The Tummy Trilogy

Rating:
Summary: Saluting America with coleslaw
Review: What qualifies the author to write this book is concisely summarized in a quote from his daughter: "Daddy likes to pig out." In the grand history of American gluttony (dating back to the first Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose), no one has ever pigged out with more demonstrable relish and native lack of hauteur than Calvin Trillin. His ode to the glories of Arthur Bryant's Barbecue - The Single Best Restaurant In The World - is a dithyramb worthy of Whitman. He is, in short, a true patriot - albeit one whose vision of multiculturalism is expressed in Italian fried-pepper sandwiches and Polish pierogies. There are lots of laughs in this volume but I value it more for its whole-hearted embrace of our authentic appetites. In a time of spiralling culinary pretention (whose standard bearer is Charlie Trotter and his dishes with paragraph-long names), "The Tummy Trilogy" is a palate-cleansing dish of sanity.

Rating:
Summary: Saluting America with coleslaw
Review: What qualifies the author to write this book is concisely summarized in a quote from his daughter: "Daddy likes to pig out." In the grand history of American gluttony (dating back to the first Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose), no one has ever pigged out with more demonstrable relish and native lack of hauteur than Calvin Trillin. His ode to the glories of Arthur Bryant's Barbecue - The Single Best Restaurant In The World - is a dithyramb worthy of Whitman. He is, in short, a true patriot - albeit one whose vision of multiculturalism is expressed in Italian fried-pepper sandwiches and Polish pierogies. There are lots of laughs in this volume but I value it more for its whole-hearted embrace of our authentic appetites. In a time of spiralling culinary pretention (whose standard bearer is Charlie Trotter and his dishes with paragraph-long names), "The Tummy Trilogy" is a palate-cleansing dish of sanity.