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 enlarge | Creator: Molly O'neill
Publisher: Library of America
Category: Book
List Price: $40.00
Buy New: $16.81
You Save: $23.19 (58%)
New (40) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $14.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 236919
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 775
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 1598530054
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5
EAN: 9781598530056
ASIN: 1598530054
Publication Date: April 19, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New Publisher's Overstock! May have a small remainder mark. We provide delivery confirmation emails that includes tracking numbers on all domestic orders.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Comfort Food for Thought September 11, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
These essays are witty and informative -- an unintended cultural history of our national relationship with our collective palates. I read a number of them aloud to my partner while he did the driving on an extended automobile trip.
I have only two quibbles with Molly O'Neill's selections: First, she didn't include anything from her own Memoir, "Mostly True," which was not only hilarious in places but reveals her substantial culinary and writing talents. Second, she didn't include a selection from Robert Farrar Capon's "The Supper of the Lamb" -- a small cookbook with reminiscences, published in the 1970s and probably out of print by now.
I should add that I bought this particular copy of "American Food Writing" as a gift because I liked it so much.
--Catherine Carl Wakelyn
An Interesting Anthology August 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have not completed reading this book. That is part of its virtue. One can pick it up and read enjoyably for 10 or 15 minutes at a stretch because the samples/chapters are quite short- many in the 3 to 5 page range. I know that I will finish reading it eventually, because the writing as well as the topics are so interesting. One gets a feel for earlier times when reading the initial chapters. I found it fascinating that in the 1830's (if I am remembering the decade correctly) that members of a wealthy family living in Philadelphia and New Orleans would ship foodstuffs, e.g, oranges, to each other between the two cities. If you are a foodie, like good writing, and are interested in history, you will enjoy this book.
 Too Much Gristle July 30, 2007
16 out of 21 found this review helpful
I was so sure I would love this book that I bought it brand new, sight unseen. Library of America, Molly O'Neill, over 700 pages of food writing. How could it miss?
After slogging throught the first 300 pages (the book is chronologically arranged), I finally came to the modern era of food writing. Many of my favorites were here: Nora Ephron, Julia Child, Calvin Trillin, David Sedaris. From here on in, the selections are more interesting, if uneven. I guess it's a matter of taste, but of all the extreme adventures Ruth Reichl wrote of in her marvelous Garlic & Sapphires, the sushi restaurant chapter didn't strike me as the one to pick. The consecutive pieces on Craig Claibornes' $4,000 meal in Paris followed by Russell Baker's parody of it are classic and so is David Sedaris's menu essay. But I wonder if Michael Pollan's food writing will hold up over time. I must admit I couldn't make my way through much of his book, Omnivore's Dilemma, from which a chapter is excerpted for this collection. It's just so darned earnest.
But my main gripe about American Food Writing is the writing that wasn't there. In a book of American Food Writing that makes room for writers remembering food from the old country, why is there nothing at all from the most American food writers of all, Jane and Michael Stern? Is there any food more American than diner food? And how about those other very American food pastimes, the hot dog eating contest (or pie eating contest or twinkie eating contest, etc.) and the chili cookoff? Amy Sutherland has an excellent book on cookoffs that might have provided an entertaining chapter. What about food blogs - Julie Powell, for instance?
There have been some great books of food writing recently like Julia Child's My Life in France, Jane and Michael Stern's Two for the Road, and David Kamp's The United States of Arugula. And the annual Best Food Writing edited by Holly Hughes hasn't let me down yet.
 Good Idea, Mediocre Execution July 26, 2007
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
It would be wonderful to have a book of THE best food writing, but this isn't it. Typical examples of disappoitment: a selection from Hawthorne on gardening that anyone could have written; and, bad choices for authors who are food specialists. Why not print Calvin Trillin's classic on barbeque ribs, not just a randomly picked piece of junk. Some major genres and writers are missing entirely. Where are the Sterns on roadfood? This compilation is just a smattering of the author's favorites I guess, but it doesn't belong in a classic set such as the Library of America. I plan to resell this on eBay to get my money back.
"FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!" July 8, 2007
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
"Food, glorious food! Eat right through the menu." Readers will be tempted to follow that lyrical advice when they discover the mouth-watering recipes in American Food Writing, a veritable historic and cultural feast that traces our love affair with food from Thomas Jefferson's favorite ice cream to Michael Pollen's comments on the upsurge of interest in organic foods.
Charles Ranhofer (1836 - 1899) was the chef at Delmonico's in New York City for some 30 years. If anyone could describe how to serve an epicurean feast he could and did. Thoreau, of course, had quite different ideas about our daily bread, we read: "I learned from my two years experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food.....that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength."
Not every man's idea of dinner, I imagine.
Jade Snow Wong (1922 - 2006) gives instruction on how to shop on a budget for the very best in meat and produce, and how to cook rice. One of my favorite entries is Julia Child's reminiscence about her television series. However, picking favorite isn't an easy task in this 784 page volume that holds among others praise of the oyster by M.F.K. fisher, and William Styron's delight in Southern Fried Chicken.
Laced throughout this volume are comments by notable chefs, critics, and home cooks plus 50 recipes, both vintage and modern. Seldom has food been discussed so thoroughly and invitingly as it is in American Food Writing.
Highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
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