Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine

Book Description

Told for the first time by the only reporter present, this is the true story of the legendary Paris Tasting of 1976 -- a blind tasting where French judges shocked the industry by choosing unknown California wines over France's best -- and its revolutionary impact on the world of wine.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History houses, amid its illustrious artifacts, two bottles of wine: a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. These are the wines that won at the now-famous Paris Tasting in 1976, where a panel of top French wine experts compared some of France's most famous wines with a new generation of California wines. Little did they know the wine industry would be completely transformed as a result, sparking a golden age for viticulture that extends beyond France's hallowed borders -- to Australia, Chile, South Africa, New Zealand, and across the globe.

Then Paris correspondent for Time magazine, George M. Taber recounts this seminal contest and its far-reaching effects, focusing on the three gifted unknowns behind the winning wines: a college lecturer, a real estate lawyer, and a Yugoslavian immigrant. At a time when California was best known for cheap jug wine, these pioneers used radical new techniques alongside time-honored winemaking traditions to craft premium American wines that could stand up to France's finest.

With unique access to the main players and a contagious passion for his subject, Taber renders this historic event and its tremendous aftershocks in captivating prose, bringing to life an eclectic cast and magnificent settings. For lovers of wine and anyone who enjoys a story of the entrepreneurial spirit of the new world conquering the old, this is an illuminating and deeply satisfying tale.

Customer Reviews:

Not a book about the wine, but a book about the passion for making, tasting, and drinking wine.......2007-09-26

Author George Taber is not a wine grower, producer, bottler, seller, or apologist. His connection to the main story in this book, the build up to a classic tasting competition in France of California wines against French wines, was that he was the only journalist to show up for the wine tasting. He wrote for Time Magazine, and Taber said he'd "...try to get there, without promising anything" (p. 163).

Ah, Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point was about to occur.

As it turned out, the California wines, both Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, came in first in blind tasting with some very well known French wine judges. It was shocking.... to the judges, the French government, and to the California wineries. They were THAT good?

This is the story of that tasting competition, the wineries involved, the wine makers, and the grape growers. Taber discusses the history of these wines, the history of wine growing regions, and the future of wines. Great wines can be grown outside of France? The cat was out of the bag. New Zealand, Chile, Australia... no longer does France spring to the tip of the tongue when discussing the very best wines.

In The Judgment of Paris, Taber stretches the narrative, so it needed to be more than entertaining... it needed to be educational. Luckily, this book was both.

I recommend it to the budding wine connoisseur! Read this book before visiting either Napa-Sonoma Counties, or France. Better yet, read it before your next visit to your local wine shop.

Fun Book.......2007-07-07

After 30 years of tasting wines in the Napa Valley, I finally found a book that puts all the pieces together. George M. Taber recounts the famous 1976 Paris Tasting in intricate detail...and that may be the smaller story here. In a larger sense, Taber "connects the dots" that are the owners, vineyard farmers, and wine makers who crafted the wine history of this beautiful valley. Sit back with a glass of your favorite wine and savor the passion and persistence that revolutionized the wine industry of California and the world. Cheers!

The real magic in wine making:.......2007-02-06

Mr. Tauber not only demystifies the world of wine to someone who knows little about it, but relates the wonderful story of devotion and hard work that goes into producing a top wine. I do believe that wine tastes better since reading this book.

A Delicious Read!.......2007-02-03

I love California wines. As a Californian I am very proud of my home states history and heritage as the world's premier producer of fine wines. However, it has not always been so. Until quite recently, California wines were not reveared in such an august way. What happened? How did this change in world opinion occur? I have been curious about this mysterious evolution in Californaia wines for quite some time and after a friend suggested Judgment of Paris to me I began to hope that it would be all I had wished for. I was not disappointed. Obviously, I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history and loves premium wine, especially wines produced in California.

The Judgment of Paris is such a tremendous book on many levels. It is full of tender and engaging stories about real people who, against all odds, helped establish California wines amongst the best in the world, culminating with their personal involvement in the now famous 1976 Paris wine tasting competition: The seminal event that turned the world of wine on it's collective head.

This book is also a fabulous review of premier wine making history, not only in California, but worldwide. If your knowledge of wines and wine making is limited or non-existent, you will feel like quite the connoisseur by the time you are finished reading. This is a really fun and informative book. Very well researched and extremely well written.

Cheers! to George Tabor for crafting such a wonderful `book-quet'. ;-)

A very good book...........2006-11-03

This was a very good book. It filled in many of the blanks. However, Taber's proofreader should have been more careful... he/she would have caught Taber's mistake in referring to Jancis Robinson as a he instead of a she. It just goes to show that a non-wine person wrote (and proofed) the book!

Great American Beer: 50 Brands That Shaped the 20th Century

Average customer rating:

Fun and Interesting facts
Incredible Artwork and Writing!!

Great American Beer: 50 Brands That Shaped the 20th Century
Christopher B. O'Hara
Manufacturer: Clarkson Potter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Beer | Drinks & Beverages | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

History | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer
The American Brewery: From Colonial Evolution to Microbrew Revolution
Great American Beers: Twelve Brands That Became Icons
The Beer Guide
The Beer Drinker's Bible: Lore, Trivia & History: Chapter & Verse

ASIN: 0307238539
Release Date: 2006-08-15

Book Description

Classic Beers of the Good Old Days

There was a time when one income could support a family, when American-made automobiles were the best on the market, when you could eat a steak without thinking of cholesterol, and when Milwaukee was the beer capital of the world. Back then, you drank beer—not lager, stout, or IPA—just plain old great American beer.

The ultimate guide to the classic brews and legendary brands of the past two centuries, Great American Beer is packed with full-color photos of beer memorabilia from the heyday of this country’s beer revolution and brief histories of fifty brands that left their mark on generations of beer drinkers. Infused with fact, lore, and an ample dose of tongue-in-cheek humor, Great American Beer lures you into the America where these legendary beers were born and rose to prominence as regional favorites. If you’re a beer drinker who knows that Schlitz offers “just the kiss of the hops” or who can recite the Budweiser Manifesto by heart, this book’s for you.

Test your knowledge of great American beers.

1. Which great American beer is considered “The Champagne of Beers”?

2. Which classic American brew is the “One beer to have when you’re having more than one”?

3. What was the favorite beer of Dennis Hopper’s homicidal Frank Booth character in the cult classic Blue Velvet?

The answers to these and other pressing questions about our country’s most timeless brands can only be found in . . . Great American Beer

Customer Reviews:

Fun and Interesting facts.......2007-05-13

Gave a little idea of the original beer brewers and what happened to the other ones. What helped shaped the big guys out there like Bud and Miller

Incredible Artwork and Writing!!.......2006-09-28

I bought this book as a birthday present for my dad and he hasn't stopped telling people about it! I actually had a chance to read it before giving it to him and I was blown away by how thorough the history section is in the beginning. The writing is accessible and not at all boring, and you walk away with some amazing knowledge of American history seen through an entirely new lense. The individual beer profiles are fantastic too. I first picked this book up for its great looks (hardcover plus color artwork throughout makes for such a great, affordable gift for any guy!), but I was really impressed by the intelligent, down-to-earth writing. If you're looking for an inexpensive gift that's a little off the beaten path but really useful and interesting, you can't go wrong with Great American Beer. I was so impressed with this book!!!

