One of the world's preeminent restaurant critics takes on the giants of haute cuisine, one tasting menu at a time, in this fascinating and riotous look at the business and pleasure of fine dining.

Funny, outrageous, passionate, and unrelenting, Vogue's food writer, Jeffrey Steingarten, will stop at nothing, as he makes clear in these forty delectable pieces. Whether he is in search of a foolproof formula for sourdough bread (made from wild yeast, of course) or the most sublime French fries (the secret: cooking them in horse fat) or the perfect piecrust (Fannie Farmer--that is, Marion Cunningham--comes to the rescue), he will go to any length to find the answer. At the drop of an apron he hops a plane to Japan to taste Wagyu, the hand-massaged beef, or to Palermo to scale Mount Etna to uncover the origins of ice cream. The love of choucroute takes him to Alsace, the scent of truffles to the Piedmont, the sizzle of ribs on the grill to Memphis to judge a barbecue contest, and both the unassuming and the haute cuisines of Paris demand his frequent assessment. Inevitably these pleasurable pursuits take their toll. So we endure with him a week at a fat farm and commiserate over low-fat products and dreary diet cookbooks to bring down the scales. But salvation is at hand when the French Paradox (how can they eat so richly and live so long?) is unearthed, and a "miraculous" new fat substitute, Olestra, is unveiled, allowing a plump gourmand to have his fill of fat without getting fatter. Here is the man who ate everything and lived to tell about it. And we, his readers, are hereby invited to the feast in this delightful book.

A Finalist for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award (Writing) The definitive biography of America’s best-known and least-understood food personality, and the modern culinary landscape he shaped. In the first portrait of James Beard in twenty-five years, John Birdsall accomplishes what no prior telling of Beard’s life and work has done: He looks beyond the public image of the "Dean of American Cookery" to give voice to the gourmet’s complex, queer life and, in the process, illuminates the history of American food in the twentieth century. At a time when stuffy French restaurants and soulless Continental cuisine prevailed, Beard invented something strange and new: the notion of an American cuisine. Informed by previously overlooked correspondence, years of archival research, and a close reading of everything Beard wrote, this majestic biography traces the emergence of personality in American food while reckoning with the outwardly gregarious Beard’s own need for love and connection, arguing that Beard turned an unapologetic pursuit of pleasure into a new model for food authors and experts. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1903, Beard would journey from the pristine Pacific Coast to New York’s Greenwich Village by way of gay undergrounds in London and Paris of the 1920s. The failed actor–turned–Manhattan canapé hawker–turned–author and cooking teacher was the jovial bachelor uncle presiding over America’s kitchens for nearly four decades. In the 1940s he hosted one of the first television cooking shows, and by flouting the rules of publishing would end up crafting some of the most expressive cookbooks of the twentieth century, with recipes and stories that laid the groundwork for how we cook and eat today. In stirring, novelistic detail, The Man Who Ate Too Much brings to life a towering figure, a man who still represents the best in eating and yet has never been fully understood—until now. This is biography of the highest order, a book about the rise of America’s food written by the celebrated writer who fills in Beard’s life with the color and meaning earlier generations were afraid to examine.

Herman Oof is a giant. Sarah is a girl. Herman needs 140 hamburgers and 200 glasses of milk for a snack. Sarah does not. Herman takes to swallowing up entire cities and continents and drinking up lakes and oceans. Sarah is not amused. Herman has eaten her dog. When the island of Japan is all that's left of the world, Herman confesses that he might burst if he eats another bite. "You'd burst?" Sarah asks "Absolutely." Herman replies. An idea is born. Sarah realizes that it just might be possible to restore the world with a loud WHOOSH and only a few teeth marks as proof of what might have been. Pierre Pratt's inventive illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to this entertaining warning about the dangers of global over-consumption.

ALL PROCEEDS TO THE NHS AS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FOR THEIR SELFLESS DEVOTION AND CARE Joseph Conrad is an enigma. No one knows where he's from, nor if he has an agenda. All they know is that he tells the truth. To everyone. About everything. From Paris to Dublin to London, Joseph takes us on a journey of discovery and revelation, all the while accumulating a vast social media following. Through acts of selfless generosity and kindness, Joseph inspires a cultural movement that rapidly attracts the attention of media and government alike. And yet no matter how hard they look, the powers-that-be cannot identify Joseph's methods or motivations. Subversive? Revolutionary? Saviour? Who is Joseph Conrad, and what is he really doing? From international-bestselling, multi-award winning author, R J Ellory, comes a heartwarming and uplifting tale of humanity and hope. With all proceeds going to the National Health Service as a heartfelt acknowledgement for their devotion and care, 'The Man Who Ate The World' is an affirmation of the power of literature to elevate, to enrich and to heal.

Provides an overview of what families around the world eat by featuring portraits of thirty families from twenty-four countries with a week's supply of food.