Rating: 
Summary: a twenty five dollar expanded airline magazine article
Review: While the idea of a history of restaurant culture in the US is a fascinating one, this book doesn't really do it justice.The author's intent was quite obviously to produce a lush story, interlaced with meaningful personal vignettes. Unfortunately it comes off as flordily purple prose interspersed with bewildering switches to first-person. To make matters worse, the personal stories are often seemingly unrelated and quite often self-serving (Kuh's tale of his decision to become a writer is oddly placed in his chapter on Wolfgang Puck, where the connection is tenuous and strained). Stylistically, this was apparently supposed the feature the same sort of rich descriptiveness that the cuisine itself often garners, but instead the reader is bombarded by adjective-heavy sentences and repeated references to famous names (and dishes), often with little to no actual explanation. Some segments are given short shrift while others are beaten into the ground. Henri Soule's labor management tactics and personal quirks are referenced again and again, while Julia Child's television series and the "democritization" of french cooking (arguably some of the more important factors in the development of Amercan cuisine) are given a mere page - the rest of the chapter is devoted to her left-leaning politics. M.F.K. Fisher's influence is occasionally referenced, but more time is devoted to her husband's illness and her depression after his death - all of which would be important character points if they actually lead somewhere. While this is a book ostensibly about Haute Cusine, I can't help feel that Kuh overemphasizes the importance of French cooking in the development of "american" culinary tradition. There is some discussion of ethnic influence, but it's fairly limited in scope to Italian chefs and MFK Fisher eating beans in Mexico. To read this, american restaurant cuisine consisted of nothing but roast beef, bread and water before Soule's arrival in the late 30's. With a culinary melting-pot culture as varied as the US, the book's focus on classic french cooking's arrival in the US seems to not do justice to a much richer history. This is a book that could've been.
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