Grandma's Wartime Kitchen: World War II and the Way We Cooked

Average customer rating:

wartime recipes
This book has great recipes!
Just what I wanted
The Greatest Generation of Cooks
A look back in time to our "home front"

Grandma's Wartime Kitchen: World War II and the Way We Cooked
Joanne Lamb Hayes
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

History | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Grandma's Wartime Baking Book: World War II and the Way We Baked
Depression Era Recipes
Don't You Know There's a War On? The American Home Front, 1941-1945
Endangered Recipes: Too Good to Be Forgotten
Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930's and More From Your Kitchen Today (Stories & Recipes of the Great Depression)

ASIN: 0312253230

Book Description

An affectionate and informative look at women on the Home Front in the 1940s, Grandma's Wartime Kitchen presents more than 150 classic recipes (updated for today's kitchens) along with anecdotes, advertisements, advice, and archival recipes from a unique and defining period in America's history.With details and personal voices that make the material come to life, the book covers: * The U.S. government's food rules and ration books * Substitutes for rationed sugar, and the delicious dessert recipes they inspired * Stretching butter, meat, coffee, and other staples * Cooking and baking for the troops abroad * Wartime entertaining including Defense Parties, progressive parties, and a traditional Thanksgiving dinner using wartime commodities * Monday Meatloaf, Mother's Fried Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, Apple Dumplings, Vermont Johnny Cake, Honey Apple Pie, and many other recipes. At a time when America is saluting the soldierswho fought in World War II, this one-of-a-kind collection offers a portrait of the courageous (and delicious) contributions of the women who stayed behind.

Customer Reviews:

wartime recipes.......2006-11-06

This book brought back many childhood memories for me. I found recipes that my grandma used to make and I enjoyed. I thought of our victory garden and the canning that my mother and grandmother did. We made lots of sacrifices and didn't complain. I wonder why we didn't have to make
any sacrifices for this present war? --like gasoline!

This book has great recipes!.......2006-10-03

Recently I served as a cook at a weekend training event. The cook staff tried 7 recipes in this book and everyone loved them. We made several cakes, muffins and the No Knead rolls. The Crybabies were a great hit. The other cooks on the staff are planning to get their own copies.

Just what I wanted.......2006-01-15

I am writing a book sent during WW2, and I needed a good sense of day-to-day life in the era. This book provides that with authentic recipes and loads of other information about food purchasing and cooking tips that help to explain the era. I think this would be a useful and fun book for students of the era, regardless of their age.

The Greatest Generation of Cooks.......2001-02-02

Those of us living in this age of plenty have no idea what it was like to cook during World War II when sugar, butter, meat and oh, so many canned foods were rationed. I was a very little girl then and didn't understand so many of the hardships my mother endured. This book answers so many of the questions left unanswered and for me it is a joy to read. I do remember many of the recipes included here and for old times sake, I plan to give many of them a try. This book is a must for anyone interested in food or food history. We may not cook this way today-- we don't have to. But these old make-do recipes can teach us all a lot.

A look back in time to our "home front".......2000-12-27

I just purchased this book for my mother as a Christmas present, as she was born just before the USA's involvement in WWII. I gave it to her yesterday at our family gathering. Once she saw the cover, it was VERY difficult to get her to stop looking through it...she had to force herself to put it away!

I did check it out before I wrapped it...like Mom, I enjoy reading cookbooks in general, as well as being an American history buff. I don't know if I would actually try any of the recipes in this book (just not the kind of stuff I usually eat these days) but the chapters on food rationing and wartime entertaining (usually just glossed over in most books about the era) were very interesting! I just gave this book three stars since I would have liked more historical photos, as well as pictures of some of the completed dishes. If you enjoyed this book, I would also recommend the "Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook" which was first published in the 40's, as another view of American cookery at that point in time.

Wine & War: The French, the Nazis & the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Average customer rating:

Outstanding book!

Fiction can't hold a candle to reality ...

One of the best wine books ever

Interesting but Disorganized and Lightweight

Delightful and Well Crafted

Wine & War: The French, the Nazis & the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Donald Kladstrup , and Petie Kladstrup
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Spirits | Drinks & Beverages | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Wine & Winemaking | Wine | Drinks & Beverages | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | France | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Europe | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Grapes | By Plant | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times

The Emperor of Wine : The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste

Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer's Tour of France

Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine

Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution

ASIN: 0767904478
Release Date: 2001-05-15

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Liberty, equality, and fraternity are all well and good, a champion of French culture once remarked. But, he continued, what made France truly superior to its neighbors was the French passion for wine, which "contributed to the French race by giving it wit, gaiety, and good taste, qualities which set it profoundly apart from people who drink a lot of beer."

The commentator may have had a point; after all, write Don and Petie Kladstrup, it was a well-known fact that Adolf Hitler did not like wine. Still, their leader's teetotalism notwithstanding, the Germans showed no distaste for French wine when they invaded France in 1940. Indeed, among the first acts of the occupying army was to seize great stores of wine, sending tens of thousands of barrels to the Third Reich and ordering the conversion of thousands of hectares of vineyards into war production.

Some French vintners, the Kladstrups write in this enjoyable study, went along with orders. Many others, however, including the heads of distinguished houses like Moët et Chandon, engaged in daring and dangerous acts of resistance wherever they could. Some lied about their yields; others built false walls to hide precious vintages; and still others concocted elaborate ruses, such as sprinkling carpet dust into inferior grades of new wine to give it a musty, distinguished flavor. Not every German was fooled, and some partisans of the grape died for their troubles. But some Germans, at considerable risk to themselves, also looked the other way. The Kladstrups fill their pages with memories of the wine war from both sides of the struggle, stories sometimes somber, sometimes amusing, that commemorate those "whose love of the grape and devotion to a way of life helped them survive and triumph over one of the darkest and most difficult chapters in French history." --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown—until now. Wine and War tells the alternately thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them.

By rooting the narrative in the stories of five prominent winemaking families from France's key wine-producing regions of Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire Valley, Bordeaux, and Champagne, journalists Don and Petie Kladstrup vividly illustrate how men and women risked their lives for a cause that meant saving the heart and soul of France as much as protecting its economy. It was a extraordinary partnership involving everyone from the owners of Paris's famed restaurant La Tour d'Argent who rushed to build a wall to conceal their most precious twenty thousand bottles, to French soldiers who triumphantly reclaimed Hitler's enormous cache of stolen wines at the conclusion of the war.

Wine and War portrays the central role wine has long played in France’s military campaigns—how Napoleon ordered wagon loads of champagne to sustain the morale of his armies and how, during World War I, huge quantites of wine were shipped to soldiers in the trenches of Northern France. By the beginning of World War II, wine represented a living for nearly 20 percent of France's population and the authors chronicle the Nazis' determination to seize control of the French wine industry and its profits. At the same time, Wine and War brings to light the resourcefulness of wine producers who employed spiderwebs to "age" false walls hiding their best wines, who foisted off their worst bottles on the Germans or gleefully misdirected shipments, sending champagne to Homburg instead of Hamburg, and who sabotaged trains transporting wine to Germany. It also recounts the heroics of winemakers who hid Jewish refugees and smuggled members of the Resistance across the Demarcation Line in wine barrels, as well as the villainy of collaborators who worked with Nazi occupiers for their own benefit.

Finally, Wine and War reveals that the French were not alone in trying to save their wine. They received help from unexpected quarters: the German weinfuhrers, the very men the Nazis sent to requisition wine, whose close ties to the French wine industry mitigated their actions, and even the collaborationist Vichy regime, which recognized the importance of keeping France's vineyards French, and prevented the Nazis from seizing the Jewish-owned Chateaux Mouton-Rothschild and Lafite-Rothschild.

Based on three years of research and interviews with the survivors who engaged in this epic enterprise, Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding book!.......2007-09-18

Got wine?
If you do or don't, you'll love Wine and War. This book is a treasure and very good reading.

Fiction can't hold a candle to reality ..........2007-08-19

Historical accounts, and memoirs of WWII abound ... but this is the first book I've encountered that focused on the events and circumstances regarding the effects of the war on France's premiere vineyards, winemaking families, and fate of vast cellars of wines (millions of bottles) that lay ripe for plunder.

