The Man Who Ate Everything : Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Food, but Were Afraid to Ask - Softcover

Jeffrey Steingarten

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747260974 ISBN 13: 9780747260974

Publisher: Review, 1999

Synopsis

Jeffrey Steingarten is to food writing what Bill Bryson is to travel writing. Whether he is hymning the joys of the perfect chip, discussing the taste of beef produced from Japanese cows which are massaged daily and fed on sake, or telling us the scientific reasons why salad is a 'silent killer', his humour and his love of good food never fail. The questions he asks (like 'Why aren't the French dropping like flies?') will challenge everything you assume you know about what you eat, yet his characteristic wit imparts masses of revelatory information in the most palatable of ways. A must for everyone who's ever enjoyed a meal - this book contains everything you ever wanted to know about food, but were too hungry to ask...

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.

From the Inside Flap:

geous, 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

About this edition

• Publisher: Review
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0747260974
• ISBN 13: 9780747260974
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384