The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance

by McNamee, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9781439191507
• ISBN10: 1439191506
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-08
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

From his first day on the job as the New York Times food critic, Craig Claiborne excited readers by introducing them to food worlds unknown, from initiating them in the standards of the finest French cuisine and the tantalizing joys of the then mostly unknown foods of India, China, Mexico, Spain, to extolling the pleasures of ;exotic ; ingredients like arugula, and praising ;newfangled ; tools like the Cuisinart, which once he'd given his stamp of approval became wildly popular. A good review of a restaurant guaranteed a full house for weeks, while a bad review might close a kitchen down. Based on unprecedented access to Claiborne's personal papers and interviews with a host of food world royalty, including Jacques Pepin, Gael Greene, and Alice Waters, Tom McNamee offers a lively and vivid account of Claiborne's extraordinary adventure in food, from his own awakening in the bistros of Paris, to his legendary wine-soaked dinner parties, to his travels to colorful locals from Morocco to Saigon, and the infamous $4,000 dinner he shared in Paris with French chef Pierre Franey that made front-page news. More than an engrossing biography, this is the story of the country's transition from enchantment with frozen TV dinners to a new consciousness of truly good cooking. Praise for Tom McNamee's Alice Water and Chez Panisse: ;McNamee's clear-eyed assessment avoids the usual platitudes about California cuisine and shows how one individual with an understanding of food can carve out a personal identity and at the same time make culinary history. ; The New York Times ;A wonderfully entertaining, gossipy glimpse inside a kitchen that continues to surprise and delight. ; The Seattle Times

Author Biography

Thomas McNamee is the author of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, Life, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

A Sensation	p. 1
Beyond the Delta Horizon	p. 9
War and Love	p. 21
Good at Something	p. 31
Spring Like a Cat	p. 39
Becoming Craig Claiborne	p. 53
Pierre	p. 67
Authority	p. 91
Attention	p. 103
Olympus	p. 123
Quits	p. 145
Prodigal	p. 163
La Nouvelle Cuisine	p. 177
The Feast	p. 201
Pre-Emeritus	p. 213
Love and Remembrance	p. 241
Fate	p. 265
Residuum	p. 279
Coda	p. 285
Acknowledgments	p. 293
Notes	p. 295
Bibliography	p. 310
Selected Magazine and Newspaper Articles	p. 315
Credits	p. 320
Index	p. 321
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