Before now, I'd seen some direct and indirect references to the massive looting of wine documented in various books and movies on the period ... such as the scene in Steven Ambrose's Band of Brothers in which Easy company uncovers a massive cache of looted vintage luxury champagne in Hitler's Berchtesgaden/Eagle's Nest complex - only to discover that most of it tasted inexplicably like swill. This book not only explains WHY, it also explains who stole them and how those bottles came to be there in the first place.

It's a great book - told as a series of interconnected accounts based on interviews conducted by the authors with winemakers and veterans of the underground resistance who lived (and suffered) though it all.

The storytelling is gripping, fast paced, and, at times, takes on some of the amusing qualities of "Hogan's Heroes", as we see desperate (but oh so clever) winemakers and resistance fighters repeatedly put one over on the occupying forces bent on milking them dry and outright looting them blind. We see massive caves of wines, walled up and hidden from the invaders, we see poor vintages re-labeled as great ones and sold/given to oneologically clueless officers tasked with shipping stolen wines back to Germany ... and we see what happened to those who got caught doing so.

Fiction, even at it's best, sometimes can't hold a candle to some of the crazy (and terrible) things that have already happened in real life.

Highly recommended. The mark of a good book is that it totally immerses you, and won't let go ... and it makes you look for ways to find the time to get back into it, when real life tears you away.

One of the best wine books ever.......2007-02-14

I have given away 12 copies of this book to friends who also love wine. After years of reading wine books "Wine and War" is an absolute delight. The reading is fascinating and fun. It is almost like fiction which makes it all the more interesting. We travel in France. On my next trip into wine country I'm going to check out some of the stories, if I can. This is a must read for any Francophile Wine lover.

Interesting but Disorganized and Lightweight.......2007-01-04

There are certainly a number of interesting story lines in this book but it is written in a breezy lightweight style and follows no discernable pattern or outline. Really this is a collection of short stories around a vague central theme of the efforts of "most" Frenchmen to protect their famous wine collections from the Germans. While certainly the stories from Alsace, Burgundy, Champagne and Bordeaux are decidedly different, there are many connected themes, such as the conflict between passive resistance and active collaboration, that remain unexplored. Further, the actual brutality at the doorsteps of many of these people is glossed over in favor of repeated stories about doctored wines with grand cru labels. This could have been a much better, richer book.

Delightful and Well Crafted.......2006-09-22

This is a wonderful casual read. I could hardly put it down and was sad to come to the end of such remarkable tales. The authors have made an interesting collection of anecdotes into a fine story full of charm, humor, drama, danger and a dash of treason that reads like a good novel. When I finished I felt as though I had been on vacation and was saying goodbye to old friends too soon.

Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads

Average customer rating:

Definitely one of my favorite books
Excellent Social History of American Recipes
Interesting but Inconsistent
A fun look at American food fads from the 20s to the 80s

Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads
Sylvia Lovegren
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Essays | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

History | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Cooking, Food & Wine | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Century in Food: America's Fads and Favorites
The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century
Food in the USA
The American Century Cookbook
Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender, and Race

ASIN: 0226494071

Book Description

Though the Roaring Twenties call to mind images of flappers dancing the Charleston and gangsters dispensing moonshine in back rooms, Sylvia Lovegren here playfully reminds us what these characters ate for dinner: Banana and Popcorn Salad. Like fashions and fads, food—even bad food—has a history, and Lovegren's Fashionable Food is quite literally a cookbook of the American past.

Well researched and delightfully illustrated, this collection of faddish recipes from the 1920s to the 1990s is a decade-by-decade tour of a hungry American century. From the Three P's Salad—that's peas, pickles, and peanuts—of the post-World War I era to the Fruit Cocktail and Spam Buffet Party loaf—all the rage in the ultra-modern 1950s, when cooking from a can epitomized culinary sophistication—Fashionable Food details the origins of these curious delicacies. In two chapters devoted to "exotic foods of the East," for example, Lovegren explores the long American love affair with Chinese food and the social status conferred upon anyone chic enough to eat pu-pu platters from Polynesia. Throughout, Lovegren supplements recipes—some mouth-watering, some appalling—from classic cookbooks and family magazines, with humorous anecdotes that chronicle how society and kitchen technology influenced the way we lived and how we ate.

Equal parts American and culinary history, Fashionable Food examines our collective past from the kitchen counter. Even if it's been a while since you last had Tang Pie and your fondue set is collecting dust in the back of the cupboard, Fashionable Food will inspire, entertain, and inform.

Customer Reviews:

Definitely one of my favorite books.......2006-12-16

The reviewer (below) who faulted this book for its inconsistencies has a point. I've noticed the same flaws in passing, but, for me, the pleasures of this book easily outweigh them. I ran across it by chance, have owned it for years, and return to it again and again--sampling favorite bits or random bits as a "I'm too tired to start a new novel--let's just read something familiar" bedtime read. I've often wanted to write the author to tell her how much satisfaction her book has given me; only the hassles and uncertainty of trying to mail something via a publisher deterred me.

It offers so many fascinating details. Her account of the rise of the '70s salad bar, or the economical toast-based suppers of the '30s. Marshmallow madness in the 20s, the "lie" of American "Chinese" food, etc. I'm in no way a "foodie"--a creepy word that suggests a minor character on that old HR Pufinstuf show--but this book is, in many ways, also a valuable social and pop-cultural history. So glad to see it's been reprinted.

Excellent Social History of American Recipes.......2005-07-08

`Fashionable Food, Seven Decades of Food Fads' by culinary historian and food writer, Sylvia Lovegren is a great addition to the social history of American culinary folkways, especially with its concentration on actual, tested recipes from each of the seven subject decades from the 1920s to the 1980s. It is an interesting contrast in approach to `Something from the Oven' by Laura Shapiro that deals more with narrative and less with recipes. The ideal book would have been a combination of the two techniques.

The most important thing to remember is that Ms. Lovegren is talking about things that were `fashionable', not with the demographics of food habits. As Ms. Shapiro points out in her book, the advent of the convenience foods after World War II did not permeate American cooking. They, along with their most vocal proponent, Poppy Cannon, got a lot of attention, but were always viewed as shortcuts and not necessarily a tectonic shift in American cooking habits.

Reading a version of this book revised and republished in 2005 makes me wonder why the author did not update the material in this book to cover the last 15 years, where the playing out of so many trends, and the origin of so many new ones would have added so much interesting material to the book. The advent of the Food Network alone may have warranted a chapter. In all, the coverage of food journalism, especially TV food journalism is just a little thin. Dione Lucas and Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet) are mentioned briefly and Julia Child is given her due for her truly incredible influence on American eating, but there is no mention of, for example Martin Yan, the Galloping Gourmet, and local TV cooking shows. While I take the book at its word since my interest in culinary writing is no more than three years old, I get the sense that virtually everything the author says about the 1980s is still true today. There is little that was popular in 1985 that is not a hot item on today's cooking shows or in today's cookbooks.

On the other hand, I applaud the attention the author gives to M.F.K. Fisher's statements and writings. Ms. Fisher is too easily forgotten in the towering shadow of Julia Child and the leading current distaff celebs, Alice Waters and Deborah Madison. That doesn't mean Ms. Waters and Ms. Madison are not given their due. I especially like the fact that Ms. Lovegren has not taken sides on the issue of who originated the `California Cuisine'. The primary contenders are Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower, Chez Panisse and Waters' first major chef who helped set the course for Chez Panisse along the lines laid out by Richard Olney's writings on `simple French food'.

Like all good social and cultural history, the book does its share of explaining interesting facts, such as why the Chinese ended up in so many tailor, laundry, and cooking jobs. It was, according to Ms. Lovegren, simply because these were women's occupations and therefore virtually the only ones open to former Chinese railroad workers.

