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Jan 18, 2008

Aneesa rated it:

This was a very well written book and very concise in its coverage of the way our country has moved towards gourmet food, fine dining and fresh ingredients. Kamp tells the story through the lives of James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child and Alice Waters and he does a good job of it. But the focus on the chefs is why I didn't find the book as enjoyable as I would have if it had been written from the perspective of the nation as a whole. I didn't really find the details of their lives very More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2008

Kimberly rated it:

American history, food, celebrity chefs -- all are things I love, and all are things found in The United States of Arugula.

David Kamp traces the development of 20th and 21st century American culinary palates, trends, problems, and potential solutions in this easy-to-read history of how We The People have evolved in our approaches to food over the last century. From daily market trips to tv dinners in the freezer; from bland, heavy meals to the infusion of regional and international f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 06, 2010

Robert rated it:

I'm surprised this book doesn't have more reviews here on GR: it’s a seriously fascinating, very (pardon the pun) dishy examination of America's culinary habits and how they have radically changed - mostly for the better - over the last 70 years or so; all due in no small part to the efforts of culinary masters (and the major stars of the book) James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child, and the doyenne of the famed Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, Alice Waters; these four, among many others, a More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 25, 2008

Jeannen rated it:

I was mildly entertained by this book, which traces the change in the American food landscape over the past 50 years. James Beard, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen – all of those are people I’ve heard of, whereas a lot of the names he talks about – French chefs, people who started “buzz” restaurants in New York and California – are entirely unfamiliar to me. The book spends a LOT of time on Alice Waters's restaurants, but spent just a little time on Dean & Deluca, whic More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2008

carrietracy rated it:

I really wanted to read this book, I wanted to finish this book, but it felt like work. It is relentless in its insistence on mentioning the name of anyone ever connected to the culinary scene in America. I'm relatively familiar with most of the people mentioned, but I can't say I was made to care. There were gems of information in the book that made it worth the slogging, I was fascinated by Jacques Pepin's association with Howard Johnson's, and the shipping of mushrooms from Oregon to Germa More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2008

Eddie rated it:

This book started off incredibly slowly and dryly--talking about Julia Child and James Beard should be entertaining, and rollicking and crazy, but it wasn't. It picked up a LOT when the next generation started to come into the picture--maybe because the folks at Chez Panisse *were* in fact completely crazy in the first days.

Regardless, it really was fascinating--how *fast* we went from Julia Child hoping to sell a few books to McDonalds selling mesclun salads is almost incomprehen More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2007

Ken-ichi rated it:

The book begins with some interesting assertions about food in American culture, how it is less an integral part of the culture than it is in the Old World and more of a consciously practiced passtime or object of fandom like sports or movies. That piqued my interest, but it soon becomes obvious that the book is more of a chronicle of the different personalities that have shaped American culinary consciousness in the past century, more documentary than analytical. The personal details are fun, o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2008

Susanne rated it:

My big issue with this book is that the title is misleading. Relatively little page space is dedicated to foods of the "sun dried, cold pressed, dark roasted, extra virgin" varieties. Mostly it is a gossipy history of the past 60 years of US celebrity chefs. The title should have been "The Story of the American Food Revolution: From James Beard, Julia Child and Craig Claiborne to Alice Waters, the Food Network and Top Chef" or something like that. That said, it did give me a More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2010

Karen added it

This book was obviously written by an author who is enthusiastic and knowledgable about the history of gourmet food in America. But his enthusiasm oftentimes bogs the book down with constant name-dropping that is difficult for a novice foodie to keep up with. There is a lot of tedium that could easily have been cut out.[return][return] The novel is its best in the beginning, where it has its most focus, giving a rich history on the major players that made French food a hit in America. When the m More...

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Jan 20, 2011

Jacqie rated it:

I really enjoyed this food history. I was somewhat familiar with Julia Child thanks to all the recent publicity around her works, but didn't really know much about Jim Beard and Craig Claiborne. Even after reading this book, I have a hard time understanding exactly why James Beard was so influential. Was it just because he knew everybody and helped connect a lot of people?
But I liked reading how the love of all things French changed with the influence of Alice Waters (yikes!) in the seve More...

