Tandoh wades through the chaotic food world of the 2020s armed with delightful snark and historical analysis in equal measure. A romp, in short ... Tandoh is a trenchant, if sometimes bemused, guide ... Although this book has no discernible theme or organizing principle ...Tandoh’s writing is so engaging you don’t mind a bit ... Still, in some chapters, indignation bests rigor ... Tandoh is not prone to the simple take.
Fascinating ... Tandoh’s conversational tone belies an impressive amount of historical research ... Astute social commentary ... At points, the book shifts from telling us why we eat what we eat to what we should and shouldn’t be consuming ... Tandoh proves once again that there’s nothing new under the sun ... Ruby Tandoh’s book, written with warmth and humour, makes these complex and heavy issues digestible ... Without doubt, All Consuming will make you think differently about why you eat what you eat.
Tandoh is as at home with the McNugget as she is with the croquembouche, and equally curious about both ... Delightful ... This is a delectable antidote to the Ozempic era of shrinking portions and ‘thin is in' ... Tandoh revels in the anarchic delight of modern food culture even while acknowledging its flaws ... A light touch belies a depth of research and practical culinary know-how, but it is evident…that Tandoh really cares about food ... This is a feast of many flavors; pull up a chair, and tuck in.
Razor-sharp ... An ambitious undertaking, whose breeziness befits the superfluity of its subject, playfully belying its serious research ... Tandoh investigates medieval cookbooks with the same aplomb as she does online trends ... Has deft observations that, once stated, you kick yourself for not noticing ... Hysterically funny ... Tandoh has a talent for language that winks at and luxuriates in the genre’s conventions ... Some might take issue with Tandoh’s exuberant consumerism and her disregard for environmental and ethical consequences, but I found her joy contagious ... All Consuming knows it’s not a classic but instead a slyly brilliant bauble that will endure as long as the ephemeral shelf-life of the content it contains ... Made me obsess for more.
Knowledgeable and cockily erudite ... If a criticism is to be piped atop these explanations, it must be noted how akin they are to Malcolm Gladwell’s random, preference-led gobbets. Lunging from the brilliant to the flashily invalid ... All Consuming is a book for the gastronomically super-literate ... It’s one thing to broaden the public’s culinary horizons, it’s quite another to nuke their worlds with exotica ... Readers are certain to love Tandoh’s wry, subversive, zanily astute writing style ... It is in her smaller, more acidic put-downs where true entertainment can be found ... Throughout she contains this smirkful, cutting wisdom so well that the book isn’t pungent with cynicism, but is one still willing to satirise anything in the food industry ... It fascinates as much as it flummoxes, but best of all it allows a writerly talent to excel in her field without a calorie being counted.
An entertaining, endlessly instructive look at why we like what we do in our 'anarchic web of desire' ... Tandoh is a great explainer with a gift for a memorable turn of phrase ... Tandoh’s knowing classification of the three types of cookbooks is worth the price of admission alone.