In addition to the seven main chapters on the decades, there are two interludes, one covering early Chinese food and the other covering other oriental foods in America. Here again, we seem to miss any coverage of the increase of popularity in Thai and Vietnamese food. The focus on the `other oriental foods' highlights `Trader Vic' restaurants and their founder, Victor Bergeron.

The thing I like the best about this book is that it does not equate `fads' with `poor quality'. In fact, several `fads' later in the author's decades are the `foodie' movement toward more interesting food, the health food agenda which improved the quality of its regimen over the decades, and the still growing interest in locally grown foods. This is why it is so important for the book to include good working recipes.

The absence of a lot of analysis ties into another weakness with this book in that so many food trends did not recognize decade boundaries. Conventional wisdom, for example, commonly defines `the sixties' as being roughly between the assassination of President Kennedy / Arrival of the Beatles and the resignation of President Nixon closing out the Watergate scandal. I think it would have been more interesting and more accurate to follow individual food trends through the years rather than to chop up the trends into arbitrary decades.

I am struck, for example, by the fact that three major food trends important today had their origins in the sixties. The first and most obvious is the foodie movement with Julia Child as its fountainhead. The second is the health foods / organic food movement spearheaded by Adele Davis' writings plus the great influence of Rachel Carson's `Silent Spring'. I will go out on a limb here and say that the third major movement is in the influence of regional / cultural cuisines growing out of the `soul food' movement. As the author so accurately points out, people have been eating collards, okra, and black eyed peas for centuries, but it took the civil rights / black pride movement to make an icon of this aspect of black culture.

As befitting a book published by the University of Chicago press, this book has good scholarly accouterments, including careful references to the sources of all recipes plus proper cautions on recipes which were not tested by the author or her colleagues. I must give the copy editor a slap on the hand for missing the misspelling Jeremiah Tower's first name in the Preface, especially since Monsieur Tower's name is properly spelled later in the book.

This is an excellent, highly enjoyable book to read and an interesting source of `historical' recipes. It would be great to see it brought up to date.

Interesting but Inconsistent.......2004-07-22

?Fashionable Foods" comprises a recounting of food fads from the 1920's to the 1990's. Author Sylvia Lovegren discusses the trends and includes recipes from each decade. I rather enjoyed this book; however, I find myself unable to award more than 3 stars. The idea is intriguing as is much of the content, but the book is rather inconsistently developed.

The overarching theme of the book is (seemingly) "how America cooks." However, the author swerves from highlighting absurd recipes (Banana and Popcorn Salad in the 1920's) to typical at-home foods (meatloaf in the 1980's) to haute cuisine served in fine restaurants (Ciopino in the 1970's). Covering a wide array of food trends is fine, but it feels jumbled. The formatting adds to the confusion: finding the breaks between recipes and text is very difficult ? everything simply runs together.

The inclusion of recipes is also somewhat haphazard and seems dictated primarily by the author?s ability to easily procure reprint permission. Thus, some of the food trends that are discussed do not include representative recipes. By and large, recipes are presented as they would have been made during the time period, with minor adjustments for out-of-date products. Nevertheless, some of the recipes are randomly updated to decrease fat and sugar content for a ?90?s taste.? That would seem to defeat the purpose of the book ? i.e., to serve as a historical document of sorts. Also, some of the recipes haven't been tested by the author ? so she recommends that they not be used.

Overall, the book is rather confusing because of these inconsistencies. I really wanted to like ?Fashionable Foods? more than I do. Recommended with reservations for readers looking for an entertaining read about foods, not a cookbook.

A fun look at American food fads from the 20s to the 80s.......1998-04-06

"Fashionable Food" serves up the most entertaining overview of mealtime in America since Jane and Michael Stern's "Square Meals." From tasty to trendy to just plain oddball, if it was embraced by the guardians of hearth and home, you'll find it here.

Relive the era of Prohibition with "Flapper Pudding", explore new frontiers of soup with a 1930s "Mystery Cake" courtesy of Campbell's, endure the restrictions of the 40s war years - and celebrate the glory of the "goodbye to rations" post-war era. Go swank with a 50s Cocktail Party or sophisticated as you explore 60s gourmet cuisine. Get back to earth with 70s health food and expand your palate with the regional foods of the 80s.

Sprinkled throughout are tantalizing tidbits from re-visiting old friends like The Mystery Chef and Sheila Hibben to rediscovering the wonders of Chinese and Hawaiian cuisine when they were new and exotic. From crockpots to fondues; from Betty Crocker to Alice Waters; from Trader Vic's to Elmer Fudpucker's; if it's part of our gastronomical history, it's part of this entertaining hodgepodge of American food.

An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine, and Conversation
Average customer rating:

BORRRING and disappointing

Dinner with Two 18th Century Gourmets

Extensive Knowledge of Wine and Food with the Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson

As worthy of contemplation as a well-aged Bordeaux

Dinner and Wine with Ben and Tom

An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine, and Conversation
James M. Gabler
Manufacturer: Bacchus Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | United States | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Jefferson, Thomas | ( J ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Franklin, Benjamin | ( F ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Passions : The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson on Wine

Wine: The 8,000 Year-Old Story of the Wine Trade

Dining at Monticello: In Good Taste and Abundance

Thomas Jefferson's Cook Book

ASIN: 0961352566

Product Description

Through a dream sequence, you (the reader) go back in time to 18th century Paris where you meet Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. In the comfort of Jefferson's residence on the Champs-Elysees, you sit down with these two great Americans, and in response to your questions, they tell in their own words the most interesting stories of their lives. There are extensive citations of authority to support all of their comments.

Customer Reviews:

BORRRING and disappointing.......2006-12-30

Was hoping to get something a little more historical but it turned out to be a fantasy dinner loosely based on history. I intentionally left the book on the airplane.

Dinner with Two 18th Century Gourmets.......2006-04-14

DINNER WITH TWO 18TH C GOURMETS
A Book Review
by Wilson G. Duprey / Gail Unzelman

