarten is the grumpy judge on Iron Chef America. It was in the chocolate challenge of an episode a couple of years ago, when he said he would give all his points to the chef who could just made a perfect chocolate ice cream, that I understood him. I get you, Jeffrey Steingarten! I even wonder if the falderal of the show embarrasses him a little, though he sometimes says very nice things about the improbable concoctions put in front of him. I call into the other room to my husband, "I think this one's going to win. The grumpy guy likes his food better." And my husband comes in to see this for himself.
Mr. Steingarten has an imperturbable gravitas on the panel, and does deliver his opinions ungarnished with self-deprecation, which tends to rub third-tier show biz types the wrong way. When a former Dancing With the Stars actress rounds on him hotly because he doesn't like something she thinks is wonderful, he takes it with the placid aplomb of an English Mastiff accosted by an anxious Pomerianian. He isn't arrogant. I know that because I have now read his book. A man is not arrogant who buys ten orders of MacDonald's French fries to try out 33 kinds of ketchup. Then confesses it was too much food and he and his wife got mixed up. And in the end decides their favorite ketchup might not be the spiciest, but with fries, "a marriage made in heaven." If he acts as if he knows he's right, it's because he knows he's right. How can you not like a know-all who goes to all that trouble to be sure?
The Man Who Ate Everything is a collection of essays packed with his musings, research, recipes, and travels in quest of culinary perfection. His thing is to search out the experts and recipes, then do it at home. But, "Cesare [his Italian informant] never warned me about making pasta near an open drawer," after his crater of flour was breached and twenty egg yolks surged across the table "like molten lava rolling over a Hawaiian housing development," into the silverware drawer. Cooking methods are detailed and the physics behind certain techniques are explained. What an interdisciplinist he is, if that's a word. I appreciated the history lessons, as well as the attention to biology (I am a wildlife ecologist). He reasonably concludes that food phobias make no sense, because we are omnivores, and gets rid of most of his through determined exposure to the hated items, because he wants to be a fair and liberal food critic who eats everything.
He can't write without being funny, but beneath it he's always serious. Mr. Steingarten gets it right about plants' making poisons, and why. Boil that spinach and throw away the water, People. He is also right that we have been hoodwinked into believing that all fat is bad. Some Americans are begining to get it now, since publication of his book, but I notice the dairy section of my grocery store is still loaded with awful Fat Free substitutes for real cheese, real sour cream, real half-and-half (half of what and what?); and the number of crappy Fat Free salad dressings still crowding the shelves is depressing. I was loading my cart with avocados when a woman next to me sighed and said she loves avocados, too, but (as if surprised I was still alive), "All those fatty acids!" The section Why Aren't the French Dropping Like Flies? should be required reading for anyone with a family history of heart disease.
There's a lot of fun here. He goes on a new French diet that was then all the rage (Atkins, South Beach, etc. were later knock-offs), loses 7 lbs after a month of hilarious obsessing about the number on the scales (he purchases three for comparison), but remains lovably unconverted and returns to "pies, pierogi, pistachios, pizza, popcorn potatoes, puff pastry--and that only covers the P's." He enrolls in waiters school and learns how to trick people into spending more than they intended. He travels to Memphis to judge a barbecue competition and is so in love with the winning ribs that he brings some home, and stoically stops himself from devouring them all before his wife comes home from work--his sensuous description of the meat should be rated PG-13, at least.
Just a couple of minor complaints. Keep portion size small. I was skipping around and had already read a lot--too much, I guess--by the time I got to Primal Bread. I should be interested in this. I actually kept starter once. My donor just waved her hands when I asked where she got it. "Oh, the yeasts just naturally occur, you know. Every kitchen has them." Now I see why it never tasted very good. But my eyes were glazing over and I put the book down. He says I have been making mashed potatoes the wrong way, with Grandmom's hand masher. But in my defense, Mr. Steingarten's way is not to mash them at all, so I think he shouldn't call them mashed. But I can't wait to try his ketchup recipe.
I keep very few books. But this one, I will. I already ordered It Must Have Been Something I Ate, and I wish there were others. The Man Who Ate Everything is funny, intelligent, informed. Just like Mr. Steingarten.
Book Review: I'd actually send this man fan mail...
Summary: 5 Stars
and I would NEVER send anyone fan mail.I'm afraid that my review of this book will be a complete cliche - ie. I couldn't put it down, I didn't want it to end, I laughed, I cried, I gained 10 pounds etc.
