The Omnivore’s Dilemma

by Michael Pollan

From the back cover: “Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man discovered fire. But as Michael Pollan explain in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.”

While I have read from other sources about the horrors of feedlot and the problems of the processed food in our society, this book still provided a lot of new (to me) information, and the later parts about industrial organics and hunting/gathering are eye-openers for me. As I read the book, I quoted passages (mostly scary stats and some amusing lines) to my husband in a not-so-subtle way to sway him from meat eating.

I did not know, for example, that corn and grain feeding is so bad for the cows themselves, and that it ends up providing worse meat for us, endangering our own health. Animals get their omega-3 from grass; corn and such does not contain omega-3. In fact, the anti-inflammatory, blood flowing omega-3 is found in a plant’s leaves, and the flammatory, blood clotting omega-6 in seeds. Free-range chicken eggs therefore are rich in omega-3, as the chicken feed on grass. It’s popular now to eat salmon for its omega-3 fatty acids, but truth is that they come from the planktons the fish eat. When we try to breed fish that grow on grain, we eventually breed salmon that is deficient in omega-3 but full of the omega-6. It is believed the higher consumption of omega-6 vs omega-3 is the culprit of the many modern day diseases such as cardiac, diabetes and obesity.

Moreover, for the cows, eating corn makes their stomach acidic, and a hotbed for E coli. A research has found that by switching a cow’s diet from corn to grass or hay for a few days prior to slaughter will alkalize the pH of the stomach and thus reducing the E. coli population by as much as 80%. Unfortunately, this solution is considered impractical by the cattle industry and thus the USDA.

The author then goes on to explore the organic industry. He found that as the organic industry goes mainstream, large scale production means that some of the organic farms may not be much different from the conventional ones. The cattle may not live any better a life than its feedlot brethen, except for the feed it consume, organic rather than pesticide infested - an improvement that likely won’t affect its well-being or happiness much. And getting organic salad greens trucked all the way from California is not so green after all.

Pollan’s experience on Polyface farm is really interesting. Though it is imaginable that such substaniable, earth friendly but labor intensive (and brain intensive) farming method is unlikely to be more mainstream.

The part on hunter/gatherer is an interesting read as well, though I certainly would not fire a rifle for food, and gathering mushroom doesn’t sound fun to a city girl like me.

I doubt there is any person who would read this book and not re-think the food choices he or she makes. One may go local, go organic, or simply just eat fewer processed food or fast food… but it would be lovely if every person who’s read this book make a more conscious choice in what it goes into one’s mouth. This reminds me of a comment I read somewhere, that nowadays people put too little thought in what goes into our stomach, and into our mind. This book is indeed healthful on both counts.

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

by Julie Powell

Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother’s dog eared copy of Julia Child’s 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.

This book was quite an entertaining read. I expected it to, and was disappointed it doesn’t, contain some of Julia Child’s recipe so I know better what Julie was cooking, but then this book is not so much about cooking than about one young woman’s life. A typical Gen-Xer living in NY, with a run-down, not-too-clean apartment, a good day/bad day relationship, a marriage-crazed girlfriend, many crazy friends, an over-concerned mother, a mundane OL life, booze, blogs… made untypical by her decision to cook through a classic cook book.

I love Julie’s honest and witty writing. As my friend commented, it’s not very polished writing - well, her language certainly isn’t polished - but the personable note more than make up for it. I mean, how can I hate someone who openly admits to be an awful housekeeper?

My favorite passage is the one about the Petits Chaussons au Roquefort. As she stuffed and sealed the turnovers, she mused “I’d brought the filling into being, and now I was seeking to entrap it in a buttery pastry prison, though it was obvious fromk its evasive behavior that there is nothing Roquefort wants more than to be free. Was this not arrogance? Was it not, in essence, a slave-owning mentality, to be approaching this from the perspective of how best to trap the Roquefort filling, without consideration for the Roquefort’s fundamental desire for freedom?” I think this really captures the spirit of the book.

Hungry Planet

by Peter Menael and Faith D’Aluisio

This is a beautiful oversized photo book. The authors visited 30 families in 24 countries and photo them in their daily lives, and the family with a week’s worth of food. It’s mind boggling to see the difference between a family from an industrialized nation and one from an impoverished country or even a refugee camp. It’s also interesting to see how many Kellogg’s cornflakes and Coca Colas show up around the world, how familiar food appears with a different package that is at once familiar and foreign.

Even the caption of the book is thought provoking: subjects are asked to name their favorite food. There is the expected pizza and potato chips, and even the no-longer-exotic sashimi, but for polar bear to be named a favorite food in Greenland - that certainly is interesting. More intriguing is that in places where you basically eat whatever you can find or grow, there is no concept of favorite food. I suppose you are just grateful for food and can’t afford to dislike something.

