Last Chance to Eat: ; The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World

A witty and vividly remembered culinary memoir about how eating once was, and still can be, a joy.

Food has never been more exalted as part of a lifestyle, yet fewer and fewer people really know what good food is. Drawing on enough culinary experiences to fill several lifetimes, Gina Mallet's irreverent memoir combines recollections of meals and their milieus with recipes and tasting tips. In loving detail, Last Chance to Eat muses on the fates of foods that were once the stuff of feasts: light, fluffy eggs; rich cheeses; fresh meat; garden vegetables; and fish just hauled ashore. Mallet's gastronomic adventures appeal to any palate: from finding the perfect grilled cheese ("as delicate tasting as any Escoffier recipe") to combing the bustling food department at postwar Harrod's for the makings of "an Elizabeth David meal." The search for taste often takes her far from the beaten path―to an underground "chevaline" restaurant serving horsemeat steaks and to purveyors of contraband Epoisses, for instance―but the journey is always a delight.

Gina Mallet, a writer living in Toronto, was a theater critic for the Toronto Star and now writes about food for the National Post.