Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture
Starred review from August 1, 2013
Venturing deep into the underground foodie culture, New Yorker contributor Goodyear (The Oracle of Hollywood Boulevard: Poems, 2013, etc.) plunges into the world of dedicated individuals who routinely skirt the boundaries imposed by common culinary practices and tastes. The author is no stranger to ingesting foods many would forego. During a stint in China, she ate chicken feet and consumed a seven-course meal of dog meat. When Goodyear began hanging out with extreme foodies, the type of characters who consider insects, frog fallopian tubes and horsemeat as fair game for dinner, her food boundaries expanded. A dish composed of "slippery jellyfish in sesame-oil vinaigrette, and a raw oyster, poached quail egg, and crab guts, meant to be slurped together in one viscous spoonful" provided the author with an example of the "quiver on quiver on quiver" characterizing the "convergence of the disgusting and the sublime typical of so much foodie food." Goodyear skillfully stitches together the philosophical, psychological and legal underpinnings of this emerging movement with the stories of those consumers who seek out the sometimes-bizarre foods. She explores bits of culinary history, how culture plays a role in what's acceptable to eat and the ethical lines some individuals won't cross when it comes to exotic eating. The author visited underground pop-up restaurants, which combine "the raucous dinner with random tablemates, and the self-conscious staging of an elevated social interaction," and she spent time with the chefs who routinely traverse the outer limits of America's new food landscape. One chef, irate at the amount of waste in the meat industry, believes meat eating mustn't be easy but should force people to confront their food choices. Chris Cosentino, a well-known chef among adventurous eaters, "started serving the parts Americans no longer wanted to eat: spleens and blood and sperm; lungs, lips and livers." Goodyear's exploration of this engrossing and morally complex topic provides a solid footing for hearty conversations.
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October 15, 2013
Without doubt, Americans have become more obsessed with their food than ever before. Thanks to a constant barrage of advertising, cable television networks, an ever-evolving food-distribution system, and a vast agriculture industry, today's Americans have an immense range of choices for feeding themselves. Goodyear steers readers to the farthest boundaries of the food universe. Explorers and discoverers on prowl for new foods and taste sensations scavenge offal and insects, even eating live octopus to test their mettle. Others believe in the health benefits of raw, unprocessed foods, reveling in their nearness to nature and risking exposure to pathogens in defiance of government regulation. Creative, innovative chefs use new, state-of-the-art cooking technologies to prepare ingredients in untraditional combinations. The most cutting-edge chefs go so far as to risk prosecution by using marijuana in a host of dishes. Seriously devoted foodies will find themselves celebrated here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)