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Title details for The Man Who Ate Too Much by John Birdsall - Available

The Man Who Ate Too Much

The Life of James Beard

by John Birdsall
Daniel Henning
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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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. 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 26, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781696602518
      • File size: 425923 KB
      • Duration: 14:47:20

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Performed with grace and care, Daniel Henning's outstanding narration of this fine biography reveals, warts and all, the larger-than-life James Beard. The renowned chef--who was six foot three and 300 pounds-- is considered the dean of American cookery. Henning narrates with intelligence at a good pace, and he gives the elegant prose its due. This is an audiobook filled with luscious descriptions of places, meals, and people. The author deftly handles the essential truth of Beard's life: He rose to fame as a closeted gay man in homophobic postwar America. Beard became the nation's most important food personality while shielding his sexuality. The final line of this excellent audiobook says it all: "There was so much that nobody knew." A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 25, 2020
      Legendary cookbook author James Beard (1903–1985) remade the American palate while carefully hiding his homosexuality, according to this zesty biography. Food writer and cookbook author Birdsall (Hawker Fare) styles Beard the Walt Whitman of 20th-century cooking: he championed fresh, local, seasonal fare against processed and frozen foods, and pioneered New American cuisine by applying French cooking methods to simple American classics. (He invented the gourmet hamburger while running a hamburger stand in Nantucket in 1953, and wrote groundbreaking works on cocktail hors d’oeuvres and outdoor cooking.) In Birdsall’s colorful portrait, Beard is a larger-than-life figure with a six-foot-three-inch, 300-pound bulk, a charisma developed from theater training, and the Rabelaisian tag-line “‘I love to eat!’”; on the shadier side, he padded books with previously published recipes and plagiarized some from other authors. Birdsall highlights Beard’s homosexuality, which he kept closeted until late in life to avoid alienating mainstream readers while subtly negotiating the fraught gender politics of men in kitchens. Birdsall’s narrative offers a tangy portrait of the backstabbing world of post-WWII food writing along with vivid, novelistic evocations of Beard’s flavor experiences (“The ham was salty and pungent. Its smokiness and moldy specter would linger as the first taste of the coast”). The result is a rich, entertaining account of an essential tastemaker. Photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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