Bibliographer, novelist, and wine historian James Gabler has pro-duced another capital book. An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson-Dinner, Wine, and Conversation is a marvelous mix of biog-raphy, travel, American diplomatic his-tory, and wine history. The author has used a dream device to place a professor of American history, Jack Osborne-who is also a well-versed wine historian and connoisseur of wines-in the dining room of Thomas Jefferson's elegant mansion on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. His fellow dinner guest is Benjamin Franklin. Prof. Osborne is informed of the evening's menu and then asked to choose the wines for the dinner. Jack is familiar with the wines that Jefferson had acquired for his cellar and is honored with the request. The wines and the menu:
1783 Dorsey's Champagne Aperitif
1784 Meursault Goute d'Or Normandy oysters
1784 Montrachet Spaghetti, tossed with olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and an-chovies
1784 Haut Brion Beef ? la mode, served with
1784 Ch. Margaux potatoes & two kinds of peas
from Jefferson's garden
1784 Ch. Yquem Ice cream in puff pastry.
The dinner produced lively conversation on into the night.
One of the most interesting parts of this book is Thomas Jefferson's story-mostly in his own words taken from his voluminous papers, both archived and published. He tells about his 3? month trip through southern France and into northern Italy, over the icy Alps (part of the way by mule back), tasting wines and keeping meticulous notes on the wines and their histories. He canvassed the wines of Burgundy, the M?doc and Bordeaux, and everything in between, whether grand ch?teau or tiny vineyard. He checked the composition of the soils, met the owners and asked about vineyard practices, and often ordered wines to his liking for his Parisian cellar and his cellar at Monticello. He of course met many of the wine merchants, some of whom he had dealt with for years. He soon learned that buying wine bottled at the vineyard provided more certainty of getting what he ordered, for there was much blending of wines by the merchants. In Italy he learned of the wine Nebiule (today's Nebbiolo) among many others new to him. He was also able to smuggle out in his pockets some of the supposedly superior Piedmont rice to send home to a South Carolina friend-who planted it, and found Carolina's rice more to his liking.
Throughout this journey Jefferson visited all the natural, architectural, and historical elements, including ruins, arenas, temples, and the famous Roman aqueduct near Nimes. Wherever he went he attended the plays, operas, and other local entertainments; he ate in fine restaurants, if possible, and tasted the local wines. Like other travelers of the time, he suffered the indignities and barbarities of the taverns and hotels along the rural roads. But nonetheless, he enjoyed his time and received a first-hand glimpse of much of France and northern Italy.
Jefferson made a wine tour through Germany as well, again tasting and taking copious notes while he experienced the fine wines of the Moselle, Johannis-berg, Hochheim, and Rudesheim. In addition to buying German wines for his cellars at Paris and Monticello, he bought vine shoots that he planted in his Paris garden, intending to transplant them to Monticello.
All through the evening, Professor Osborne im-parted current (21st century) information to Jefferson and Franklin about the vineyards in France, Italy and Germany, and let them know that many of the great vineyards of the 18th century were still producing superb wines.
The professor asked many questions of his dinner companions. Their answers were straight forward, despite being asked often-intimate details of their lives, and those of their wives, children, friends, and enemies.
Jefferson was born an aristocrat, a Virginia planter, with thousands of acres of productive land; he owned slaves, and was an important figure in the often volatile Virginia legislature. Jefferson considered his three most important legacies (1) the Declaration of Independence (helped write it, and signed it), (2) the American Constitution (helped create), and (3) the founding and development of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.
Franklin, on the other hand, was born in Boston and struggled to become a printer's apprentice at age fourteen. Eventually he arrived in Philadelphia and found success in the printing business. He went on to become postmaster, invent the Franklin stove and bifocal eye-glasses, do his electrical-lightning experiments, and become a first-class entrepreneur, able to retire at age 42. In 1754, now aged 48, he began his long and illustrious career in public life. He was appointed in 1776 as American minister to France, where he served until 1785 when he then asked Congress to allow him to retire so he could return home, now an elderly man.
Jefferson succeeded him as minister. The two statesmen had been friends in Philadelphia at the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence; Franklin enjoyed his new duty of introducing young Jefferson to the French ministry, intelligentsia, aristocratic and social circles-all vitally important in diplomatic relations. Jefferson stayed on at Paris as American minister until 1789, when he came back to the U.S. with his two daughters. He intended to return to Paris; but he became involved in national politics, was elected President, and would never see France again.
Conversation flowed during the evening. It seems that a favorite topic was the lady friends of both men. Jefferson, a new widower when he arrived in Paris, told of only one emotional affair, with Maria Cosway the famous artist. Alas, it did not survive. Franklin reminded the professor that he had married in Philadelphia, but his wife had a mortal fear of sea journeys and never joined him for his overseas assignments. Franklin's life in London suited him so well that he returned to Philadelphia only once, for two years. When he returned to London, his loving wife carried on his business affairs at home until her death. Franklin enjoyed the company of a fine lady friend, and named three: his London landlady, his neighbor in Passy, and the third was one of the most beautiful ladies in France (according to Abigail Adams). None of the ladies succumbed to his amorous eye, but all were extremely attentive friends.
We get a good picture of John Adams, the Massa-chusetts signer of the Declaration, and one time friend to Jefferson-they would become dire opponents in later presidential campaigns. A 700-mile journey with Jefferson's close Virginia friend, James Madison, is taken through the Revolutionary battle fields in New York and surrounding areas. Naval hero John Paul Jones is newly introduced in coastal English waters, and the Marquis de Lafayette is revealed in cloak and dagger activities.
Both Jefferson and Franklin speak long and well of George Washington, both as general and as President. While in France, Jefferson was honored to send French wines to the capitol for Washington's table. Later on Jefferson wrote a most informative letter to newly elected President Madison about the wines he should import for the White House, with names, dealers, agents, cost per bottle, and directions for bottling and shipping abroad. Among the wines Jefferson recommended was the famous Italian wine, Montepulciano from Tuscany.
There are almost one hundred vignette photos scattered throughout the book-views of cities of France, Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, and the United States, and portraits of individuals- all reflecting the late 18th century scene of Jefferson and Franklin.
Following the elaborate and detailed bibliographic notes for the text, are a few extra bonuses: (1) the fascinating story about the bottle of Ch. Lafite 1787 with the embossed initials "Th.J." that sold for $156,450 at a New York auction; (2) recipes for Jefferson's Beef ? la Mode, Browned Flour, and Mushroom Catsup (all from a new cookbook, Dining at Monticello).
In this fictional, but fact-based imaginative and fascinating journey, James Gabler provides a vivid portrait of Jefferson and Franklin as true gourmets, enjoying the finest of food and wine. Jefferson's almost four-month tasting extravaganza through the vineyards of France and Italy surely classes him as the 18th century's wine connoisseur par excellence. In a sense, the two gentlemen were the jet-setters of the eighteenth century!

Extensive Knowledge of Wine and Food with the Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.......2006-02-16

Take out a two-dollar bill and look on its back. You will see the same picture that occupies the dust cover of this informative and illuminating novel involving the early history of the United States. The story is presented by means of two highly respected eighteenth century American patriots using some of their own statements adapted to a series of 21st century situations precipatated by Jack Osborne, the protagosinst interviewer and American History Professor. This book is a wonderful tribute by the author to his subjects; its material might well be woven into a fascinating stage play, both revealing and patriotic.

As worthy of contemplation as a well-aged Bordeaux.......2006-01-28

From "The 30 Second Wine Advisor" on WineLoversPage.com, Jan. 27, 2006:
James M. Gabler's An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine, and Conversation, is as much about history as it is food and wine. Gabler, a Jefferson scholar and wine lover who wrote the memorable 1989 wine-history book Jefferson and Wine, is back on familiar ground with the new volume, which came out just in time to celebrate Franklin's 300th birthday on Jan. 17.

In contrast with Gabler's readable but scholarly approach in Jefferson and Wine, this one starts from a premise that's a bit more light-hearted: The narrator, a college history professor, falls into a deep sleep and, in a dream, is whisked back to 18th century Paris, where he enjoys a leisurely dinner with Jefferson and Franklin (both of whom really were resident in Paris at the time, around 1784).

Prompted by questions by their visitor from modern America, Franklin and Jefferson both comment on issues of their time - and of our time - in their own words, actual quotes taken from their writings. Adding a dimension of food-and-wine interest, the narrative also goes into considerable detail about what's on the table and in the revelers' wine glasses, again drawing extensively on Jefferson's and Franklin's own words.

This can lead to some engaging juxtapositions, as when Jefferson sips 1783 vintage Champagne from the monks at Hautvillers while likening the modern Patriot Act to "the Alien and Sedition acts that the Federalist Congress passed and President John Adams signed in 1798."

In Jefferson's words, he goes on to say, "One of my first decisions after becoming president was to discharge every person under punishment or persecution under the sedition law, because 'I considered that law to be a nullity, as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution in every state, as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship the image.'"

One assumes, as Gabler clearly does, that a latter-day Jefferson would have deep-sixed our Patriot Act with similar certitude. Then the story goes on as the dreaming professor, with a sommelier's skill, pairs a Goutte d'Or Meursault with Normandy oysters; Montrachet with a "macaroni" course sauced with olive oil, Parmigiano and anchovies; and a 1784 Haut-Brion and Margaux with boeuf a la Mode.

Their Champagne aperitif, Jefferson notes, was a still white wine resembling a modern dry white Burgundy. "Sparkling wines were little drunk in France but were alone known and drunk in foreign countries, and sold for about an eighth more."

