Customer Reviews

MAY I HAVE SECONDS, PLEASE? - By: Gail Cooke, 09 Oct 2008
All of us have opinions stated or unstated, mumbled to ourselves or shouted from the rooftops. There is one subject on which everyone has an opinion & that is food. Polite diners may cautiously use their forks to push aside an unwanted slice of mango while a baby who cannot yet speak can utter a distinct blagh as he spits out his first taste of peas. Yes, opinions about food are everywhere, & most delightfully collectedin A Food Lover's Treasury, a book about the references to food that are foundin literature.

There are over 400 entries, some as brief & clear as Samuel Johnson's, "A cucumber should be well sliced, & dressed with pepper & vinegar, & then thrown as good for nothing." Others opine at length, a bit lyrically about their favorite dishes. In Sea & Sardinia D.H. Lawrence was ardentin his praise of vegetable shop displays on a "dark, greasy, night-stricken street," writing of how the street "seems to beam with these vegetables, all this fresh delicate flesh of luminous vegetables piled therein the air..." Yes, we are passionate about food!

Entries are organizedin nine chapters beginning with Food Philosophy through Local Delicacies & concluding with Manners & Morals. Readers may well find them themselves tempted as I was to go back to a favorite book & locate the quotein the context of the narrative.

That was good fun & so is the reading of A Food Lover's Treasury. Tuck your napkinin & enjoy!

- Gail Cooke