Thursday, May 10, 2012

Book Review - The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat - Thomas McNamee

Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance: The Turbulent Life and Fine Times of the Man Who Changed the Way We Eat
Title:    The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat

Author:  Thomas McNamee

Review: If you love to eat this is the book for you.  I love food, especially good food that is homemade and tasty.  Fast-food is not a favorite of mine and store bought items taste store bought and processed.  I love making food from scratch and trying different and new recipes all the time.  So reading about food that is incredible and expensive makes my mouth water.  Yum this book describes Craig Clairborne’s job as a food critic for the New York Times, food is central to this book along with Craig’s life.

Craig had quite a life and this book goes into extreme detail about his problems, adventures and triumphs.  I enjoyed the part about the people and relationships in his life and the celebrities he worked with and met along the way.  His life was magical at times and mediocre at others.  His health was a major issue later in life and maybe all the eating and drinking wasn’t the best for him.  But the way he led his professional life really did change the way we eat now.  Look at the Food Network and the celebrity chef’s we watch on other networks.   Who doesn't love Iron Chef?  Cooking and eating is more about the relationships we cook with and for then about the food.
We all love to eat…look at your waist-line if you don’t believe me.  Food is central in most of our lives.  Family dinner, holiday parties, celebration dinners, wedding receptions and much more revolve around food.   This book is an interesting look at the one life that changed the way we think and eat.
Publisher:  Expected publication: May 8th 2012 by Free Press

Copyright: 2012

Pages:  320

ISBN:    9781439191507

Quick Review: 4 Stars out of 5. 

Where Did I Read the Book:  Sent by the publisher for review.

Synopsis:   From the bestselling author of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse comes the first biography of the father of the American food revolution, who introduced the world to the likes of Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, and Alice Waters. From his first day on the job as the New York Times food critic, Craig Claiborne excited readers by introducing them to food worlds unknown, from initiating them in the standards of the finest French cuisine and the tantalizing joys of the then mostly unknown foods of India, China, Mexico, Spain, to extolling the pleasures of “exotic” ingredients like arugula, and praising “newfangled” tools like the Cuisinart, which once he’d given his stamp of approval became wildly popular. A good review of a restaurant guaranteed a full house for weeks, while a bad review might close a kitchen down.      Based on unprecedented access to Claiborne’s personal papers and interviews with a host of food world royalty, including Jacques Pepin, Gael Greene, and Alice Waters, Tom McNamee offers a lively and vivid account of Claiborne’s extraordinary adventure in food, from his own awakening in the bistros of Paris, to his legendary wine-soaked dinner parties, to his travels to colorful locals from Morocco to Saigon, and the infamous $4,000 dinner he shared in Paris with French chef Pierre Franey that made front-page news. More than an engrossing biography, this is the story of the country’s transition from enchantment with frozen TV dinners to a new consciousness of truly good cooking.
Author Biography: I was born in 1947 in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up there and in New York City. I studied writing at Yale under the tutelage of Robert Penn Warren. I graduated in 1969.

I am the author of The Grizzly Bear (Knopf, 1984), Nature First: Keeping Our Wild Places and Wild Creatures Wild (Roberts Rinehart, 1987), A Story of Deep Delight (Viking, 1990), The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone (Henry Holt, 1997), and Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (Penguin Press, 2007).

My essays, poems, and natural history writing have been published in Audubon, The New Yorker, Life, Natural History, High Country News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Saveur, and a number of literary journals. I wrote the documentary film Alexander Calder, which was broadcast on the PBS “American Masters” series in June 1998 and received both a George W. Peabody Award and an Emmy. Many of my book reviews have appeared The New York Times Book Review.

I have served as a member of the board of directors and as president of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition; as a trustee of Rare Conservation; and as a difrector of the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, which operates the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market in San Francisco.

I live in San Francisco.

Other Reviews:
Bookreporter
Kirkus
PW

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