What do you think?
Rate this book
Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth
Tucker Shaw is a man who loves to eat. And for 365 days, from January 1 to December 31st, he has photographed every nibble, entre, side dish, and snack, every slice of birthday cake, poached egg, mango pavlova, and bacon cheeseburger. Everything I Ate is Tucker's personal homage to food, and in a culture where food is so often the enemy, where so many of us seek to suppress our appetites and conceal our guilty pleasures, this curiously intimate food diary is an out-and-out celebration of the joys of eating. Arranged in chronological order and featuring short captions including date, time, food, place, and any company enjoyed, the photographs reveal one man's rituals and patterns (he has a brief love affair with a morning brioche, but it is his midnight bowl of cereal that really stands by him in the end). What exactly does this food play-by-play prove? The simple truth that personal data is extraordinarily universal. Here is a tribute to the ways in which food sustains us, connects us, and makes us human. With 2500 color images packed into nearly 500 pages (and too many calories to count), Everything I Ate is a fast-paced ride through one man's year-long culinary adventure.
496 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2005
2 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
About the author
Tucker Shaw
30 books134 followersTucker Shaw's novel, WHEN YOU CALL MY NAME, follows two gay teenagers during the height of the AIDS crisis in New York City in 1990. In hard times, nothing is more powerful than friendship.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 26, 2012
No Epilogue? A years worth of meals and not a single post-script from the author about, oh, his addiction to cereal past midnight? I'm convinced this guys a super stoner soley based on his consumption of Honey Bunches of Oats. I will say it was very nice to see someone who eats healthy (most of the time) but still downs greasy pizza and Haggen Daz, just like the rest of us.
September 2, 2011
don't know why i love this book...i just do :)
April 24, 2017
A full six years before the debut of Instagram, which allows every Anthony Bourdain wannabe with a cell phone to post pics of their restaurant meals online, Tucker Shaw decided to photograph every single thing he ate for an entire year. This includes pieces of beef jerky he ate at home, a costly meal at NYC's Le Bernardin, Ring Dings and late night bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios. Although I've never actually looked at any food photos on Instagram (and kind of think the practice is pretty self-indulgent and silly), as a foodie the idea is kind of intriguing to me so the cover and title of this one instantly called out to me.
And once I started flipping through it, I discovered so much more than a bunch of poorly lit cell phone photos of foodstuffs.
It's really quite addictive and proves to be insanely personal, even despite the fact that the food photos are accompanied by almost no text. Based on what little information is provided, you get a glimpse into Shaw's life as a youthful New Yorker creative - how often he's out socializing, when he's home alone, at what point he appears to have settled down with someone (Danny), his travels, when he's flush and when he's broke and, of course, all his eating habits, tastes, experiments and splurges. We're even with him through the death of his father.
This is an entertaining and revealing glimpse into one man's life as reflected in his food choices. Loses one point for the lousy photography.
I really enjoyed this. Possibly more than I should have.
And once I started flipping through it, I discovered so much more than a bunch of poorly lit cell phone photos of foodstuffs.
It's really quite addictive and proves to be insanely personal, even despite the fact that the food photos are accompanied by almost no text. Based on what little information is provided, you get a glimpse into Shaw's life as a youthful New Yorker creative - how often he's out socializing, when he's home alone, at what point he appears to have settled down with someone (Danny), his travels, when he's flush and when he's broke and, of course, all his eating habits, tastes, experiments and splurges. We're even with him through the death of his father.
This is an entertaining and revealing glimpse into one man's life as reflected in his food choices. Loses one point for the lousy photography.
I really enjoyed this. Possibly more than I should have.
June 17, 2009
This is a cute and fun idea, but it was badly executed. Maybe it is just me, but I would have liked a statistical breakdown of how many bowls of cereal he ate, rather than a day by day photo breakdown of his meals. Kind of (really) boring, but good for a laugh or two if you want to see what the author ate on, say, your birthday last year.
Read
April 2, 2008My niece gave me this book because I've been taking photographs of each of my dinners for the last 57 days with the goal of completing "a year of dinners."