I found Steingarten to be insightful, hilarious, sarcastic and delightfully neurotic. I now realize the joy I missed over the years by not being an avid Vogue reader. I can't believe it took this long for my first exposure to such exquisite food writing.
I CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE TOLD ME TO READ THIS BOOK UNTIL NOW!
As a (relatively) young person, who has recently discovered the joys of "that which is edible" - I found this book to be as informative as it was entertaining. Many of the topics that Steingarten explores were more relevant to my own culinary exploits and interests than I could have hoped. Despite the fact that I do not have the same resources and colleagues that would allow one to travel as far and wide as I'd like(and as he does), Steingarten manages to truly take the reader with him as he travels, while simultaneously making it possible for the young (or older) homebound gastronome to relate.
I will forevermore approach the subject of food as influenced by Jeffrey Steingarten. I will cook every recipe in his book. I will travel to eat. And most of all, I will overcome my food aversions (especially if stranded on a desert island and everything I would normally eat has run out).
Although I LOVED this book - I had trouble reading it without a break - since these are drawn from his monthly writing, it IS a big dose of food writing, but I took a night off and finished it with no problem.
Hope y'all like it!
Book Review: Steingarten is great on food, hit-and-miss on diet
Summary: 5 Stars
I had a mostly love, slightly hate relationship with this book. If you cut out the middle few chapters, dealing with diet and nutrition, I think it would be an easy 5 stars. As it stands it's a 4.5, rounded up.
Steingarten's writing is witty, insightful and very entertaining. His food essays are uniquely charming in that he often approaches the subject as at best a novice, and shares his (sometimes disastrous) learning experiences with the reader. His love of food shines through brilliantly in the writing; his descriptions of dishes, ingredients and techniques occasionally caused me to actually salivate, a neat trick in an all-text medium.
The breadth of topics covered is phenomenal. While he is a New York, NY foodie and that obviously colors his writing and tastes somewhat, he's nowhere near as NY/Paris-centric as many food writers from those locales are. He runs the gamut from unusual foreign cuisines to American classics to rural European local specialties. All topics are approached with the same keen palate and enthusiasm.
Steingarten only gets into trouble when he ventures into the more nutritional and social aspects of food consumption. While these are certainly incredibly important topics, his casual investigations into dietary fads, questionable eating habits and urban legends about the health effects of food felt weakly researched and myopic. While they were occasionally entertaining, they just didn't feel essential or worthy of inclusion in an otherwise outstanding collection.
Overall, highly recommended for anyone interested in food!
Book Review: Great Fun - Gastronomic Gusto
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is hysterically funny and informative at the same time. The chapter on Salad the Silent Killer cracked me up. I will read this one again. Whole sections had to be read aloud, just because they were so funny. When Jeffrey Steingarten was made food critic of Vogue in 1989, he began by systematically learning to like all the food he had previously avoided. From clams to Greek food to Indian desserts with the consistency of face cream, Steingarten undertook an extraordinary program of self-inflicted behavior modification to prepare himself for his new career. He describes the experience in this collection's first piece, before setting out on a series of culinary adventures that take him around the world.
It's clear that Vogue gave Steingarten carte blanche to write on whatever subjects tickled his taste buds, and the result is a frequently hilarious collection of essays that emphasize good eating over an obsession with health. "Salad, the Silent Killer" is a catalog of the toxins lurking in every bowl of raw vegetables, while "Fries" follows a heroic attempt to create the perfect French fry--cooked in horse fat.
Whether baking sourdough bread in his Manhattan loft or spraying miso soup across a Kyoto restaurant, Steingarten is an ideal guide to the wilder reaches of gastronomy, a cross between M.F.K. Fisher and H.L. Mencken.
Book Review: Destroys the "food scolds" with truth and humor
Summary: 5 Stars
A very refreshing look at the way the food police are trying to control what we eat through fear and intimidation.For instance, his coverage on saturated fats, salt, and sugar provide the only sane view of the subject that I've seen (the sane view does include, of course, Julia Child).
The "foodie" parts are very well done, and I compare him very favorably with the writers I'm familiar with in the foodie magazines like Saveur and Gourmet. He is willing to treat the subject with fewer hushed tones (such as dining in Japan) than the gee whiz crowd.
The humor is fun, especially now that I noted in the credits that he wrote for the Lampoon. It shows. Food is too important a subject to take too extremely seriously.
The usual biases show through, such as his living in New York City, but he dishes it out with great humor and a willingness to travel to some of the truly important food places in the world and the US.
If you care about what you eat, this is a great read.