Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History Paperback – October 26, 2004

CHOICE CUTSMark Kurlansky, EditorISBN 0-345-45710-2This book, a collection of writing about food, drags somewhat from the burden of including too much arcane material, for example Pliny the Elder's note on onions from the first century. Elsewhere, another chapter devotes too many words to the difference between a gourmet and a gourmand, which is perhaps not as critical to the reader as to the editor.There are some excellent pieces in this book however. Among the best are the articles by M. F. K. Fisher, who was a food writer, but felt that food, security, and love are entwined. She also wrote very well. Her story about a last meal at a favorite restaurant before leaving France in 1932 is warm and witty. Fisher almost did not get the last meal because a waiter failed to recognize her and her husband. He spotted her precious accordion she was carrying on to the ship, assumed that they were street musicians, and showed them the door. In another article, Fisher writes about bachelors' cooking, "few of them under seventy-nine will bother to produce a good meal unless it is for a pretty woman."Another fine piece by Jeremy Wechsberg about a restaurant in Vienna before the war, where the boiled beef specialties required a customer to have a thorough knowledge of the anatomy of a steer, is one of my favorites. The restaurant kept herds of cattle, fed with molasses and sugar beet mash to supply its pampered customers. The story, written in 1948, reflects a past lifestyle to which few of us could relate. It was said that Austrian poets lavished rhymed praise upon the delicacies they consumed at "Meissl & Schadn".The George Orwell article about cooks and waiters in Paris is the writer at his best. The waiters made more than the cooks, and the waiters had the mentality of snobs. A shorter piece about English food is equally good. In it, Orwell offers, "England is a very good country when you are not poor." I also admired John Steinbeck's article about hunger in California during the depression. Steinbeck wrote that, when children starved, the coroners wrote "malnutrition" on the death certificate because is sounded better "when a thin child is dead in a tent".This book offers a number of satisfying entrees, even for those whose main interests are other than food. However, one has to get through too many bland side dishes between them.

Having been very impressed by Kurlanksy's earlier works, Cod and Salt, I picked this one up with much anticipation. Sad to say it does not live up to its word.Kurlansky's coverage has a decidedly Eurocentric tilt (read French) despite the occasional word from Nigeria or a quote from India. This is not "writing from around the world." There is also a lot of coverage devoted to MFK Fisher. That might be a good thing but it looks more like Kurlansky has decided to slap some nuggets together in time for the holiday shopping season. His usual exhaustive research is not exhaustive enough.

Delivered as promised. Thank you!

If I were Kurlansky's publisher, I would have liked his book pitch, too: pull together several short essays of food writing into a single book. Kurlansky is an excellent author -- I've read a few of his other books and liked 'em quite well -- but this one doesn't quite make it.When an essay works, it's a great sampler for the author's work -- which may not be a "foodie" writer. You'd expect to find Lucullus, but not Herodotus (Kurlansky includes a page from The Persian Wars, fifth century BC, with Herodotus' comments on Egyptian dining). I've read _of_ AJ Liebling more than I've read him, but I loved the four pages reproduced here about dining with his parents at Restaurant Maillabuau in Paris, followed immediately by MFK Fisher on Monsieur Paul's.The book has thirty chapters which group the material by topic: ethnicity, such as The Americans, or food items, such as the Mystery of Eggs. A section on seasoning includes Pliny the Elder on Thyme, the Talmud on Garlic, Platina on Basil and Saffron, Karl Friedrich von Rumohr on Sorrel, and The Aobo Tu on Salt Making.On the positive side, each of the essays is very short. Most are 2-3 pages, and few are more than 5, making them suitable to enjoy in the john (and I do mean that in a nice way). That's also a negative, however, because by the time you've gotten into an essay (or poem or song lyrics -- Kurlansky mixes 'em up), and figured out whether this one is meant to be funny, or sensual, or instructive, or whatever... it's over. When something doesn't work for me -- and it could be a matter of mood -- I find that I flip forward until I find another essay that attracts. Perhaps that's a strength, too, because there's always something to get my interest. But mostly I'm aware of how much of the book I'm skipping.The uneven nature of the collection makes it hard for me to recommend this book without reservation. I like it; I don't love it.

I like to have a small stack of books on my nightstand that I can just pick up and read before sleep that have nothing whatsoever to do with my current daytime/evening reading. The best candidates for that small stack are poetry, short stories and essays and so I have been happy to have Mark Kurlansky's "Choice Cuts" around for that style of casual, drifting away reading. I know from Kurlansky's "Cod" and "Salt" that he's a real bloodhound researcher so I imagine he comes across all kinds of material that catches his attention but doesn't suit his purpose at hand. The book has interesting Contents pages but I rarely use them, I just open the book at random and see where it takes me; it's all interesting to me. For instance Von Rumohr's, "Emotions to be Avoided While Eating" (p.126), Hooker, "On Icelandic Food"(p.67), ALL of Marjorie Rawlings, James Beard on "Radishes" (p.161) and many more delight me. In fact the whole book sooner or later. There are so many books with so many different purposes and uses. This one is just a little buddy to have around to amuse, to entertain and to delight, to accompany me into dreams. Then all of a sudden, too late at night, I'm stirring up a batch of Marjorie Rawlings, "Hush Puppies" (p. 255) to eat with blackberry jam and "Hot Chocolate", James Beard (p.341).

Was what I expected.