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Mar 20, 2011

Joanna rated it:

Reads like a gossipy insider history of celebrity chefs and their cookbooks, presenting them chronologically as American tastes and enthusiasms for food trends developed. I took great delight in recognizing many of the cookbooks that I shelved in my days as a bookseller. I enjoyed learning more about them and how they were inspired. I also enjoyed the snippets of restaurant life and chef training and inspirations. Having read more focused works about many of these people before, the breezy styl More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Lynn rated it:

I finally finished this book. I took to calling this book "the evil food book" and vowed that were it not on my Kindle, it would have been thrown across the room multiple times over the 10 days it took to slog through the irksome volume.

I picked this book out for a reading challenge, thinking I would enjoy it. I knew from the preface that I was going to hate it, and in the end, I was not wrong. I find the idea of the book interesting; the title piqued my interest. The t More...

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Jan 15, 2012

Dan rated it:

Amy got this book for Christmas the same year she was given The Omnivore's Dilemma. Judging by the covers, it seemed like an interesting pairing -- Michael Pollan taking our advanced culinary state to task, and Kamp celebrating it. But that's not really a fair or accurate way to judge this book.

You know how in Mad Men they'll go to some allegedly swanky New York joint, and for a salad someone will order a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing? Like that was the height of f More...

1 comment like

Sep 21, 2009

Liz rated it:

Very gossipy but interesting history of the gourmet movement in American society, starting with the James Beard-Julia Child-Craig Claiborne triumvirate and moving through high-end NYC restaurants, Alice Waters and the locavore obsession, and celebrity chefs. Although the focus is mainly on key individuals, there is also some discussion of broader trends in retail, such as the rise of Whole Foods and fast food companies' halfhearted attempts to plug into interest in organics. I thought the most c More...

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Jan 13, 2012

Stephanie rated it:

So-so read. If you just want a list of the major players in bth NY and California (North vs. South) and the handful of restaruants that are key, then this is your book. If you are looking for something that bridges the gap between the more elitest restaraunts with the everyday American family, you won't find it here. That's why this book, overall, missed the boat so to speak.

Yes, it was interesting. It was neat to hear about James Beard (when all I previously knew was that he was More...

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Feb 03, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

Part history, part biography, part anthropological study, and all fascinating, especially if you're a foodie, or a nascent foodie, or just someone who wonders how restaurant menus got to be the way they are now, or the rise of Whole Foods, organic, grass fed, micro greens, balsamic vinaigrette, fancy pastas, sushi, Indian food, and so much more that we find in grocery stores and kitchen tables now that was unheard of in the 60s, 70s and earlier.

I enjoyed hearing the stories of people More...

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Apr 25, 2011

Angela rated it:

I finished this book. Yes I did. I say that so proudly because I attended book group NOT having finished it, and then pretty roundly trashed it and declared I would not finish it, there being, as always, so many other books to move on to. But then I came home and started channeling my inner Democrat (not hard to do, since I'm an outer Democrat too), and I started feeling guilty about possibly not fully considering the other side of the argument. Plus, Joanna really liked it, so there had to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 09, 2010

R. rated it:

Although I'm only giving this book three stars I still found it very interesting and something people who are interested in fine dining, Julia Child, French Laundry will enjoy reading. I was expecting more of a cultural explanation behind the growing moving towards widely available gourmet and organic foods, along with self-proclaimed foodies searching out the best restaurants. This is really more of a chronological telling of the birth of the American gourmet food movement through the main pl More...

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May 25, 2009

Mike rated it:

Most of the appeal of this book was in recognizing the names presented and being reasonably curious to learn some gossip about them. But beyond presenting a variety of salacious stories about major figures in food, the book was fairly mundane. The organization was scattered and the larger point unclear. The author asserts that America has undergone a food revolution, but since the book focuses on the "celebrity" food figures, it provides little (if any) evidence of a larger cultural sh More...

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Jan 17, 2009

Kristen rated it:

When reading the intro, I was afraid that this book was rehashing all the stuff that I already knew, but he did end up going into all sorts of new-to-me detail. Although it was still detail on familiar people/places/trends. There was only one name that I didn't recognize, and she was in Wisconsin. It was really clear that he writes for Vanity Fair, however. I didn't need all the asides about their sex lives. And most of the interviews seemed to involve provoking famous chefs and or food writers More...

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Jun 23, 2009

Awesome rated it:

Plus a half-a-star. The first half of the book, the Le Pavillion-James Beard-Julia Child-Alice Waters half, is excellent. Well-researched, interestingly in-depth, with just the right dash of gossip thrown into the mix to keep things juicing right along.

