gastronomy

I would never have bought this book if a friend hadn't insisted that I sit down and read at least the first chapter. I like to eat food, not read about it. But Jeffrey Steingarten is a riveting, funny, argumentative, bloshy, emphatic writer. I laughed my way through this. I bought a copy for myself, then went back for two more to give as gifts. A surprising treat. In the beginning Steingarten writes about how he ate his way all the foods he had convinced himself he was repulsed by. And found some of them surprisingly good (others revolting). I would have argued that a book about food by the food critic for Vogue could only be a stuffy, pompous self-satisfied piece of writing. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. If Steingarten was an item of food I'd convinced myself I couldn't possibly like, I must now go back on myself and say, love it, DELICIOUS.

Maybe he didn't really eat "everything;" but Steingarten seems to have come close. Once one gets past Steingarten's gourmand snobbery, this is a highly enjoyable and informative book of chapters, which read more like essays, on different food-related topics. Steingarten mightily challenges fad diets and nutritional myths (like all fat, salt, or alcohol is bad for one's health) with well-researched statistics and information presented in a very humorous fashion. He becomes personally involved with each subject almost to a fault. There are even a few recipes thrown in for good measure. Buy this book and feel good again about eating!

Steingarten combines passion, curiosity, erudition, and his lovely wry writing to make a great food book. His scholarly digging and his willingness to use the scientific method to test things is remarkable (his chapter on water, for example). He also finds some real food curiosities such as the Thompson Turkey.

Anyone who relishes seeing an active, far ranging mind at work will love this book. Great gift book. Easy to read a chapter at a time.