Well, at least the most engaging, informative, and funny one. I’ve read a gazillion memoirs involving food, and this is the best:
It’s by the terrific journalist A. J. Liebling, who wrote about many things, including boxing and World War II. But he outshone everyone else when it came to matters d’estomach.
And you can buy it on Amazon for about ten bucks. Don’t delay. If you want a sample, read some here (skip the intro and go straight to the first six pages written by Liebling.) Ah, the days of the great French gourmands:
Feel free to take issue with my judgment, wrong though you may be!
In the meantime, I have some photos of my Southern meals that I’ll post tomorrow.
Weird coincidence time, Jerry. I am currently writing about… A. J. Liebling. He was in Paris just after the Liberation and wrote a rather fine article for The New Yorker (9/9/1944). I’m including some quotes in the final chapter of my book on the Liberation of Paris. Here are some images to take you there:
‘For the first time in my life and probably the last, I have lived for a week in a great city where everybody is happy.’ Cycling has given Parisian girls ‘the best figures in the world’ – showing ‘legs of a length and slimness and firmness and browness never associated with French womanhood.’
His summation of the Liberation is good: ‘Frenchmen had begun the liberation of Paris; other Frenchmen completed it. As a result, the Parisians are happy not only because of the liberation but because they feel they earned it.’
Drop your aitches, Jerry! …de l’estomac!
And don’t skimp on the paté!
Calvin Trillin: American Fried.
That’s a damn good book, too! Sadly, Arthur Bryant’s is a shadow of its former self.
Probably true. I was there when Bryant was still alive and haven’t been back. Still, that doesn’t detract from the book. Also: Alice, Let’s Eat. And Third Helpings, which is however not quite as good.
The inestimable M.F.K. Fisher’s THE ART OF EATING is amusing, wise, and tender.