Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History

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Random House Publishing Group, Jul 18, 2012 - Cooking - 496 pages
“Every once in awhile a writer of particular skills takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight.” That’s how David McCullough described Mark Kurlansky’s Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, a work that revealed how a meal can be as important as it is edible. Salt: A World History, its successor, did the same for a seasoning, and confirmed Kurlansky as one of our most erudite and entertaining food authors. Now, the winner of the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing shares a varied selection of “choice cuts” by others, as he leads us on a mouthwatering culinary tour around the world and through history and culture from the fifth century B.C. to the present day.

Choice Cuts features more than two hundred pieces, from Cato to Cab Calloway. Here are essays by Plato on the art of cooking . . . Pablo Neruda on french fries . . . Alice B. Toklas on killing a carp . . . M. F. K. Fisher on the virility of Turkish desserts . . . Alexandre Dumas on coffee . . . W. H. Auden on Icelandic food . . . Elizabeth David on the downward march of English pizza . . . Claude Lévi-Strauss on “the idea of rotten” . . . James Beard on scrambled eggs . . . Balzac, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Chekhov, and many other famous gourmands and gourmets, accomplished cooks, or just plain ravenous writers on the passions of cuisine.
 

Contents

INTRODUCTIONBetter Than Sex
CHAPTER ONEGourmets and Gourmands
CHAPTER TWOFood and Sex
CHAPTER THREEMemorable Meals
CHAPTER FOURFavorite Restaurants
CHAPTER FIVEMarkets
CHAPTER SIXNot Eating
CHAPTER SEVENRants
CHAPTER EIGHTEENThe Thing About Truffles
CHAPTER NINETEENLoving Fat
CHAPTER TWENTYBearing Fruit
CHAPTER TWENTYONEThe Dark Side of Chocolate
CHAPTER TWENTYTWOTheir Just Desserts
CHAPTER TWENTYTHREEA Good Drink
CHAPTER TWENTYFOURBugs
CHAPTER TWENTYFIVEThe French

CHAPTER EIGHTOn Bread Alone
CHAPTER NINEThe Mystery of Eggs
CHAPTER TENEating Your Vegetables
CHAPTER ELEVENA Hill of Beans
CHAPTER TWELVEThe Fish That Didnt Get Away
CHAPTER THIRTEENPoultry Fowl and Other IllFated Birds
CHAPTER FOURTEENThe Meat of the Matter
CHAPTER FIFTEENEasy on the Starch
CHAPTER SIXTEENA Pinch of Seasoning
CHAPTER SEVENTEENJust a Salad
CHAPTER TWENTYSIXThe English
CHAPTER TWENTYSEVENThe Americans
CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHTThe Germans
CHAPTER TWENTYNINEThe Politics of Food
CHAPTER THIRTYWhat Does It Mean?
Text Credits
Photo Credits
Acknowledgments
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Mark Kurlansky is a columnist for Food & Wine magazine and is included in Best Food Writing 2000. Winner of the James Beard and Glenfiddich Awards, he is the author of Salt: A World History; The Basque History of the World; the New York Times bestseller Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World; A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry; A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny; a collection of stories, The White Man in the Tree; and a children’s book, The Cod’s Tale. He lives in New York City.

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