There's nothing "dry" about the book, though. Its 264 pages of text are amply illustrated with contemporary drawings and extensively footnoted. The anachronistic dream framework might sound gimmicky, but it works. Like a well-aged Bordeaux from Jefferson's cellar, An Evening with Franklin and Jefferson is complex and interesting, worthy of contemplation but ultimately entertaining. I came away from the book enlightened and refreshed, feeling that I had learned quite a bit about Franklin and Jefferson and the 18th century world of food and wine.

Dinner and Wine with Ben and Tom.......2006-01-28

Every now and then you come across a book that you assume was written specifically for your eyes. It appeals to your past, your aspirations, your education, your occupation. That's how I felt about "An Evening with Benjamin Franklin & Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine & Conversation" by James Gabler.

Many of you will be familiar with Gabler due to his last work, "Passions: The Wines & Travels of Thomas Jefferson," winner of the 1995 "Veuve Clicquot Wine Book of the Year" award. Now Gabler delivers a new work that once again has history as its focus but also spends a good deal of time focused on one of his own passions, wine.

The premise is simple: A historian is catapulted back in time via a dream and placed on the doorstep of Thomas Jefferson's home in Paris. There are no time travel mechanics, alternative histories or black holes to consider in the historian's travel back. You simply suspend disbelief because doing so gets you to the red meat of Gabler's book: The chance to talk to Jefferson and Franklin with the knowledge of what came after them.

Gabler's new book is remarkable on a number of levels. First, you have to understand that the title is an accurate reflection of the book's content. Yet, while the book is "fiction" it is also pure non-fiction all the way down to the more than 800 footnotes and the fact that much of what Franklin and Jefferson say to our historian are their own words, preserved in various letters and sources and faithfully reproduced in the appropriate conversations Gabler creates. But it is also a speculative book insofar as throughout Gabler has both Jefferson and Franklin reacting to news of what has transpired in the 200 or so years since they died. Still with me?

You really must know my own background to appreciate why this book is such a thrilling one for me. Around 1988 I decided to get a masters degree in history. I was one of those fellows who sought out a higher degree merely because I didn't get enough of college by the time I was awarded my BA. My subject was history, specifically American history. While indulging myself in a MA in History I focused more specifically on American Diplomatic History. Luckily, the University I attended offered one of the top professors in the country who specialized generally in American Diplomatic History and the Historiography of American Diplomacy.

One of the areas I spent a good deal of time studying was the diplomatic history and the foreign affairs of the Revolutionary period, that era covered in "An Evening..". At about the very same time in my life I was completely taken by wine and began to study it liberally. By the time I got my MA and realized that I didn't want a PhD, I had chosen to look into working in the wine industry.

So as you can see, Gabler's "historical fiction" with its focus on the American Revolutionary period as well as substantially on wine is something I might jump into feet first.

That said, "An Evening..." is largely a reminiscence. It is not a critical biography. It does not cast a sharp eye on Jefferson and Franklin with the truly modern goal of deconstructing their hypocrisies or foibles. Rather, Gabler has created a portrait of Jefferson and Franklin at rest, comfortable, looking back on where they've been, what they've learned, the things they regret and the pleasures they experienced and sought out. There is nothing defensive in this work. It is a long, comfortable and deeply interesting conversation with two very worldly men of the 18th century.

Did they drink wine in the 18th century, these worldly men, these radicals, these revolutionaries?

In discussing his 1787 tour of Burgundy, Jefferson relates to our time traveling historian:

"Arriving in the ancient town of Beaune on March 8, I lodged at Chez Dion a L'Ecu de France and promptly hired Etienne Parent, a cooper and wine merchant, as a guide to the vineyards of Pommard, Volnay, Montrachet and Meursault. As I mentioned earlier, Parent and I became friends, and he became my Burgundian wine counselor. Parent took me to the vineyards of Monsieur de la Tour, and it was here that I was introduced to the most expensive dry wine of Burgundy. My tasting confirmed Parent's opinion and I ordered 125 bottles of 1782 Montrachet."

Throughout the book we are treated to descriptions of Burgundy, Bordeaux the Rhone, Champagne and other wine producing regions that our heroes encountered throughout their lives. And we are also offered tales of drinking as well as wine reviews. Describing his encounter with white Hermitage while in the village of Tain, Jefferson tells Franklin the drink was "the first wine in the world, without a single exception:

"it was not entirely dry. It was what I call silky, and when I use the term silky I do not mean sweet, but sweetish in the smallest degree only."

The liberties that Gabler takes with his subjects' minds and recollections are grounded in the historical record. Yet, Gabler's own voice is also delivered through the words of Jefferson and Franklin. Gabler is clearly an optimist and a man of principle who believes much of the wisdom that our country might posses was best expressed in the acts of revolutionaries and country-makers like Franklin and Jefferson.

One is not required to have a post-graduate degree in history to appreciate this book. There is no jargon to sift through. Yet it distills a great deal of research and scholarship in a way that can be appreciated by the average reader and particularly by the wine lover who knows the meaning of wine is found as much in the past as in the present.

Finally, if you need a 90+ point review from a famed wine critic to convinced this is the book for you, Robert Parker, Jr. said:

"An Evening with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson: Dinner, Wine, and Conversation " is a brilliant roman a clef around wine and the lives and travels of Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. This is a marvelously enlightening book for both historians and wine enthusiasts."

Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook: A Celebration of Traditional Southern Dishes that Made Miss Mary Bobo's--An American Legend

Average customer rating:

Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook
Authentic without the booze
Sinfully Good Eating
A fine gift shop purchase, but not an heirloom Southern cookbook.
Yummies for the tummies!

Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook: A Celebration of Traditional Southern Dishes that Made Miss Mary Bobo's--An American Legend
Pat Mitchamore , and Lynne Tolley
Manufacturer: Rutledge Hill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook: Discover Why the Best Small-Town Restaurant in the South is in Social Circle, Georgia
The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking: More than 600 Essential Recipes Southerners have Enjoyed for Generations
Mrs. Wilkes' Boardinghouse Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from Her Savannah Table
Miss Mary's Down-Home Cooking: Recipes from Small-Town America
Cooking in the Lowcountry from The Old Post Office Restaurant: Spanish Moss, Warm Carolina Nights, and Fabulous Southern Food (Roadfood Cookbook)

ASIN: 1558533141

Book Description

This collection of over 300 recipes is a celebration of the traditional southern cooking that made this Lynchburg, Tennessee boarding house a legend. Many recipes use Jack Daniel's whiskey. Illustrated and indexed.

Customer Reviews:

Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook.......2007-07-11

I collect cookbooks and this one has quickly become a favorite! Every recipe I have tried has been excellent. They are easy to follow and have simple ingredients, most of which I have on hand. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves down home cooking at its best.

Authentic without the booze.......2006-03-27

It is obvious that Jack Daniels is trying to put their stamp on the cookbook, but they should at least be honest and say Ms. Mary didn't prepare her meals with whiskey. The book has a lot of recipes that I have been looking for for years and I intend to use them. These aren't the kinds of recipes you will find on the Food Network, but they sure remind me of my childhood and I plan on sharing them with my granddaughter ---minus the booze.

Sinfully Good Eating.......2005-10-13

Once upon a time when folks made the trip to Lynchburg to visit that famous distillery, they had to stop at Mary Bobo's boarding house, because to pass up one of her home-cooked meals if your were so close would be nothing short of a mortal sin. Mary lived to be a hundred and one, leaving us in Nineteen Eighty-three, but you can still sample her delicious home-cooked fare by faithfully following the recipes in this book.

