The Taste of America

by John L. Hess, Karen Hess

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." "This much-needed new edition charts 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.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Cooking

390 pages, Paperback

Published March 20, 2000

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary and enlightening. Written in the 70s by Hess and his wife, Karen Hess. He was a NYT food writer. History of U.S. foodways and recipes from about 1650 on. Emphatically knocks Craig Claiborne and Julia Child off their pedestals.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very enlightening and satisfying, albeit depressing, read. I am now even more aware of how impoverished we have become, food wise.

[Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It's a gleeful tearing-apart of the state of American food and tastes in 1972. It's all still relevant, and still very funny.