Product Description

In a groundbreaking new anthology, celebrated food writer Molly O'Neill gathers the very best from over 250 years of American culinary history. This literary feast includes classic accounts of iconic American foods: Henry David Thoreau on the delights of watermelon; Herman Melville, with a mouth-watering chapter on clam chowder; H. L. Mencken on the hot dog; M.F.K. Fisher in praise of the oyster; Ralph Ellison on the irresistible appeal of baked yam; William Styron on Southern fried chicken. American writers abroad, like A. J. Liebling, Waverly Root, and Craig Claiborne, describe the revelations they found in foreign restaurants; travellers to America, including the legendary French gourmet J. A. Brillat-Savarin, discover such native delicacies as turkey, Virginia barbecue, and pumpkin pie. Great chefs and noted critics discuss their culinary philosophies and offer advice on the finer points of technique; home cooks recount disasters and triumphs. A host of eminent American writers, from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Walt Whitman to Thomas Wolfe, Willa Cather, and Langston Hughes, add their distinctive viewpoints to the mix.

American Food Writing celebrates the astonishing variety of American foodways, with accounts from almost every corner of the country and a host of ethnic traditions: Dutch, Cuban, French, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, Irish, Indian, Scandinavian, Native American, African, English, Japanese, and Mexican. A surprising range of subjects and perspectives emerge, as writers address such topics as fast food, hunger, dieting, and the relationship between food and sex. James Villas offers a behind-the-scenes look at gourmet dining through a waiter's eyes; Anthony Bourdain recalls his days at the Culinary Institute of America; Julia Child remembers the humble beginnings of her much-loved television series; Nora Ephron chronicles internecine warfare among members of the "food establishment;" Michael Pollan explores what the label "organic" really means.

Throughout the anthology are more than 50 classic recipes, selected after extensive research from cookbooks both vintage and modern, and certain to instruct, delight, and inspire home chefs.

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Product Details

Publisher	Library of America
ISBN	1598530054
Format	Hardcover
Creator	Molly O'Neill
EAN	9781598530056
Label	Library of America
Edition	First Edition
Dewey Decimal Number	641.5
Studio	Library of America
Number Of Pages	775
Title	American Food Writing: An Anthology: With Classic Recipes
Publication Date	2007-04-19
Manufacturer	Library of America

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Customer Reviews

Delicious volume

Review by Patricia A. Powell, 2009-04-13

This was such a surprise. I am a long time subscriber to the Library of America, and occasionally receive an anthology... once it was LA Writing, another time Baseball writing, but this time it was American Food Writing. I thought it would bore me stiff! Who knew that food writing would make a wonderful anthology!

As one might expect, there are recipes throughout, and the writings of food luminaries such as Julia Child and James Beard. But, the volume includes essays, journal entries, and stories by Willa Cather (a selection from My Antonia), Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, John Steinbeck, H.L.Mencken and Gertrude Stein to name just a few. They are written about food, not necessarily about cooking. Some use food as part of a larger landscape of writing, while other pieces directly explore the glory of eating.

All in all, it is a delicious volume of writing. I highly recommend this anthology for the joy of reading.

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The recipes are good, too!

Review by B. McGovney, 2009-04-02

An anthology of American food prose and recipes from 1753 to the present. Some amazing pieces from the country's early years demonstrate that not only does the US definitely have a rich food culture, it's been around long enough that we've actually lost and forgotten some dishes that used to be hugely popular. Who knew how much beaver tail, canvasback duck, and turtle soup we used to eat?

There are pieces here by everyone from Thomas Jefferson, to Alice B. Toklas, to Ray Kroc. That's an incredible diversity of viewpoints. Walt Whitman's description of bringing exotic and rare iced cream to wounded civil war veterans contrasts strangely, but tantalizingly, with Eric Schlosser's exploration of exactly how the chemical factories in northern New Jersey create the artificial and "natural" flavors that permeate all of our processed food. From dozens of almost completely unrelated pieces, a picture of American food pointillistically emerges.

I went to this book's release party back in 2007 at the Redcat Theater in Los Angeles. (No conflict of interest in this review; the event was open to the public.) Some chefs from around the city had prepared a variety of foods from the recipes in the book, and they were all superb. Particularly fantastic were Helen Evans Brown's 1952 gazpacho (which I have since made at home to my wife's delight), and Union Square Cafe's 1994 yellowfin tuna burgers.

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Big and Clumsy Book is (whisper) Boring

Review by Mom of Sons, 2008-03-08

I was very excited about this book, intending to curl up with it and enjoy reading it. But this book is so clumsily printed, that was impossible. It's too fat and wide, and the print runs so close to the inner spine, you have to turn it just so and press the paper with your thumb, to hold the pages open to read it. Weird.
Worse yet, the book is (whisper) boring. I paged through more of it than I read. The short intros the author wrote before each piece were unnecessary, repetitious and just so much throat-clearing before we could get to the Food Writing we got the book for, like a long introduction of the main speaker.
I think the difficulty holding the big clunky book and being unable to just relax and read it colored my whole experience with this book. But even if that were fixed in future editions, so much of the Food Writing included was just plain boring.

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Definative Anthology

Review by S. Baker, 2007-12-03

I received my copy of this book from Ms O'Neill after accompanying her and her associate, Nora Sherman, on a visit to Northern Minnesota, where they gathered recipes and stories for her next book, which is to be an anthology of American Home Cooking.

I've read many anthologies, but never really appreciated the meaning of the term until reading Molly O'Neill's "American Food Writing". Formed by the Greek words "anthos" (flower) and "logia" (collecting), the word implies a patient and studied selection of exemplars of the subject, incorporating just a bit of spontaneousness and personal preference.

MFK Fisher is my favorite food writer, and I was anxious to see which of her works had been chosen for this book. I was not surprised to see "A Lusty Bit of Nourishment" from "Consider the Oyster", since it's one of her best known pieces, (although not one of my own favorites), but the second selection, "Define This Word" from "Gastronomical Me" came as a complete surprise, and impressed upon me Ms O'Neill's mastery of this particular literary form.

Despite being quite familiar with Fisher's books, I'll admit that I didn't even recognize the story by it's title. In rendering this almost mystical tale of a meal eaten alone during the off-season in a famous restaurant in Northern Burgundy, prepared by the oft-referenced but invisible chef, "Monsieur Paul", and attended to by a young servant "almost fanatical about food, like a medieval woman possessed by the devil.", MFK Fisher could arguably be said to have created an entire new sub-genre of food writing.

That Molly O'Neill would recognize this, and choose it from the volumes of stories written by MFK Fisher, speaks volumes of her own talent. Thus, I highly recommend this book, along with any other anthologies she has written, or will write.

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A Tasting Menu

Review by Mary Lee Cox, 2007-12-03

Every anthology has a mission. AMERICAN FOOD WRITING is an anthology in search of completeness, and its success there justifies its price. There are 162 entries, beginning with Peter Kahn in 1716 and ending with Michael Pollen, 2006. Walt Whitman discusses ice cream, Langston Hughes and LeRoi Jones each have strong opinions on soul food, and Wendell Berry is poetic on the subject of eating. There are also the usual suspects. This magnificent breadth is the book's great strength, and also its flaw. You will be able to read only a couple of pages, at best, of any one writer. Many of the included writers also present their recipes, and you can try them out: potted lobster, Roman punch, Yellowfin tuna burgers, Toll House cookies. Molly O'Neill's introductory essay is worth the price of admission, a great short course in American food writing. She says, "Every meal is a new beginning." Definitely American.

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