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| Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink | 
 enlarge | Creator: David Remnick
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.18
You Save: $12.82 (43%)
New (51) Used (10) Collectible (2) from $17.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 1717
Format: Illustrated
Media: Hardcover
Edition: illustrated edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 582
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 140006547X
Dewey Decimal Number: 809.933559
EAN: 9781400065479
ASIN: 140006547X
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 11-12 of 12 | | « PREV | | |
A marvelous book for my climbing machine December 25, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a great lineup:
Woody Allen on dieting the Dostoevsky way.
John Cheever on the sorrows of gin.
Don DeLillo on Jell-O.
Steve Martin on menu mores.
Alice McDermott on sex and ice cream.
Joseph Mitchell on beefsteak clubs of New York.
Dorothy Parker on dinner conversation.
Calvin Trillin on the "magic" bagel.
Nora Ephron on a hot pastrami sandwich.
Calvin Tomkins on Julia Child.
Malcolm Gladwell on ketchup.
M.F.K. Fisher on tripe.
Roald Dahl's "Taste" is here, with its story of a keen eyed maid and a wine lover with doubtful ethics, able to toss off some excellent tasting notes:
"A prudent wine, rather diffident and evasive, but quite prudent.
"A good humoured wine, benevolent and cheerful - slightly obscene, perhaps, but nonetheless good humoured.
"A very interesting little wine - gentle and gracious, almost feminine in the after taste."
Interspersed are delightful, funny, sometimes baffling cartoons, typical of "The New Yorker's" taste.
Trillin has a fascinating piece about the history of chicken wings; here's a short extract, a nibble of the delights on offer:
"About two years ago, a Buffalo stockbroker named Robert M. Budin wrote a piece for the Courier-Express Sunday magazine suggesting, in a light-hearted way, that the city adopt the chicken wing as its symbol. Budin's piece begins with two Buffalonians discussing what had happened when one of them was at a party in Memphis and was asked by a local where he was from. Deciding to "take him face on," the visiting Buffalonian had said, "I'm from Buffalo." Instead of asking if the snow had melted yet, the local had said, "Where those dynamite chicken wings come from?"
"You mean positive recognition?" the friend who is hearing the story asks. It becomes obvious to the two of them that Buffalonians should "mount a campaign to associate Buffalo with chicken wings and rid ourselves of the negatives of snow and cold and the misunderstood beef-on-weck." Budin suggested that the basketball team be called the Buffalo Wings, that the mayor begin wearing a button that says "Do Your Thing with Wings," and that a huge statue of a chicken wing (medium hot) be placed in the convention Center."
An absolutely delightful banquet for anyone with the least interest in food.
Robert C. Ross 2007 2008
A feast for the intellectual palate. December 10, 2007
104 out of 107 found this review helpful
I notice that this hasn't been reviewed yet so I had to come on here and say something...I've had this book for a few weeks now, right after it was released. I've been slowly savoring each piece and because it is over 600 pages, it will fill you for months to come.
This is the best food writing and cartoons from the past 70 years or so from the magazine, what can be better? There are several different sections to enjoy with pieces by favorites such as MFK Fisher and Calvin Trillin, including a section of short stories that involve food, and the cartoons make it especially amusing. I am particularly enjoying the food history I may otherwise have been unaware of - a favorite piece of mine is on the tradition of "Beefsteaks", which came before the NY steakhouses. Fascinating stuff! John Seabrook's delicious profile of the Fruit Detective makes you ponder AND miss what you've never had. Another is by John McPhee about an incredible forager named Euell Gibbons with whom he spends a few days living off the land. WOW. To think that the piece, which is almost 40 years old, is way older than me and I wouldn't have read it otherwise or anywhere else just amazes me and brings to mind the quote about writers reaching out to readers across time. It is outstanding.
The sections are entitled Dining Out, Eating In, Fishing and Foraging, Local Delicacies, The Pour, Tastes Funny, Small Plates and Fiction and each has up to ten articles, profiles etc that you will thoroughly enjoy, just like that magazine's food issues!
Highly recommended for a gift, or for yourself. As with any anthology, it is nice to be turned on to other writers' works because you like what you read here. I'm going to check out AJ Liebling's collection of writings along with the other anthologies The New Yorker has to offer.
Excellent reading!!!
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