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34th out of 469 books
—
979 voters
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
by
David Kamp
One day we woke up and realized that our “macaroni” had become “pasta,” that our Wonder Bread had been replaced by organic whole wheat, that sushi was fast food, and that our tomatoes were heirlooms. How did all this happen, and who made it happen? The United States of Arugula is the rollicking, revealing chronicle of how gourmet eating in America went from obscure to perv...more
Hardcover, 416 pages
Published
September 12th 2006
by Clarkson Potter
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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 int...more
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 flavors; from...more
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 flavors; from...more
Jul 13, 2010
Robert
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
food-cooking-restaurants,
society
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. This is 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 o...more
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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, wh...more
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 Germany...more
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 incomprehensible. It's st...more
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 incomprehensible. It's st...more
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
Mar 04, 2008
Susanne
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who want to read snarky insider gossip about famous chefs
Shelves:
food
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 better understanding...more
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
Perhaps the title should read: How We Tried To Become a Gourmet Nation. Because Trader Joe's now stocks mâche and we now eat sweet potato fries, not just the boring white french fry, does not a gourmet make. Otherwise, a fun, informative, easy read, with the requisite insider insight with a gossiping tone at times. I found most interesting Kamp's narrative of the changes in ingredient availability and how Americans adopted French recipes and techniques without demanding their own chefs have any...more
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 seventies, a...more
But I liked reading how the love of all things French changed with the influence of Alice Waters (yikes!) in the seventies, a...more
Mar 20, 2011
Joanna
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bookgroup,
books-on-food
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 style...more
What an informative book and my goodness, it covers so much of our food revolution! What more could you ask for regarding selection of chefs and foodie personalities? To go over all the remarkable men and women in the industry and their significant contributions would be a pale rehash of what David Kamp created with this book. A compendium of stories I could flip open and go back to time and again. This isn’t a book that will be making it’s way to the used book store for trade.
Mr. Kamp is a wond...more
Mr. Kamp is a wond...more
What a fun foodie history! I really enjoyed this book and I learned so much about the recent history of food in this country. David Kamp chronicles this amazing transformation, from the overcooked vegetables and scary gelatin salads of yore to our current heyday of free-range chickens, extra-virgin olive oil, Iron Chef, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and that breed of human known as the “foodie.” From the “Big Three,” the lodestars who led us out of this culinary wilderness: James Beard, Julia Child, a...more
Jul 17, 2011
Lynn
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
pseudo-intellectual elitist celebrity-gawking so-called foodies
Shelves:
ebooks
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 text itself only served to...more
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 text itself only served to...more
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 fine dining...more
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 fine dining...more
Glad I read it, but some of it was slow going. Ever finish a book & feel like you won a long, drawn-out, slow-motion fight? I feel like finishing this book was a real triumph. I'm not one of those people who feels compelled to finish a book just because I started it. I've set many a book aside in my day. But this one was just on the edge -- if I wasn't so very interested in the subject, I wouldn't have made it through.
The good: Well written, well edited, and I learned a ton!
The bad: I was...more
The good: Well written, well edited, and I learned a ton!
The bad: I was...more
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
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 important). The...more
Yes, it was interesting. It was neat to hear about James Beard (when all I previously knew was that he was important). The...more
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 like James...more
I enjoyed hearing the stories of people like James...more
If you are a rabid foodie, you have already read this book. If you are in love with food and own every possible kitchen gadget there is, this one's for you.
This is a wonderful history of the evolution of the food culture during the last sixty years. All of the great chefs and critics like Claiborne, Childs, and Pepin are discussed. The "grow local, eat local" movement which evolved out of 1960's counterculture is thoroughly explored. The history of great Bay Ara restaurants and their owners are...more
This is a wonderful history of the evolution of the food culture during the last sixty years. All of the great chefs and critics like Claiborne, Childs, and Pepin are discussed. The "grow local, eat local" movement which evolved out of 1960's counterculture is thoroughly explored. The history of great Bay Ara restaurants and their owners are...more
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 be s...more
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 play...more
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 shift. I dou...more
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
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 celebrated restaurant...more
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 celebrated restaurant...more
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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 reading the food b...more
If you enjoy reading the food b...more
I don't really care where all these people put their penises. By focusing on gossipy crap about celebrity chefs, the actual story of America's changing tastes is mostly ignored by this book, which sort of just assumes that everybody is sort of just magically influenced by the insular food world.
I was hoping for more facts and information about actual changes in the way that people prepared, ate, and thought about food, so I think I mostly just wanted this book to be a different one than it actu...more
I was hoping for more facts and information about actual changes in the way that people prepared, ate, and thought about food, so I think I mostly just wanted this book to be a different one than it actu...more
May 23, 2013
Christy
marked it as did-not-finish
Too much "who", not enough "why".
Starting this book, I expected it to be kind of like the companion to "Sugar, Salt, Fat" -- which detailed the changes over the years of the food industry's processed goods, describing marketing strategies and consumer's attitudes.
In this book, I was expecting chapters on how studies on antioxidants made pomegranates popular and when exactly it became normal to see sushi in the produce section.
Instead, it was too much a who's who of the food scene over the year...more
Starting this book, I expected it to be kind of like the companion to "Sugar, Salt, Fat" -- which detailed the changes over the years of the food industry's processed goods, describing marketing strategies and consumer's attitudes.
In this book, I was expecting chapters on how studies on antioxidants made pomegranates popular and when exactly it became normal to see sushi in the produce section.
Instead, it was too much a who's who of the food scene over the year...more
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 cheerleader-type girl who makes things...more
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 cheerleader-type girl who makes things...more
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