The book also has lots of eye opening facts, such as Mexico ranking number one in worldwide per capita consumption for Coca-Cola, and trailing the U.S. closely on obesity rate; while China enforces an one-child policy for over a decade now, its birth rate is higher than many European countries; how many cigarettes some countries consume (how can Japanese smokes almost 10 cigarette per day and still lives so long??)

Which reminds me of the joke: Japaneses smoke more than Americans, they live longer. French drinks more wine than American, they live longer. Obviously, what kills you is being American…

My favorite photo is the one of the Ecuadorian family. The smile of the whole family is so radiating. You almost feel them welcoming you to share at their table, meager though their fare may be…

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

What a delightful read!  Sweet, bitter, spicy… all the flavors stewing in one pot.  Plus a few dashes of international flavors: Japanese dashi, Thai chili… I have a few favorites: Thanks, but No Thanks by Courtney Eldridge, The Year of Spaghetti by Haruki Murakami, Eggs Over Uneasy by Jonathan Ames, Luxury by Holly Hughes, Instant Noodles by Rattawut Lapcharoensap.

It is interesting how some people view dining alone as the ultimate treat to one self, a luxury, a celebration; while for others it is a pathetic ocassion, an indication of their failure as a social animal.  For me, I am closer to the happy camp, although I seldom indulge in a full set of china and cutlery.  (hey I still am the one to do the dishes!)  I suppose I enjoy eating alone at home, as I can cook dishes I crave for but my husband does not care for.  Such as a humble zaru soba.  A simple sushi roll with whatever I can conjure up in the fridge.   A pasta with sickeningly creamy sauce.  Dishes that always get vetoed whenever I suggest them in the most casual tone (as if that helps sneak them under the radar). 

I do admit that at restaurants it can sometimes feel awkward.   Somehow you emit an air of sadness and mystery, even when you act your best to appear confident and nonchalant.   My favorite dine alone spot is the kaiten sushi place.  Where everybody faces the sushi plates parading in front.  I also like to bring along a book, to give my eyes something to keep busy on while waiting for my dish. 

The Big Oyster

by Mark Kurlansky

While the book is subtitled, History on the Half Shell, it is more appropriately narrowed down to History of the Half Shell and New York, as that’s where the book’s focus is.  Despite the fact that mankind has eaten oysters all over the world, likely for thousands of years, that part of history is only mentioned in passing.   I would have enjoyed the book more had it taken a broader view of oyster and mankind.

I am not sure why I picked up this book, as I have stopped eating oyster after learning the fact that the animal is still alive until my teeth chop it to pieces.  I guess I just couldn’t resist a foodie book. 

The book does provide some interesting knowledge.  Such as how inexpensive oysters were in those days.  For the price of 6 cents you could have all-you-can-eat oysters in the 19th century.  The price of one hot dog could buy you a whole platter of half shells.  The price of one strawberry a bucket.  And caviar was very lowly too.  They were used in bars, as free snacks for people to encourage them to drink more…

Another thing that definitely stays with me is how much man has polluted the environment.  It was amazing to read the accounts written by the first Europeans who arrived in New York.  The beautiful nature, the abundance of flora and fauna.  And in such a short time, the harbor was so polluted that when people try to plant some oysters back into the bay, they discovered, two weeks later, that not only the oysters died, their shells were eroded by the acid.  Urgh. 

Heat

by Bill Buford

This review, copied from Amazon.com, was written by Anthony Bourdain, one of the foodie gods!

Heat is a remarkable work on a number of fronts–and for a number of reasons. First, watching the author, an untrained, inexperienced and middle-aged desk jockey slowly transform into not just a useful line cook–but an extraordinarily knowledgable one is pure pleasure. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York’s three star Babbo provides further sado-masochistic fun. Buford not only accurately and hilariously describes the painfully acquired techniques of the professional cook (and his own humiations), but chronicles as well the mental changes–the “kitchen awareness” and peculiar world view necessary to the kitchen dweller. By end of book, he’s even talking like a line cook.

Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White–two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press–while appropriately fawning–has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has–for the first time–managed to explain White’s peculiar–almost freakish brilliance–while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario–he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/enterpreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.

Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding–rare among non-chef writers–of the pleasures of “making” food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food–but as importantly, who cooks–and why. I can’t think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. Heat brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It’s going right in between Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola’s The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf. –Anthony Bourdain

I don’t suppose I can add more to what Anthony Bourdain said. It’s an interesting book, with lots of insights into the operation of a restaurant and a butcher shop, all very intriguing to a foodie like me.  I admire the author for his courage to really go and do something he likes, not minding the dirt, sweat, and at times humiliation in a kitchen, to start from the lowlinest, all to satisfy his curiosity, not for money, not for a future dream of opening his own restaurant.  I am curious though about his wife, whom he mentioned very little and seems unhumanly tolerate of his unusual pursuit. (living for months in Tuscany so he can apprentice at a butcher shop, hailing home a whole pig in plastic bag…)

I happened to be reading Ruth Reihl’s Garlic and Sapphire, so it was really interesting to read the two sides of how a critic tests out a restaurant.

My favorite paragraph is towards the end, when Mario asked if the author wants to open a restaurant.  The author reflects that no, he doesn’t. <i>”For millennia, people have known how to make their food… People don’t have this kind of knowledge today, even though it seems as fundamental as the earth… I didn’t want this knowledge in order to be a professional, just to be more human.”</i>

Liquid Jade - The Story of Tea from East to West

by Beatrice Hohenegger

This book is perfectly timed for the National Tea Month in August.  Filled with digestible tidbits of interesting facts about tea, it is like the Chinese dim-sums, or the British tea cakes, or the Japanese wagashi, to nibble upon with your perfect cup of tea.

Did you know, for example:

- Lu Yu wrote Cha Jing in 780CE; it is the world’s first authoritative and comprehensive treatise on tea and is still in print today, more than 1200 years later, not only in China but throughtout the world.

- The virgin maidens who pluck tea for the imperial palace had strictly codified rules, including not allowed to eat garlic, onion or any spices for three weeks before the harvest, least their breath contaminate the delicate scent of tea leaves.  Similarly, the porters carrying such tea used special racks so the tea box would never have to touch the ground.

- A list of appropriate occasions for drinking tea in China, according to the Ming tea manual Chashu 茶疏 by Xu Cishu 许次纾:

In idle moments
When bored with poetry
Thoughts confused
Beating time to songs
When the music stops
Living in seclusion
Enjoying Scholarly pastimes
Conversing late at night
Studying on a sunny day
In the bridal chamber
Detaining favored guests
Playing host to scholars or pretty girls
Visiting friends returned from far awa
In perect weather
When skies are overcast
Watching boats glide past on the canal
Midst trees and bamboos
When flowers bud and birds chatter
On hot days by a lotus pond
Burning incense in the courtyard
After tipsy guests have left
When the youngsters have gone out
On visits to secluded temples
When viewing springs and scenic rocks

心手闲适 披咏疲倦 意绪棼乱 听歌闻曲 歌罢曲终 杜门避事 鼓琴看画 夜深共语 明窗净几 洞房阿阁 宾主款狎 佳客小姬 访友初归 风日晴和 轻阴微雨 小桥画舫 茂林修竹 课花责鸟 荷亭避暑 小院焚香 酒阑人散 儿辈斋馆 清幽寺院 名泉怪石

- German physician Dr. Summer Paulli said in 1665 “as to the virtues they attribute to it [tea], it may be admitted that it does possess them in the Orient, but it loses them in our climate, where it becomes, on the contrary, very dangerous to use.  It hastens the death of those who drink it, especially if they have passed the age of forty years.”

- Tea got a boost in England as, facing the social ills caused by gin consumption, the beverage became “the temperance reformer’s No. 1 weapon” in the crusade against alcoholism.

- The Europeans had no idea what type of plant the tea belongs to, as they had never seen a tea plant.  There were many unsuccessful attempts to bring one back to Europe. One plant fell overboard with a sudden gust of wind, one was eaten by rats; some Europeans were given boiled seeds or other plants by Chinese merchants, in an effort to protect their trade.

- Today, iced tea makes up 80% of the U.S.’s tea consumption, a trend not followed anywhere else in the world. 

- The English word “tea”, Italian tè, German Tee, and French thé, comes from “tay’, as pronounced in the Amoy dialect in Fukien, where the Dutch set up their trading post.  In Iran, Russia, India and Arabic countries, the word is cha or chai, as prounced in the Cantonese and Mandarin dialect, through the Arabic trrades along the silk road.  The exception is the Portuguese, who got their ch’a from Macao.  As whatever they brought back to Europe they consumed locally, the word was never exported as the Dutch did with their “tea”.

- While recent research shows that the fluoride in tea leaves prevents cavity, the poet Su Tung-p’o had written about strengthening the teeth and reducing dental diseases by rinsing his mouth with tea in 1083 CE.  

- India is the world’s largest producer of black tea, but most of the production is consumed domestically and only 20% is exported.  China exports about 35% of its production.

- Every day, 3.8 billion cups of tea are drunk around the world. 

However, as I read on, the delightful read gets heavier as the history of tea gets bloodier.  The tea tax had partially led to the independence of America.   As Britishs like to sweeten their tea, this created a huge demand for sugar.  In 1800, 30 million pounds of tea and 300 million pounds of sugar were imported to England.  Fifty years later those figures grew to 56 million pounds of tea and 1 billion pounds of sugar.  Where did the sugar came from?  The plantations in the Carribeans.Up to 70% of slave traffic supported the sugar industry. 

With the loss of its American colonies, Britain had lost access to the precious South AMerican silver supply.  To reverse its trade deficit in its tea trade with China and not able to offer anything of interest to the Chinese, the British started promoting… opium.  During the first decade of the 19th century, 26,000,000 silver dollars were imported into the Chinese empire.  As opium consumption rose in the decade of the 1830s, 34,000,000 silver dollars were shipped out of the country to pay for the drug.  The Bengalese opium industry represented 1/6 of the GNP of British India.   Apparently, Queen Victoria never received the letter from COmmissioner Lin Tse hsu:

“I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood.  Sine it is not permitted to do harm to your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries… Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused… You would not wish to give unto others what you yourself do not want…”

Sorry Lin but the Queen doesn’t read the bible the way she should…  And the sad result is the opium war.

Meanwhile, the British suceeded in cultivating tea in India, so that they no longer have to deal with any foreign traders.  As tea growing is a labor intensive enterprise, they recruited illiterate laborers to sign off their lives into slavery condition.  These laborers, shipped from other regions, were underfed and underpaid, and suffered a very high mortality rate due to malnourishment and poor living condition.

I was so disguised when reading this dark side of history.  The irony was, I happened to be drinking a cup of tea called Her Majesty’s Tea.  It was blended for Queen Victoria using tea from Darjeerling and Assam.  Argh!! I felt like pouring the tea down the drain!!!

And have things improved?  Not really in India, as the tea market is controlled by large corporations.  In fact, foreseeing India’s independence, British planters began to set up large ta plantations in Africa, and today more than half of British tea imports come from Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe.  Chinese tea production, on the other hand, is mostly on independent, individual plantations. Not that these farmers and pluckers live in luxury, but at least they are better off.

I was amazed how the ending of this book touched on social and environmental issues, and encouraged people to buy fair trade and organic.  I heard of fair trade coffee a lot, but didn’t really think about it for tea.  This book delivered much more than I expected.  Now I am likely to drink less British tea, knowing its dark history, and be more alert to read the labels!!

French Women Don’t Get Fat

by Mireille Guiliano

Happy Bastille Day! Perfect timing to finish the book!

I read the Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, and can’t help comparing the two.  (Same story - happy young girls go to America, their bodies just balloon up till they revert back to their native diet.  I guess there could be a whole series on this.) The Japanese one is more organized, though the French author seems to pride herself for not laying out the book in point-by-point format.  I like the French recipe better because the ingredients are more available. The tidbit info about French food is interesting and I’d love more of that.

The idea is sound and even though I am not particularly trying to lose weight, her general suggestion for a healthier lifestyle is worth following.  I tried it this weekend at a dinner restaurant, and I found myself being disappointed with the blandness of the tomato served, and noticing other things I didn’t before.  Hmm… it’s going to be harder to find a restaurant to dine at now!

Also a few years ago I started making dinner a smaller meal.  It’s hard, with the limited lunch hour at work, to make lunch the major meal of the day, but I tried to limit my dinner to no bigger than my lunch and it really helped.

A Cook’s Tour

by Anthony Bourdain

This is my first Bourdain book and I enjoyed it tremedously.  (I gave him lots of bonus points for professing his love for durian, but had them all deducted for his rabbit killing spree and vegetarian bashing…) 

Like an excellent dish, the book is craftily prepared: colorful, flavorful, authentic, with complex layers of tastes, slightly exotic, teasing you to indulge in forkful after forkful. I wonder if Bourdain has a ghost writer.  Otherwise, his talent with pen certainly matches the one with pan!

Bourdain is not shy about exposing his intimate thoughts and feelings, which makes this travelogue and food guide that much more entertaining.  Very often, he would start talking about a dish, a cuisine, and then it will delve deeper.  Like when he visited France, in the end he realized that he didn’t go there to look for the perfect meal.  He didn’t go there to look for his childhood home. He went to look for his father, who was no longer there, or anywhere.   Similarly, his visit to Cambodia unleashed some very strong comments about US foreign policy.

Something I find weird about the book though - it looks like the editor hit a shuffle play button on his computer.  The chapters hop around, from Portugal to Vietnam to Spain to Japan then to Vietnam and Japan again… Not that it matters much as each chapter pretty much stands along, just kind of weird.