Random House
May 2003
Calvin Trillin loves to eat, and he eats well. He aligns himself with the chowhound, defined on www.chowhound.com as people who "blaze trails, combing gleefully through neighborhoods for hidden culinary treasure," people who "spurn trends and established opinion and sniff out secret deliciousness on their own." Thrill seekers jet off to remote locales to hike Himalayan mountain ranges, raft Venezuelan rivers, or lose themselves in Amazonian jungles. Chowhounds make similar treks for food.
In "Feeding a Yen," Trillin's most recent collection of food essays, we tag along as he seeks out such delicacies as pimientos de Padron in Spain, pan bagnat in Nice and boudin in Louisiana. These are foods that comprise Trillin's "Register of Frustration and Deprivation," foods that can't be found outside of their place of origin. When the food doesn't come to him, Trillin goes to the food, but he returns with so much more. Calvin Trillin is a consumer of world culinary culture, and he delivers this in the wry and humorous manner that devotees of his various columns (Time, The Nation, The New Yorker) have come to expect and love.
May 2003
Calvin Trillin loves to eat, and he eats well. He aligns himself with the chowhound, defined on www.chowhound.com as people who "blaze trails, combing gleefully through neighborhoods for hidden culinary treasure," people who "spurn trends and established opinion and sniff out secret deliciousness on their own." Thrill seekers jet off to remote locales to hike Himalayan mountain ranges, raft Venezuelan rivers, or lose themselves in Amazonian jungles. Chowhounds make similar treks for food.
In "Feeding a Yen," Trillin's most recent collection of food essays, we tag along as he seeks out such delicacies as pimientos de Padron in Spain, pan bagnat in Nice and boudin in Louisiana. These are foods that comprise Trillin's "Register of Frustration and Deprivation," foods that can't be found outside of their place of origin. When the food doesn't come to him, Trillin goes to the food, but he returns with so much more. Calvin Trillin is a consumer of world culinary culture, and he delivers this in the wry and humorous manner that devotees of his various columns (Time, The Nation, The New Yorker) have come to expect and love.
His description of the ubiquitous presence of octopus in a particular region in Spain exhibits his acute awareness of local culture:
"At practically any celebration, the presence of octopus is understood. I once read in a guidebook, for instance, that toward the end of June every year, at a shrine near a village called Silleda, people who feel themselves possessed by demons go through a ritual to exorcise the demons, and then everyone gathers for a feast of octopus. In Las Nieves, there is an annual celebration during which the families and friends of people who had a close brush with death the previous year march in a procession carrying tiny coffins and then join the assembled for a serious octopus feed. If bar mitzvahs are held in Galicia, I would expect to find octopus at the reception."
Even in his own neighborhood, Trillin, with his signature wit goes beyond the food and into the culture of the food: "In Manhattan, the victuals customarily referred to as Take-out Chinese… tend to make the trip from restaurants to apartment houses dangling in plastic bags from the handlebars of rickety bicycles.
"At practically any celebration, the presence of octopus is understood. I once read in a guidebook, for instance, that toward the end of June every year, at a shrine near a village called Silleda, people who feel themselves possessed by demons go through a ritual to exorcise the demons, and then everyone gathers for a feast of octopus. In Las Nieves, there is an annual celebration during which the families and friends of people who had a close brush with death the previous year march in a procession carrying tiny coffins and then join the assembled for a serious octopus feed. If bar mitzvahs are held in Galicia, I would expect to find octopus at the reception."
Even in his own neighborhood, Trillin, with his signature wit goes beyond the food and into the culture of the food: "In Manhattan, the victuals customarily referred to as Take-out Chinese… tend to make the trip from restaurants to apartment houses dangling in plastic bags from the handlebars of rickety bicycles.
(The proprietors of Chinese restaurants apparently feel about baskets the way proprietors of National Hockey League teams used to feel about helmets - sissy stuff. The restaurant proprietors still feel that way about helmets.)"
His anecdotes frequently include his wife and two daughters, who Trillin has carefully molded to be successors in his Chowhound line. My favorite essay in the collection is "Magic Bagel," in which Trillin goes on exhaustive search for the beloved pumpernickel bagel of his daughter's childhood in an attempt to lure her back to New York from her home in California.
Also featured in this collection of 14 essays: the Arepa Lady of Queens, a Chinese restaurant called "Star Twinkles" on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, and such arcane culinary trivia as the fact that San Diego is the first place in this country where fish tacos were sold. Yes, it's an eclectic and wide-ranging feast of words and a smorgasbord of insight. My one recommendation: Do not read this book on an empty stomach.
His anecdotes frequently include his wife and two daughters, who Trillin has carefully molded to be successors in his Chowhound line. My favorite essay in the collection is "Magic Bagel," in which Trillin goes on exhaustive search for the beloved pumpernickel bagel of his daughter's childhood in an attempt to lure her back to New York from her home in California.
Also featured in this collection of 14 essays: the Arepa Lady of Queens, a Chinese restaurant called "Star Twinkles" on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, and such arcane culinary trivia as the fact that San Diego is the first place in this country where fish tacos were sold. Yes, it's an eclectic and wide-ranging feast of words and a smorgasbord of insight. My one recommendation: Do not read this book on an empty stomach.
