wow, i have been "reading" this since july. i put it down a bunch and lost it once or twice, but still - it is shameful to have had this darkening my "currently reading" shelf for eight months. shades of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children. but today i finished it!!and it is truly a wonderful book.this man is the anti-foer. if i were ever to read that foer book - the one everyone says will turn me into a cowering meat-avoider, all i would have to do to recover is open this book and read his love letter to southern barbecue, or his swooning over french fries left to rest under chickens roasting suspended above, their succulent juices dripping over the crispy potatoes, or his descriptions of seafood - any seafood at all.this book is such a lovingly recollected tale of his food-journeys and experiments. i completely envy him his job. if he wants to test out this newfangled microwave invention, he goes out and buys a couple, on vogue's dime, and experiments away. if he wants to explore local-food movements, he just jets out to the west coast and eats at the top ten or so restaurants and gorges. he gets to go to all the secret restaurants tucked away deep in the mountains in distant lands that only the truly initiated even know about...and just the quantity of food! the chapter on the choucroute nearly gave me a sympathy stomachache with just how much food he and his wife were consuming. this man could give me a run for my money, appetite-wise. oh, the gluttony - all for his need to find the best food, the best way of preparing food, the best methods and ingredients and which food "facts" are actually fraudulent, for science. when i eat an entire box of girl scout cookies, it is also for science.he is my new favorite food-writer. he is funny and hungry and i am 100% using his stuffing recipe this year for thanksgiving, even though he poo-poohs turkey, which is ridiculous. he has never had my turkey, is all. oh, and i am also going to make this fruitcake recipe. i have never had fruitcake. is that weird? his sounds intense. and i must have it. expect fruitcakes in the mail come holiday time next year.if you have any interest whatsoever in food, apart from using it as fuel to sustain your machine-like body, i suggest you take a look at this book, and prepare to droolnow i am going to get my hands on his follow-up and see how long that one takes me to get through!
"We come into the world with a yen for sweets (new-borns can even distinguish among glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose) and a weak aversion to bitterness, and after four months develop a fondness for salt. Some people are born particularly sensitive to one taste or odor; others have trouble digesting milk sugar or wheat gluten. A tiny fraction of adults, between 1 and 2 percent, have true (and truly dangerous) food allergies. All human cultures consider fur, paper, and hair inappropriate as food. And that's about it. Everything else is learned."The book title made it seem to be about a man, who, well, ate everything, and reading the first chapter, that is what I thought, about how since cultures eat different things, our like or dislike of certain foods are not innate, but learned. If something is learned, then it can be unlearned, meaning that we can eat almost anything. But this introduction seemed to be just one essay, in a book of different food essays by Jeffrey Steingarten, without an underlying theme to them. The title of the book just refers to the first chapter and is not representative of any of the other essays. I think I can compare Jeffrey’s style of writing to Roger Ebert. Like Ebert’s essays on film, Jeffrey has a humorous, non-pretentious approach to writing about food. He has an appreciation for “better” food without being annoyingly snobby or being taken in by fads. His essays on food reflects someone who is in love with it, without any pretention about it. I like how he has a scientific approach to food, with his essays being sometimes different experiments to find out how best to bake bread or the difference of different waters.
Do You like book The Man Who Ate Everything (1998)?
This is a good read, each entry varies in quality. He makes an excellent point in the very beginning about humans being capable of eating anything, so outside of actual allergies, there's nothing that anyone "can't eat"; they're just not willing to try.The travelogue entries are incredibly insightful. The "the science behind things" entries are decent, on average, although some of the points are pointlessly polemic (his rant against salad and uncooked vegetables is certainly full of facts, but seems at odds with other reliable viewpoints). I learned a lot about satiety, the making of bread, and best of all, making pies. I'm trying his apple pie recipe as I write.Since this came out in 1997, I suppose I should see if Jeffrey's updated his views with newer data.
—Larry Wentzel
I first saw Jefffrey Steingarten on the Food Network Show "Iron Chef America" years ago and thought, "What a crusty character he is. They had mentioned that he was a Food Critic for Vanity Fair magazine and had written books. So, I thought I've got to check this guy out. Fascinating how he got into the business and also the trials and tribulations of getting unique foods to cook in his own kitchen. Really enjoyable book I thought and one that entertains and is informative about food critics in general and also living in New York City. A Good Read!
—Bruce Richardson
The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten is a nonfiction book that focuses on Steingarten’s many food experiments. I chose this book because I have a strong interest in food and science. Also the book was similar to a test kitchen type of book, which I liked. The book was mainly fascinating, but had chapters that made me uninterested. Steingarten had many memorable parts in his book such as his wife’s crazy reactions to his food experiments. An Example of his wife’s reaction was when he
—Bliss Phan
