A witty and sumptuous pantry-level look at the struggle to create an American cuisine. Brenner (The Art of the Cocktail Party, not reviewed) is no mere foodie but a solid cultural historian who attacks, with hilarity, early American hunting and gathering—that is, the long period before celebrity chefs, restaurants too good to get into, and the Food Network. Puritan antipathy to pleasure and an antiseptic fear of disease made icons of Campbell’s soup, tasteless but convenient iceberg lettuce, and Crisco oil, Brenner writes. “The American housewife had been thoroughly persuaded, by this point [the 1950s] that cooking was a drag; new convenience foods offered a no-muss, no-fuss solution.” The Los Angeles of the author’s childhood was “a culinary wasteland” of shrink-wrapped meats in ketchup with perfect, flavorless fruits and vegetables, though the youthful Brenner found it “fun” to put chicken drumsticks in a lunchbag for Shake ‘n’ Bake or to indulge in the “vaguely chemical aftertaste” of Reddi-Whip. The first shot in the American culinary revolution, she asserts, was fired with the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, co-authored by Julia Child (later our first TV cook). The uprising took half a century to do in Betty Crocker, but the new taste for things French eased the nation’s xenophobia regarding foreign foods. In the decades of border-crossing that followed, Americans tried Polynesian, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, and, after a while, any cuisine indecipherable enough to be exotic. Today, notes Brenner, chic food art, celebrity chefs, and trendy patrons are so important that we must wonder if people go to hot restaurants “to enjoy the food or tell about it later.” Does such media-mixing add up to a true American cuisine?, Brenner ringingly says yes, citing regional successes like California wines, Maine lobster, and Pacific Rim cooking. Even dieters will be unable to resist this gourmet repast on American culture.
Pub Date: April 6, 1999
ISBN: 0-380-97336-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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