However, this is more than just a cookbook. There are many wonderful boarding house stories housed within these covers, so you can read a bit about Miss Mary Evans and her Beau during her courting days, or learn a bit about porch sitting, or even see a picture of Al Gore with Mary on her 99th birthday.

Last night I made up Miz Crutcher's Convent Pudding, which is a whole lot like the Macaroni Pie you can get anywhere in Trinidad. It's delicious and easy to make. In the book it explains that this was served a lot during WW II, because of shortages and the fact that people didn't have very much. Well it's still being served in the Caribbean, probably for the same reasons.

I've also done Mary Bobo's Baked Turkey with Cornbread Dreassing and let me tell you, scrumptious. Don't be lookin' for low fat, fancy dancy, new age cooking here, but what the heck, once and a while you just have to have an old-fashioned, down home, doggone good, sinful meal. And if that's what you're looking for, look no further. Five stars from me for this super book.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

A fine gift shop purchase, but not an heirloom Southern cookbook. .......2005-08-29

Please read all the reviews here for a better picture of this cookbook. Perhaps the recipe are enjoyed by some, particularly those fond of putting whiskey in everything from salad to dessert and every dish between.

There is an out-of-print book "Miss Mary's Down-Home Cooking" by Diana Dalsass, which includes superb Southern recipes from Mary Bobo's boarding house. These are the recipes used during Mary Bobo's tenur. These are the recipes which the tea-totaller Miss Mary would approve of. My wife and I thought it was worth the expense of using a book finder service to get.

Before using the book finder service, I bought the Mitchamore book listed here. I figured it would contain the same recipes and I'd save a buck. They aren't even close. Even without comparing the two books, I still can't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't vehemently adore Jack Daniels. This really is a whiskey cookbook. A fine gift shop purchase, but not an heirloom Southern cookbook.

Yummies for the tummies!.......2005-08-14

This cookbook is awesome! I found recipes for things my mother used to make, but I never got her recipe. There are some recipes that raised an eyebrow or two, but, so far I am having a 'gas' trying out the different tasty treats!

Average customer rating:

Chilean Wines for the 21st Century

Manufacturer: Wine Appreciation Guild
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Spirits | Drinks & Beverages | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 9562340805

Book Description

Only a crack team of ten Chilean journalists and three photographers could produce such a magnificent and thorough book on this exciting "New World" wine region.

As Chilean wines permeate the global market and bring home the gold medals, there is a need to know more. No other book can provide as much information as this exceptional work.

With seven panoramic tri-fold pages of the major regions, the reader is transported visually to the vineyards. It is a work of all original text, spectacular photos and maps and a comprehensive view of the culture and the wines.

The leading 25 producers are chronicled and described in detail as are the nine viticutural valleys an ten major grape varieties. Selecting the best of Chilean wines is made easy with the extensive tasting notes provided. Fascinating chapters on organic wines, wine for health, wine touring and the art of harmonizing Chilean food and wine are a real bonus in this book.

Your visit to Chile will be greatly facilitated by the Wine Routes chapter, with foldout maps, details of major hotels, restaurants, museums and natural wonders. "Must-see" recommendations are made for each of the wine valleys with typical one to seven day itineraries.

A triumph of book design and production, the quality of this work compliments the perpetual rising quality of Chilean wines.

Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook
Average customer rating:

A veritable feast of tantalizing recipes...

Not Completely Shakespeare's Kitchen

A winning recipe

A Worthy Contribution to Culinary History

Shakepeare's Kitchen

Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook
Francine Segan
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Italian | European | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy

The Philosopher's Kitchen: Recipes from Ancient Greece and Rome for the Modern Cook

Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks

The Opera Lover's Cookbook: Menus for Elegant Entertaining

The Medieval Cookbook

ASIN: 0375509178
Release Date: 2003-10-07

Book Description

“Shakespeare’s Kitchen not only reveals, sometimes surprisingly, what people were eating in Shakespeare’s time but also provides recipes that today’s cooks can easily re-create with readily available ingredients.”
—from the Foreword by Patrick O’Connell

Francine Segan introduces contemporary cooks to the foods of William Shakespeare’s world with recipes updated from classic sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks. Her easy-to-prepare adaptations shatter the myth that the Bard’s primary fare was boiled mutton. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries dined on salads of fresh herbs and vegetables; fish, fowl, and meats of all kinds; and delicate broths. Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini, Winter Salad with Raisin and Caper Vinaigrette, and Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter are just a few of the delicious, aromatic, and gorgeous dishes that will surprise and delight. Segan’s delicate and careful renditions of these recipes have been thoroughly tested to ensure no-fail, standout results.

The tantalizing Renaissance recipes in Shakespeare’s Kitchen are enhanced with food-related quotes from the Bard, delightful morsels of culinary history, interesting facts on the customs and social etiquette of Shakespeare’s time, and the texts of the original recipes, complete with antiquated spellings and eccentric directions. Fifty color images by award-winning food photographer Tim Turner span the centuries with both old-world and contemporary treatments. Patrick O’Connell provides an enticing Foreword to this edible history from which food lovers and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike will derive nourishment. Want something new for dinner? Try something four hundred years old.

Customer Reviews:

A veritable feast of tantalizing recipes..........2005-09-17

I bought this book because I am a Shakespeare/Renaissance freak and I hoped to be able to make some dishes of the time.

While I cannot vouch for the complete historical accuracy of the recipes, I can tell you that you won't be disappointed by the use-ability of them or the beauty and taste of the end result. My sister and I put on our own "Renaissance feast" for the family, which was loads of fun to do and a big hit.

The recipes call for common and unusual (but not hard to find) ingredients and often use interesting combinations of flavours, such as fruits with meats. All this creates dishes with complex, rich taste.

The Shakespearean quotes and historical tidbits sprinkled throughout the book are fascinating. Original recipes are often given and prove quite amusing. The layout of the book is simple and attractive, enhanced by the lovely photos of award-winning food photographer, Tim Turner. A masterpiece of a cookbook...

Not Completely Shakespeare's Kitchen.......2004-10-04

Close but not quite there. As a member of a rather heralded Guild of (amatuer - we do it for love not money) Medieval and Renaissance Cooks, I was anticipating less 'making it up as I go along" and more true redactons of the books Ms Sagan references.

I was delighted that in roughly half the recipes, she quoted the original recipe and acknowledged the source. I was less delighted when she deliberately changed ingredients, left ingredients out or in one case where it was clear that the intent of the recipe was for periwinkles (snail like mollusks greatly esteemed in Elizabethan and slightly post Elizabethan times) and she admits that in a fit of whimsy, she substituted periwinkles the flower.

Not having hauled out the books and done the research I cannot attest that the unattributed recipes come from period, nor may I suggest that they do not. Where I to serve these unattributed recipes, I would label them as "peroid" (period like) rather than period.

For the most part even those period-like recipes do sound delicious!

This is a nice book, and if it piques an interest in Medieival and Renaissance cookery,then it has served its purpose.

Do NOT take her redactions as Gospel - read them, think of the aim of the dish you are making and consult other sources, both modern and medieval period. If you need help google MEdieval Food....

The photos and garnishes are lovely however.

A winning recipe.......2004-02-11

I bought this book for my husband, who loves Shakespeare's works, history and cooking. This book is perfect for anyone with those passions (especially all together). A bit of history is included throughout, along with original recipes gleaned from Renaissance texts. Quotes from the Bard's plays are peppered about, before each recipe, etc., and most of the recipes have been beautifully photographed, just another way to whet the appetite. The recipes are fun, do-able, a little different, yet not so far out there that you'd never try them. And in the back are suggestions for parties, invitations and so on. A delight for fans of cooking, cookbook collectors and for bibliophiles with taste.