Unfortunately, things kinda fall apart around the mid-70s, when when the perils of writing close-range history become apparent and the wheels come a bit loose from Kamp's thesis. Name-dropping, both of famous chefs and their celeb More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I enjoyed this book as a fairly unbiased commentary on how we as a nation have evolved food-wise. I enjoy reading food related memoirs, however, they are often riddled with personal preferences and sometimes small petty fights that the author has to pick with the world of food and food journalism. I found this book refreshingly free of such small-mindednes, as well as interviewing both sides of the story when speaking of rifts, notorious food battles and opinions.

If you enjoy readin More...

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Nov 09, 2011

kates rated it:

Dear David Kamp,
Thank you for telling me a story about food, restaurants, and food culture with some history thrown in. It was a wonderful tale.

Also, I think Mario Batali would be a rad rad rad dinner guest, based on many things, one of which is the following quote:
"Look, it's TV! Everyone has to fall into a niche. I'm the Italian guy; Emeril's the exuberant New Orleans guy with the big eyebrows who yells a lot; Bobby's the grilling guy; Rachael Ray is the cheerle More...

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Oct 10, 2010

Hilary rated it:

The history of gastronomy in the U.S. from about the 1950's on. If that doesn't grab you, you will hate this book. It grabbed me. It took a long time for me to finish this. I would pick it up every so often. It fascinated me to learn about different cooking "movements", and the players behind them. I have not read or seen Julia and Julia (or whatever that was called) but I have a lot of love for Julia Child after reading this book. And, as someone married to an amateur chef, living in More...

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Jan 09, 2010

Hali rated it:

I really enjoyed this behind the scenes look at how America became a nation of "foodies". From the first big-name Frence chefs who opened restaurants in New York, to the happenstance careers of Julia Child, James Beard and others, through the evolution of the creative chefs and locavores, the whole history is laid out.
If you aren't into cooking, cookbooks or cooking shows, you would be bored with this book. But if you do know the players, and care, then this book is great fun. More...

1 comment like

May 01, 2009

Andy rated it:

Is it possible not to love Julia Child, to have watched the giant, thick-tongued goofball cooking in her TV kitchen and not be totally taken by her? If you are such a person, someone who is Julia agnostic, I should warn you—and I know this hurts—we can never be friends.

As you can probably guess, I was bred on PBS cooking shows and I’m predisposed to love any writing that prominently features Julia Child. Far less familiar to me were the other two thirds of “The Big Three”—Kamp’s foun More...

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Mar 19, 2009

Karen rated it:

I feel that this book is not what it claims to be. It's really a history of gourmet chefs and NY Times food reviewers, with almost no social context. It's as if someone just said, "Hey, why don't I make cheese out of goat's milk?!" I wanted it to be more about trends in ordinary people's eating habits, to explain how my own finickiness (like only buying bakery bread and not long sleeves of square loaves) fits into a social (and economic?) pattern. I wondered if I'd misinterpreted t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 23, 2011

sdw rated it:

According to the inside cover, Entertainment Weekly called The United States of Arugula “a gossipy history.” This book charts the rise of celebrity chefs in the U.S. more than it charts the eating habits of the masses or the rise of the food movement. Instead, I learned about the personal lives and personalities of Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, and Alice Waters.

Kamp tells a progressive narrative of hope. Poor Americans who ate crap for food learned to love French cooking and then More...

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Jan 04, 2010

Erin rated it:

To be honest, it took me awhile to get into this book, which is surprising considering my devotion to such foodie things. I guess it struck me as being pretty dry or bland in the beginning (see? see? I can't even describe books without using food descriptions!) However, once I understood Kamp's voice and how he was laying this history out, it became easier and more enjoyable to read. This account of the rise... and continuing rise of food appreciation in America is a truly interesting and More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 03, 2008

Loyola University Chicago Libraries rated it:

American history, food, celebrity chefs -- all are things I love, and all are things found in The United States of Arugula.

David Kamp traces the development of 20th and 21st century American culinary palates, trends, problems, and potential solutions in this easy-to-read history of how We The People have evolved in our approaches to food over the last century. From daily market trips to tv dinners in the freezer; from bland, heavy meals to the infusion of regional and international f More...

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