Finding the Flavors We Lost

July 18, 2016
Food made by small mom-and-pop producers tastes great and is more spiritually filling, according to this lively but at times overripe history of the artisanal food movement. Restaurant critic and ex-chef Kuh (The Last Days of Haute Cuisine) surveys pioneering rebels against flavorless, pasteurized, shelf-life optimized American industrial food: a hippie couple who started making their own cheese on a Michigan farm in the 1970s; the founder of an artisanal bakery in Los Angeles who struggled to recreate old-style French bread recipes; chef Jean-Louis Palladin, who made a crusade of scouring the U.S. for regional ingredients to ship to his Washington restaurant; and Ann Arbor's iconic Zingerman's Delicatessan, a countercultural fount of food novelties made into a thriving business by a former anarchist. Kuh's accounts, mainly based on interviews with participants and his own reportage, shine when he delves into neophytes' labors in developing their recipes and immerses readers in cheese-making, beer-brewing, dough-raising procedures. He goes over the top in hymns to art-food's soulful authenticity and sublime expression of terroir, and sometimes swallows the industry's marketing whole. Still, Kuh's exuberant prose and rapt observation makes for delectable food porn.

May 15, 2016

For the past few decades, there has been a growing movement to reclaim the culture of American food and drink. From Kentucky bourbon to Wisconsin cheese, Kuh (The Last Days of Haute Cuisine), restaurant critic for Los Angeles Magazine and former chef, follows the stories of several food artisans. Included in this mix are La Brea Bakery in New York, Zingerman's Deli in Michigan, and Taco Maria in California. The best chapters profile culinary craftsmen, both novice and veteran, or follow provision or beverage as it is brought out of the shadows. Most of the people featured have had no formal training and learned by doing; either through reading or taking an occasional class. Kuh excels at bringing these narratives to life, though some get bogged down in historical details or seem to digress, as in the chapter on the organization Food Forward, which is interesting but may leave readers wondering why it was included. VERDICT Overall, Kuh's excellent look at how American food has found its roots through the artisan movement creates a collection that will appeal to foodies and food historians. [See Prepub Alert, 12/21/16.]--Ginny Wolter, Toledo-Lucas Cty. P.L.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2016
A food writer considers what artisanship really means."I see the word artisan everywhere," notes Los Angeles Magazine restaurant critic and former restaurant cook Kuh (The Last Days of Haute Cuisine: The Coming of Age of American Restaurants, 2001, etc.), winner of the James Beard Award for Writing on Food. Although he acknowledges that the word points to concern with "different ideas that hover around flavor, such as integrity and intent," he worries that it has lost its meaning. Artisanship, he argues in his lively look at food production, "begins after all as a craft, and one that has to be learned, often the hard way." Food craft always involves technology, he writes. "Many of the hand-fashioned skills we celebrate were useful forms of technology in their day." Kuh investigates the history of bourbon, baking soda, and beer to highlight innovations that changed production. The column still, for example, introduced in Kentucky in the 1830s, was a "marked improvement" over pot still corn whiskey because it made liquor output purer. Baking soda replaced the time-consuming, arduous work of maintaining a starter to culture yeast. "Keeping this going could be a hassle" in regions where climates changed throughout the year. As for beer, Kuh admires the proficiency of megabrewers, but he sees that the craft movement has "found an irrepressible joy in processes and steps that had been rendered obsolete." Nevertheless, he asserts that commercial food producers still can "affirm scrupulously executed craft." The author offers profiles of many determined artisans, including cheese-makers starting small on a Michigan farm; a southern Californian who dreamed of producing, in Los Angeles, bread she had learned to bake in Paris; and two friends who wanted to start a Jewish deli in Ann Arbor. Each saw their efforts grow into thriving businesses--evidence, Kuh concludes, of the success of an artisanal revolution. A thoughtful, informative journey into the transforming--and transformative--world of food.

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June 1, 2016
Industrial principles that put a Model T in every driveway gave Americans a certain freedom. These same techniques, applied to agriculture, put a lot of affordable consumables on America's dining tables, but this progress numbed palates with uniformity of taste and texture that neglected honest pleasure and joy in eating. Over time, Americans began to realize what they had left behind, and some bold, or at least curious, farmers and herders set out to reclaim lost foods. And no one can deny the trendy eat local movement. Award-winning food critic Kuh crisscrosses the continent here, finding Wisconsin cheese makers determined to transform midwestern milk into wheels of cheese rivaling those of Switzerland. He also discovers California bakers turning out fragrant, chewy breads from old and native yeast strains, and he speaks to brewers and distillers working with local waters to bottle beers and spirits with specific, unique flavors. Kuh gives insight into the passions of some creative artisans hoping to broaden and deepen Americans' food passions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)