A Worthy Contribution to Culinary History.......2003-12-08

When I opened this book, I did not expect I would have any interest in actually preparing any dishes from it. Rather, I was looking for some insight into the history of cuisine in England around 1600. I was pleasantly surprised to find things which are really interesting to cook.

The book does not strictly cover meals mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, however, it is liberally seasoned with quotes from the Bard's plays making reference to foodstuff and spirits. The recipes are taken from cookbooks of the period which are enumerated in the very good bibliography. The volumes of this period were published from between 1560 through 1650 and all but one (Italian) are written in English and appear to be directed to the English housewife rather than the court of Elizabeth or James.

The biggest surprise is the prevalence of sweet ingredients in almost all savory dishes. If not sugar itself, then sweetness from fresh or dried fruit. The book even states that the English of the period had a serious sweet tooth. The complement to this tendency is the appearance of savory ingredients such as spinach in sweet desserts.

Another common theme in the cuisine of the period was the use of pastry crusts. They used it with just about everything. The remnants of this method can be found in dishes such as beef Wellington, savory pies, and cooking fish in a pastry crust. The method of making pastry crust may be a little unusual to the casual baker, but it is in fact based on a French technique used today for incorporating butter. Instead of cutting in the butter with forks or a pastry cutter, it is `smeared' into the dough with a kneading type of motion using, of course, very cold butter. It would be interesting to know how butter was kept cold in summer.

It is not surprising that the most pervasive foreign influence was not French, but Italian. Note, for example, that one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, `The Taming of the Shrew' was based on a 17th century Italian style of comedy. Tomatoes and chili peppers are totally absent, as they had not even been adapted in Italy yet, but artichokes, cardoons, asparagus, capers, mint, peas, parmesan cheese, and flat leaf parsley are all common. Citrus fruits, both local and from the Mediterranean are very popular. The fact that relations between England and France were probably very cool at this time, and the fact that England was rapidly developing a world wide trading network, especially with the Mediterranean and the Levant explains the popularity of food from that region. It is also likely that French cuisine had not yet achieved the preeminant position it has today and the cuisines and products of Italy, Portugul, and Spain were probably a common trade for English products.

One of the more interesting historical aspects was the fact that many vegetables popular in this cuisine were brought to England by the colonists and soldiers of the Roman Empire. Carrots, turnips, and onions head the list in this category.

It may be surprising to find shellfish, especially lobster and crab in the cuisine of the people, until one remembers that these animals were literally considered trash by boats fishing for cod or other fin fish. These must have been very, very cheap. The only puzzle was how they got to London and still be fresh enough to eat.

It is no surprise that most of the blurbs on the dust jacket plugging the value of the book are from theater people rather than from culinarians. The audience for this book is as likely to come from lovers of the theater as it is from foodies. The author caters to exactly this audience by presenting a chapter of suggestions on how to organize and cater to a dinner party patterned after this Elizabethan cuisine.

This is one of the first books I have found where I was willing to open it purely for the pleasure of the read, however, I was delighted to find interesting recipes, although it is likely I will stick with modern methods for preparing pastry crusts and stocks. One of my few gripes with the book is that contrary to the promise by the author, not every original recipe text was included. It was entertaining to see how the author translated the slim instructions with no amounts specified into a modern recipe with all the expected teaspoons and tablespoons and the like. A worthy, if somewhat pricy volume.

Shakepeare's Kitchen.......2003-10-16

Simply the best! Awesome recipes -- I've already tried some and expect to continue my exploration. Beautiful presentation, well-organized, informative and interesting. A recommended read for all!

Pomp And Sustenance: Twenty Five Centuries Of Sicilian Food

Average customer rating:

This Is The Real Thing
Oh, Yes - This Gets Us Closer
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CUISINE
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CUISINE
A true Treasure

Pomp And Sustenance: Twenty Five Centuries Of Sicilian Food
Mary Simeti Taylor
Manufacturer: Ecco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Customs & Traditions | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

On Persephone's Island: A Sicilian Journal
Sicilian Feasts
Cucinasiciliana (Cookbooks)
La Cucina Siciliana di Gangivecchio: Gangivecchio's Sicilian Kitchen
Bitter Almonds: Recollections & Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood

ASIN: 0880016108

Book Description

Pomp and Sustenance is a celebration of one of the oldest, most varied, and best-loved cuisines of Europe, at once frugal and extravagant, robustly simple yet often handsomely ornate. For twenty-five centuries, the people of Sicily have been creating what is perhaps the basic cuisine of Europe on the beautiful island in the heart of the Meditteranean.

Beginning with the oldest and most elementary components in the Sicilian diet, Mary Taylor Simeti surveys the bounty of the Sicilian table and Sicilian history. Simeti provides authentic recipes as well as evocations of the dishes' origins: from the simple glories of vine, olive, and wheat to the culinary innovations of Arab and Norman invaders; from the plain but mouth-watering dishes prepared by peasants in the Middle Ages to the ritual luxuries of Sicily's aritocracy; from the succulent delicacies made in monasteries and covents to the street-food pleasures that have become favorites all over the world.

With more than 100 photographs and illustrations, this comprehensive volume is a book to cook from, a book to read, and a book to treasure as a testament to one of the finest cuisines in the world.

Customer Reviews:

This Is The Real Thing.......2003-12-09

This cookbook is the real deal. If you have some familiarity with Italian food and are looking for different regional cuisines(and especially if you're Italian and Southern)you will find a lot of joy in this book. There aren't really that many recipes, but there is a lot of interesting background about all of those invasions in Sicily. Sicilians are Arab,Norman, Greek, Spanish,French and God-only-knows. That makes for an interesting mix, and the food is the most interesting of Italy if not what you usually get in a restaurant. The recipes however aren't that different from Neapolitan dishes, just imagine more Arab and Greek influence. The food: I tried a fantastic baked ziti with hard-boiled eggs, cheese and a pork meat sauce, all covered with fried eggplant(no breadcrumbs) from the bottom in an upside-down cake sort of way. It was very good. Also interesting: chickpea fritters; mint and caper tomato sauce; fennel and olive pasta; an "Arabian" pasta timbale. Simetti doesn't hold you to weird recipe confines, her explanations just makes sense and if you play around with them, it's still fine. If you're at all interested in food this book is a good investment. (And don't you want to know why Sicily is said to be the only Arab country that recognizes Israel?)

Oh, Yes - This Gets Us Closer.......2003-07-18

Having read every book by this author - I can recommend this
work to anyone who'd like to know what it was like for our
ancestors over the last 2500 yrs in Sicily. Within the pages, I found receipes that were handed down from my immigrant Girgentano
grandmother, Gesuelda. (Sicilian for Jesus). My family history project is only 10 yrs old, but by reading this book and making the receipes, I have come close to feeling and tasting the foods my Grandparents and their anscestors shared during their life time. Mary Taylor-Simeti has given Sicilian Americans a huge gift by writing about our Siclian history. If you want to know and understand more about why you are the person you are, Simeti's book can help in that journey.

A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CUISINE.......2003-01-31

This much more than a recipe book--tho it is that as well. It is principally a social history of eating norms and the impact of successive cultural invasions: Norman, Arabic, and the like. It explains why Sicilians of various classes eat as they do, and it is fascinatingly well-written and researched. A real treat that explains why this is the best cuisine that modern Italy has to offer.

A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CUISINE.......2003-01-31

A true Treasure.......2002-06-26

I found this book years ago in a vendor book sale...At the time I never imagined what a real treasure I had found. Being of Sicilian heritage I found that many of the recipes handed down to me came from way back into the 11th century. That along with all of the wonderful stories made me realize that my grandmothers left me with such a rich treasure. All the stories blended to gether with the history in the book. It made me so proud to be of Sicilian heritage...
My grandmothers left me the richest treasure of all...Love, Great Food and a wonderful sense of worth.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books