This is a fun book to flip through -- excellent bathroom reading, my husband would say. Tucker Shaw says that it's the most honest thing he has ever written, and it does seem like he took pains to record every single food that went into his mouth. He omits drinks, however, and that made me curious about what he drinks, and how much. The other thing he omitted was the reason he was eating in various other cities on some occasions. Was he in Bologna to go to the Children's Book Fair? Why did he eat with school children in Florence? Why was he in Las Vegas? Does his family have a summer home on Nantucket, or did they rent one? He's careful to report what the food was, where he was when he ate it, and with whom he ate (first names only). I wanted to know more about those people, and about what he was experiencing at the time.
We see what he ate after oral surgery, and we see that he has a serious late-night bowl-of-cereal habit. (He usually watches late-night TV while eating said cereal.) Some days he eats well, and some days he eats pure junk, and no vegetables. He doesn't seem to cook much.
So it's a combination of an intensely voyeuristic but still mysteriously private look into Tucker Shaw's life for a year. Sort of fascinating to ponder, for something that on the face of it appears to be so simple.
This is a fun book to flip through -- excellent bathroom reading, my husband would say. Tucker Shaw says that it's the most honest thing he has ever written, and it does seem like he took pains to record every single food that went into his mouth. He omits drinks, however, and that made me curious about what he drinks, and how much. The other thing he omitted was the reason he was eating in various other cities on some occasions. Was he in Bologna to go to the Children's Book Fair? Why did he eat with school children in Florence? Why was he in Las Vegas? Does his family have a summer home on Nantucket, or did they rent one? He's careful to report what the food was, where he was when he ate it, and with whom he ate (first names only). I wanted to know more about those people, and about what he was experiencing at the time.
We see what he ate after oral surgery, and we see that he has a serious late-night bowl-of-cereal habit. (He usually watches late-night TV while eating said cereal.) Some days he eats well, and some days he eats pure junk, and no vegetables. He doesn't seem to cook much.
So it's a combination of an intensely voyeuristic but still mysteriously private look into Tucker Shaw's life for a year. Sort of fascinating to ponder, for something that on the face of it appears to be so simple.
February 13, 2013
Interesting experiment. I wish he was a better photographer and/or had a better camera, because the food isn’t much to look at. So much of it is poorly lit snapshots.
It’s hard for me not to judge a person based on what they eat, as I found out reading this. It seems like when he eats out, he really goes to town. Once or twice a week there seems to be a trip to some expensive restaurant. But he balances out these extravagances by eating so many boring bowls of cereal, PB&J on hot dog buns, and pasta with olive oil and salt (!) that I can’t really fault him. I laughed every time he ate a “workout shake” when it was clear by the timeframe in between the surrounding meals that there was no workout taking place. And I almost wanted to applaud every time he made something more adventurous than cereal at home, which is not often. It’s also incredibly monotonous and detailed. Why mention every single person's name who was in the room while he ate? What bearing do they have? The food is taken out of context so we don’t know why he was eating with people, why he was traveling, etc. In the end it’s just a weird, obsessive food diary.
It’s hard for me not to judge a person based on what they eat, as I found out reading this. It seems like when he eats out, he really goes to town. Once or twice a week there seems to be a trip to some expensive restaurant. But he balances out these extravagances by eating so many boring bowls of cereal, PB&J on hot dog buns, and pasta with olive oil and salt (!) that I can’t really fault him. I laughed every time he ate a “workout shake” when it was clear by the timeframe in between the surrounding meals that there was no workout taking place. And I almost wanted to applaud every time he made something more adventurous than cereal at home, which is not often. It’s also incredibly monotonous and detailed. Why mention every single person's name who was in the room while he ate? What bearing do they have? The food is taken out of context so we don’t know why he was eating with people, why he was traveling, etc. In the end it’s just a weird, obsessive food diary.
May 1, 2012
Tucker Shaw did something extraordinary: he decided to record everything he ate for an entire year. Day by day, hour by hour, he uploaded all his comestibles via a small handheld Elph camera and the results are truly absorbing and sometimes funny to boot. He doesn’t just show meals but the occasional lozenge, candy bar, midnight snack, free samples, etc.—in short, everything and anything that he put in his mouth for consumption.
