From the origins of the blintz to the role of dairy products in the Russian Revolution, MacArthur Award-winning author and cartoonist Katchor relates the fascinating history of Jewish eating.
This is an encyclopedic book, history as told through old newspapers and telephone books and scraps of detail found in letters and memoirs ... This dense cultural and culinary history is reason enough to come to The Dairy Restaurant. But Katchor...has a sharp mind and a sly sense of humor. His words and his charcoal-palette drawings have a combinatory intelligence ... Many of the best moments in this book are stray gleanings ...This is a forlorn book, somehow. You wish it came with a good mixed bread basket, for mopping up the lonely broth.
... a visual and textual treat ... A wonderful survey of a type of restaurant once ubiquitous and now down to a handful. Katchor contributes a worthy and welcome volume to the genre of Kosher cuisine.
... isn’t a typical graphic novel, though there is art. Instead it’s a fascinating hybrid format, part history/philosophy/rumination, part graphic imagery ... There’s an immense amount of reading and research crammed into these pages, all served up in an easily digested format ... After reading Katchor, Aleichem’s stories glow with a unique depth and meaning. What seemed like mere folklore take on greater significance ... lovingly chronicles and restores a vanishing cultural fixture for us. This time, though, he’s added a thick lawyer of scholarship and though-provoking musings. He has served up a very satisfying dish here.
