The Taste of America - Hardcover

Hess, John L.; Hess, Karen

3.94

36 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0872496406 ISBN 13: 9780872496408

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 1989

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

The Taste of America is both a history of American cooking and a history of the advice smiling celebrity cooks have asked Americans to swallow.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

"A passionate and sweeping philippic ... a spectacular collection of faults found, chances missed." -- New York Times Book Review "A peppery, zestful jeremiad about the rape of our taste buds by industrial civilization." --Village Voice

"The Hesses' zest for debate has not waned in the 25 years since the book was first published -- wow! Julia Child and Ruth Reichl (and, of course, The New York Times) are hammered flatter than baking foil... Great stuff." --Petits Propos Culinaires

"An entertaining diatribe on the diet of the tribe. It should be read and pondered." --Bookletter

From the Back Cover:

This classic barbeque of our foodways is as valid and as savory today as when it first tickled ribs a generation ago. Based on the superlative authority of John L. Hess, onetime food critic of the New York Times, and Karen Hess, the pioneering historian of cookery, The Taste of America is both a history of American cooking and a history of the advice smiling celebrity cooks have asked Americans to swallow.

The Taste of America provoked the cooking experts of the 1970s into spitting rage by pointing out in embarrassing detail that most of them lacked an essential ingredient: expertise. Now "Kool-Aid like Mother used to make" has become "Kool-Aid like Grandmother used to make", and a new generation has been weaned on synthetic food, pathetic snobbery, neurotic health advice, and reconstituted history.

This much-needed new edition chars Julia Child ("She's not a cook, but she plays one on TV"), chides food maven Ruth Reichl, and marvels at a convention of food technologists (whose program bore the slogan "Eat your heart out, Mother Nature"). Delectable reading for consumers, reformers, and scholars, this twenty-fifth anniversary reissue of The Taste of America will serve well into the new millennium.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.