The Man Who Ate Everything: And Other Gastronomic Feats, Disputes, and Pleasurable Pursuits - Hardcover

Jeffrey Steingarten

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679430881 ISBN 13: 9780679430889

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997

Synopsis

Funny, outrageous, passionate, and unrelenting, Vogue's food writer, Jeffrey Steingarten, will stop at nothing, as he makes clear in these forty delectable pieces.

Whether he is in search of a foolproof formula for sourdough bread (made from wild yeast, of course) or the most sublime French fries (the secret: cooking them in horse fat) or the perfect piecrust (Fannie Farmer--that is, Marion Cunningham--comes to the rescue), he will go to any length to find the answer.

At the drop of an apron he hops a plane to Japan to taste Wagyu, the hand-massaged beef, or to Palermo to scale Mount Etna to uncover the origins of ice cream. The love of choucroute takes him to Alsace, the scent of truffles to the Piedmont, the sizzle of ribs on the grill to Memphis to judge a barbecue contest, and both the unassuming and the haute cuisines of Paris demand his frequent assessment.

Inevitably these pleasurable pursuits take their toll. So we endure with him a week at a fat farm and commiserate over low-fat products and dreary diet cookbooks to bring down the scales. But salvation is at hand when the French Paradox (how can they eat so richly and live so long?) is unearthed, and a "miraculous" new fat substitute, Olestra, is unveiled, allowing a plump gourmand to have his fill of fat without getting fatter.

Here is the man who ate everything and lived to tell about it. And we, his readers, are hereby invited to the feast in this delightful book.

About this title

Review:

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.

About the Author:

Jeffrey Steingarten trained to become a food writer at Harvard College, Harvard Law School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard Lampoon. For the past eight years he has been the internationally feared and acclaimed food critic of Vogue magazine. Recently he has also become the food correspondent for the on-line magazine Slate. For essays in this collection, Mr. Steingarten has won countless awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. On Bastille Day, 1994, the French Republic made him a Chevalier in the Order of Merit for his writing on French gastronomy. As the man who ate everything, Chevalier Steingarten has no favorite food, color, or song. His preferred eating destinations, however, are Memphis, Paris, Alba, Chengdu--and his loft in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679430881
• ISBN 13: 9780679430889
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 514
• Illustrator: Karin Kretschmann