RaveThe Washington Independent Review of BooksBirdsall ably opens up his subject’s narrative in astonishing ways. He relies on a bounty of primary-source materials: letters, datebooks, drafts of books and articles, and unpublished interview transcripts, as well as the vast trough of Beard’s published and recorded works ... An immaculate researcher, Birdsall transforms his findings into vivid prose, conjuring a visceral sense of place and time, starting in early 20th-century Portland, Oregon, and ending on New York City’s Lower West Side in 1985. Some of his finest turns of phrase he saves for the food that punctuates Beard’s life ... Make no mistake: This is not a book brimming with food porn. It is an honestly unforgiving portrait stripping away Beard’s immense mythology to lay bare the man beneath ... Though Birdsall’s deep-dive investigation takes some serious luster off Beard’s buffed-to-golden legacy, his deft portrayal reveals a man ahead of his time in so many ways. One just wishes Beard could’ve been more himself in the time that he lived ... one of the finest biographies of recent memory and one of the best culinary biographies around. Consider it required reading for anyone seeking to understand the foundations of modern American cooking and the hard-to-believe-its-true story of the man who played such an outsized role in shaping it.
Bill Buford
RaveThe Washington Independent Review of BooksThe subtitle attempts to prepare the reader for the book’s sweep, but this sprawling memoir exceeds even those generous borders ... Though Buford is clearly in awe of the country’s cuisine, he is never so starstruck that he can’t offer a delightfully unvarnished opinion ... Despite moments of levity, a heaviness hangs low throughout ... stands as Buford’s most personal book yet — though lacking the single-minded sizzle of Heat and the searing carnality of Among the Thugs — and is as much an examination of himself as his subjects. Lucky for us, the life he is creating makes for a fascinating read.
Adam Platt
MixedThe Washington Independent Review of Books... arranged more like a series of magazine articles than a flowing narrative ... What is missing is [Platt\'s] emotional core. Memoir is a dish best served warm, but this one is often surprisingly cold. There’s much discussion of where Platt went and what he ate, but precious little about what it all meant to him. This is not a plea for Proustian gushing about every piece of dim sum he ate decades earlier, but some sense of his connection to food would have made his story more robust and engaging ... [Platt] rarely pauses to offer any thoughtful analysis of how and why this is all happening, the deeper effects it has on how chefs and restaurants present themselves, and how they’re covered by writers at every level of the food-journalism ecosystem. Given his unique vantage point in the middle of these storms, his reflections would have been welcome ... Some of the most interesting prose is Platt’s unvarnished take on the dark underbelly of his job ... it’s when he’s reflecting on his career’s devastating downsides that he allows himself to be the most frank and forthright ... In those moments, The Book of Eating warms up to become an engaging memoir that transforms the unappetizing truth about professional food writing into a compelling read.
