Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue
Author: Lolis Eric Eli
Southern barbecue and barbecue traditions are the primary focus of Cornbread Nation 2, our second collection of the best of southern foodwriting. Among the 40 contributors are John T. Edge, Jessica Harris, Calvin Trillin, and John Martin Taylor. Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Publishers Weekly
The second in a series of annual anthologies, this collection of 40-odd newspaper columns, articles, poems and essays is a satisfying celebration of Southern cuisine and culture. The focus this time is barbecue, whose deep-rooted traditions and regional variations reflect the ardent localism of the South. "I don't think you can really understand the South if you don't understand barbecue-as food, process, and event," says John Shelton Reed in "Barbecue Sociology." Reed rails against image-conscious Southern cities like Atlanta, which seem to hide their greatest barbecue joints in the worst neighborhoods ("Harold's is one of the best-it's near the prison"), and he advocates replacing the Confederate flag with one featuring a dancing pig holding a fork and knife. In "Whole Hog," Jeff Daniel Marion's search for the perfect barbecue leads him to Wood's, a ramshackle establishment outside Memphis, where he finds his shrine to the pig: "great chunks of pork, tender, with no hint of greasiness, succulent." Despite the bland introduction by New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Elie, this is a nice compilation, and the tones and topics (politics, race, religion, etc.) are as varied as the barbecue styles you'd find from Texas to the Carolinas. The book's biggest tip? Never trust a restaurant without flies; they may know something you don't. 16 illus. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Interesting book: Chief of Station Congo or Out of the Shadow
Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef
Author: Ian Kelly
“Cuisinier, architect, and one of the most prolific writers of the 19th century, Carême was the founder of a classic cuisine that would influence generations of chefs. In this well-researched book, Ian Kelly deftly recounts the exploits of this remarkable man.” —JACQUES PÉPIN
Aunique feast of biography and Regency cookbook, Cooking for Kings takes readers on a chef’s tour of the palaces of Europe in the ultimate age of culinary indulgence.
Drawing on the legendary cook’s rich memoirs, Ian Kelly traces Antonin Carême’s meteoric rise from Paris orphan to international celebrity and provides a dramatic below-stairs perspective on one of the most momentous, and sensuous, periods in European history—First Empire Paris, Georgian England, and the Russia of War and Peace.
Carême had an unfailing ability to cook for the right people in the right place at the right time. He knew the favorite dishes of King George IV, the Rothschilds and the Romanovs; he knew Napoleon’s fast-food requirements, and why Empress Josephine suffered halitosis.
Carême’s recipes still grace the tables of restaurants the world over. Now classics of French cuisine, created for, and named after, the kings and queens for whom he worked, they are featured throughout this captivating biography. In the phrase first coined by Carême, “You can try them yourself.”
The New Yorker
Antonin Carême was the most illustrious chef of post-Revolution France—Napoleon, the Rothschilds, and Tsar Alexander all employed him—and he is still remembered as the father of modern French cuisine, the popularizer of the soufflé, and the designer of the iconic chef’s hat. Kelly charts Carême’s use of food as a tool of social leverage, although he perhaps takes the self-promoting chef too much at his own estimation when he attributes the rise of the Rothschilds to their decision to hire Carême. Many of Carême’s recipes appear here, but Kelly suggests that his more lasting legacy is the public figure of the celebrity chef. In Carême’s dining rooms, ostentation often trumped taste. His signature dishes were elaborate replicas of classical architecture in pastry and spun sugar, held together with gum and colored with spinach. They were not intended for consumption.
Publishers Weekly
Readers who enjoy being privy to the evocative details of a past era will devour this book, and foodies will have a field day with the engrossing story of a man who literally died for gastronomy. Car me (1783-1833) was born poor in Paris, and by his late 20s he was already Europe's most famous chef. He cooked for monarchs and noblemen, even baking Napoleon's wedding cake, and his fame dovetailed with the rising interest in gastronomy what Kelly, a British actor who played a luncheon guest in Howard's End, calls "a cult in want of a priest." Luckily, Car me was also a prodigious author who recorded every major meal and became rich off his cookbooks. Kelly feasts on the wealth of source material; his fine book offers a recipe at the end of each chapter, plus more in an appendix. The scale of Car me's meals will astonish today's readers: he served literally hundreds or even thousands of elaborate dishes for throngs of guests. He'd cook for weeks on end without a break, and Kelly theorizes that he eventually died of "low-level carbon-monoxide poisoning after a lifetime of cooking over charcoal in confined spaces." Worse, this superchef was buried in an unmarked grave and no one attended his funeral (due to a cholera epidemic). But his work wasn't in vain we can thank Car me for numerous culinary advances, including chef's toques, which he invented, and the course-by-course meal service we're accustomed to today. 18 color and 13 b&w illus. Agent, Ivan Mulcahy. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Two hundred years before celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck were cooking on the Food Network, Antonin Careme was feeding Russian tsars, the Paris Rothschilds, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, and Napoleon. In his first book, British actor Kelly, who will perform in an off-Broadway play about Careme this spring, presents a well-researched biography of the one-time orphan who grew up to become the world's highest-paid cook. Famous for inventing the chef's hat, souffl , and French haute cuisine, Careme was the first chef to gain wealth and international recognition by publishing cookbooks. While very little is known about his personal life-information surrounding his marriages and daughters is scarce-Careme documented his professional life well, keeping detailed accounts of his guests, menus, and ingredients. He even made detailed illustrations of the monumental pastry centerpieces and buffet tables he created. One dinner menu was made up of over 100 dishes, including 80 soups, 40 entrees, eight roasts, and 16 desserts. Included are selections from Careme's recipe books-a fraction of the thousands of recipes he published-as well as color illustrations from the period. A fascinating look at life in 19th-century Europe, this title is recommended for all collections.-Pauline Baughman, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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