In a society in which we often snatch meals on the run without pausing to reflect or even look at what we’re cramming down our gullets, Mr. Shaw’s 365-day visual diary is captivating, showing an utter devotion to food—or someone with a lot of time on his hands. A pictorial odyssey, placed without censorship or concern about veganism and utterly absorbing, you might find yourself slowing down and perusing what it is you’re eating or simply flipping to your birth date in order to find out what meal Mr. Tucker was having on that day.
In a society in which we often snatch meals on the run without pausing to reflect or even look at what we’re cramming down our gullets, Mr. Shaw’s 365-day visual diary is captivating, showing an utter devotion to food—or someone with a lot of time on his hands. A pictorial odyssey, placed without censorship or concern about veganism and utterly absorbing, you might find yourself slowing down and perusing what it is you’re eating or simply flipping to your birth date in order to find out what meal Mr. Tucker was having on that day.
May 21, 2021
Basically, Tucker decided to chronicle everything he ate for a whole year. The book essentially has a page per day and shows photos of all the food, along with captions to tell you what time he ate, what he ate, where he ate it, and who else was present. The book also has a brief explanation of why he decided to do this and a few "best of" lists.
Okay, so no one could REALLY be interested in what a stranger eats for 365 days in a row, right? True, but the smart thing about this book is the way it was recorded. I found it interesting to see how late he ate dinner (as a rule, always after 8:00) as well as the late night cereal feasts. (A man who knows and appreciates the beauty of cereal!!). For a guy who thinks heaven is a steak place, he ate a lot of exotic, non-traditional food. I applaud the creativity and the total break from preaching at the reader!
Okay, so no one could REALLY be interested in what a stranger eats for 365 days in a row, right? True, but the smart thing about this book is the way it was recorded. I found it interesting to see how late he ate dinner (as a rule, always after 8:00) as well as the late night cereal feasts. (A man who knows and appreciates the beauty of cereal!!). For a guy who thinks heaven is a steak place, he ate a lot of exotic, non-traditional food. I applaud the creativity and the total break from preaching at the reader!
January 8, 2013
I saw this book in the dollar store, and it caught my eye because of the author, Tucker Shaw. Shaw is a syndicated food writer and has written some great pieces about food and restaurants all over the world. I've really enjoyed reading his stuff in the Denver Post, so I thought this would be a fun book. But this book is far too detailed and dull--not what I was expecting at all. It's clever in many ways, but I just couldn't read the whole thing. So I'll keep reading witty, interesting newspaper and magazine articles by Mr. Shaw, but "no thanks" with this book.
July 16, 2008
I skimmed this a couple years ago. Contains pictures of everything a guy ate for an entire year. I got a kick out of things like his New Year's hangover food and how he ate a bowl of cereal every night at 11 pm. This book made me so jealous of how he got to eat awesome NYC food every day plus authentic Italian food during his trip to Italy. I was literally drooling at some of the pics.
September 3, 2012
Ideally, Shaw should have kept a journal and published a companion memoir to tell us why he went to Nantucket, who Danny, Susan, Christopher, Andrea, and Marc are. Why did he not photograph his drinks. Does he EVER eat vegetables? Does he ever cook? It would be nice to learn about what he has published, where he goes in New York, and what he does other than eat.
October 31, 2008
This book is cool, it's a picture book. If I was to record all the food I ate for a year, I think I will scared myself. Reading this book, I know more tasty restaurant in New York City.
August 21, 2010
Food porn at its very best. I read and re-read and re-re-read this book just to ogle photos and eat vicariously through Tucker Shaw.
October 19, 2010
clever, insipring and slightly voyeuristic.
January 1, 2013
it took me 2 years to get through it but perseverance paid off! now, i am going to devote 2013 to checking out some the restaurants that the author mentioned.
September 5, 2012
Just incredible
September 3, 2016
Not my thing.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews