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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
it’s been four months and i’m still thinking about pistachio farms.
4.5 Samin Nosrat (Salt Fat Acid Heat) really picked up this collection and ran with it. There's a fantastic variety of voices, topics, perspectives, and styles collected, all of which illustrate why contemporary food writing is doing some tremendously important work. Food is such a hidden but profound expression of pretty much every element of life — work, culture, sex, politics, land, family, pleasure, suffering — and Nosrat's collection consider gives these equal weight and thoughtfulness, while being a joy to read.
This collection made me think: about food I love, about how culture is driven by food, and about the supply chain and industry of food. The articles are not filled with recipes ready to cook, but fill me with wonder and questions about how and why we eat the food we do.
I just love this series! This edition’s editor is the fab Samin Nosrat, and the stories are so interesting and diverse. Highly recommend for Bean Freaks alone!
A Kingdom From Dust was fascinating and sublime. I love Michael Twitty and will absorb anything he writes with relish, and Kathryn Schulz taught me more about Utah in twenty pages than I had ever previously known. As with any anthology, YMMV.
Some really excellent pieces in here, including remembrance of Anthony Bourdain, crazy pistachio/pomegranate shenanigans, and lots of great stories about what food means in so many different ways. I love the range of voices, styles, and subjects. I learned a lot!
I really had no idea how large the genre of food writing has become. This is far more than restaurant reviews and recipes. It's not even just about food; it is also social commentary. It covers everything from growing water intensive foods in a drought impacted state to veganism in BIPOC communities to the importance of foods to different cultures. I learned about KitKats, peanuts, and salt licorice. There is so much information and so much excellent writing in this collection and it truly represents diverse perspectives.
If you enjoyed Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi on Hulu or the documentary series Rotten on Netflix, this is a book you will love.
If you enjoyed Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi on Hulu or the documentary series Rotten on Netflix, this is a book you will love.
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
I've been enjoying these collections of the 'Best American' food writing. Filled with a wide array of topics that relate to food but can cover politics, environment, and sociology, they offer brief insights to some of the most pertinent topics going on at the time. This one of course is a few years back, but still offered valuable insight on farming practices and other themes that are probably still prevalent.
Edited by Nosrat, these articles were carefully curated. While they weren't all particularly engaging for me, there were several that were standouts; particularly the entry from Twitty, whose book on genetics and food I read earlier this year. I also found the article on Epic, Tanka, and Bison Bars interesting as I remember the advertising (for at least one of those products) and was surprisingly unsurprised as to which company found more consumer success through no fault of their own.
This was a solid edition to the Best series.
Review by M. Reynard 2023
Edited by Nosrat, these articles were carefully curated. While they weren't all particularly engaging for me, there were several that were standouts; particularly the entry from Twitty, whose book on genetics and food I read earlier this year. I also found the article on Epic, Tanka, and Bison Bars interesting as I remember the advertising (for at least one of those products) and was surprisingly unsurprised as to which company found more consumer success through no fault of their own.
This was a solid edition to the Best series.
Review by M. Reynard 2023