Description
Book SynopsisOffers a sampling from the pages of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture - including essays, poetry, interviews, memoirs, and a selection of the artwork that has made Gastronomica so distinctive. This book investigates topics from early hominid cooking to Third Reich caterers to the Shiite clergy.
Trade Review"A volume to browse and absorb." New York Times "This volume should absorb anyone with an appetite for unconventional food writing." STARRED REVIEW Publishers Weekly "It is easy to get quickly drawn in and once you do, it is difficult to put this book down." -- Andrea Rappaport San Francisco Book Review "Delights in manners ranging from the poetic to the political." Bookforum "The gloriously illustrated Gastronomica reader is a every bit as good as it looks." Times Literary Supplement (TLS)
Table of Contents Contents
Editor’s Introduction
appetites
Women Who Eat Dirt | Susan Allport
Badlands: Portrait of a Competitive Eater | John O’Connor
“Don’t Eat That”: The Erotics of Abstinence in American Christianity | R. Marie Griffith
A Shallot | Richard Wilbur
the family table
Delicacy | Paul Russell
The Unbearable Lightness of Wartime Cuisine | A. Marin
One Year and a Day: A Recipe for Gumbo and Mourning | James Nolan
The Prize Inside | Toni Mirosevich
Messages in a Bottle | Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
dinner, 1933 | Charles Bukowski
social constructs
Otto Horcher, Caterer to the Third Reich | Giles MacDonogh
The Cooking Ape: An Interview with Richard Wrangham | Elisabeth Townsend
How Caviar Turned Out to Be Halal | H. E. Chehabi
“La grande bouffe”: Cooking Shows as Pornography | Andrew Chan
Recipe for S&M Marmalade | Judith Pacht
the art of food
Man Ray’s Electricité | Stefanie Spray Jandl
Food + Clothing = | Robert Kushner
Vik Muniz’s Ten Ten’s Weed Necklace | Vanessa Silberman
Zhan Wang: Urban Landscape | John Stomberg
The First Still Life | Lawrence Raab
personal journeys
Waiting for a Cappuccino: A Brief Layover along the Spice Trail | Carolyn Thériault
Include Me Out | Fred Chappell
Evacuation Day, or A Foodie Is Bummed Out | Merry White
Ripe Peach | Louise Glück
how others eat
My McDonald’s | Constantin Boym
Great Apes as Food | Dale Peterson
The Bengali Bonti | Chitrita Banerji
The Best “Chink” Food: Dog Eating and the Dilemma of Diversity | Frank H. Wu
close to the earth
Organic in Mexico: A Conversation with Diana Kennedy | L. Peat O’Neil
Mr. Clarence Jones, Carolina Rice Farmer | Jennie Ashlock
“GM or Death”: Food and Choice in Zambia | Christopher M. Annear
Wine, Place, and Identity in a Changing Climate | Robert Pincus
Episode with a Potato | Eric Ormsby
technologies
A Plea for Culinary Modernism: Why We Should Love New, Fast, Processed Food | Rachel Laudan
The Patented Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich: Food as Intellectual Property | Anna M. Shih
The Clockwork Roasting Jack, or How Technology Entered the Kitchen | Jeanne Schinto
Grinding Away the Rust: The Legacy of Iceland’s Herring Oil and Meal Factories | Chris Bogan
pleasures of the past
A la recherche de la tomate perdue: The First French Tomato Recipe? | Barbara Santich
The Egg Cream Racket | Andrew Coe
Frightening the Game | Charles Perry
Alkermes: “A Liqueur of Prodigious Strength” | Amy Butler Greenfield
Food for Thought | Eamon Grennan
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Illustration Credits
