Gourmands Gluttons

Utilizing texts ranging from the Slow Food Movement to «food porn» as a cornucopia of visual fantasies, this book maintains that the gourmand's role today is not only grand but also has come to epitomize the rhetoric of excess.

A biography of six writers on food and wine whose lives and careers intersected in mid-twentieth-century France During les trente glorieuses—a thirty-year boom period in France between the end of World War II and the 1974 oil crisis—Paris was not only the world’s most delicious, stylish, and exciting tourist destination; it was also the world capital of gastronomic genius and innovation. The Gourmands’ Way explores the lives and writings of six Americans who chronicled the food and wine of “the glorious thirty,” paying particular attention to their individual struggles as writers, to their life circumstances, and, ultimately, to their particular genius at sharing awareness of French food with mainstream American readers. In doing so, this group biography also tells the story of an era when America adored all things French. The group is comprised of the war correspondent A. J. Liebling; Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s life partner, who reinvented herself at seventy as a cookbook author; M.F.K. Fisher, a sensualist and fabulist storyteller; Julia Child, a television celebrity and cookbook author; Alexis Lichine, an ambitious wine merchant; and Richard Olney, a reclusive artist who reluctantly evolved into a brilliant writer on French food and wine. Together, these writer-adventurers initiated an American cultural dialogue on food that has continued to this day. Justin Spring’s The Gourmands’ Way is the first book ever to look at them as a group and to specifically chronicle their Paris experiences.

What do we mean when we call any group a cult? Definingthat term is a slippery proposition – the word cult is provocative and arguably pejorative. Does it necessarily refer to a religious group? A group with a charismatic leader? Or something darker and more sinister? Because beliefs and practices surrounding food often inspire religious and political fervor, as well as function to unite people into insular groups, it is inevitable that "food cults" would emerge. Studying the extreme beliefs and practices of such food cults allows us to see the ways in which food serves as a nexus for religious beliefs, sexuality, death anxiety, preoccupation with the body, asceticism, and hedonism, to name a few. In contrast to religious and political cults, food cults have the added dimension of mediating cultural trends in nutrition and diet through their membership. Should we then consider raw foodists, many of whom believe that cooked food is poison, a type of food cult? What about paleo diet adherents or those who follow a restricted calorie diet for longevity? Food Cults explores these questions by looking at domestic and international, contemporary and historic food communities characterized by extreme nutritional beliefs or viewed as "fringe" movements by mainstream culture. While there are a variety of accounts of such food communities across disciplines, this collection pulls together these works and explains why we gravitate toward such groups and the social and psychological functions they serve. This volume describes how contemporary and historic food communities come together and foment fanaticism, judgment, charisma, dogma, passion, longevity, condemnation and exaltation.

The last challenge is a full-course Chinese meal... But both contestants have closed to their limit after the endless eating battles. Between Mirei Lin and Mantaro, who will be the champion for the biggest world eating contest?! A fantastic last volume!

The Final Battle between the Masked Man and Momoko started! Can the Masked Man won a Yokan eating contest against the queen of sweets? Will he reveal his identity?

This is the first and only book which traces the history of cookery from the days of primitive man up to the present day of the Four Seasons Restaurant and gourmet supermarkets. It is full of curious lore about cooking down through the ages, and also features over 150 extra-special recipes, adapted from their historical sources for the modern American kitchen. Opening with a description of feasts in ancient Greece, Miss Wason rapidly covers a gastronomical tour of Greece and Rome—including feasts where each guest was served an entire roast boar; visits to neighbors when you brought your own goatskin of wine and they provided appetizers; banquets at which one rose was placed on the table, signifying that nothing said there could be repeated, thus sub rosa. Undaunted by the scope and complexity of her subject matter, Miss Wason covers cookery in the Far and Near East, all of Europe and the New World, using anecdotes about those who cook and enjoy food. The last four chapters are devoted to the United States—from Thomas Jefferson to the Harvey girls to Betty Crocker. COOKS, GLUTTONS AND GOURMETS is a book for everyone interested in food—fun reading for the gourmet, invaluable as a reference work for home economists and others in the food field, it is also a practical guide for the home cook who can now give company meals the added spice of history.