The United States of Arugula (56 page)

I owe a debt of gratitude to two great magazine editors, Graydon Carter of
Vanity Fair
and the late Art Cooper of
GQ
, for their encouragement in this project and their larger roles as mentors and foisters upon me of grown-up tastes in food and drink. I am grateful to the friends who share my joy in eating and drinking too much: Marion Rosenfeld and Thomas Jones; Norman and Lee Rosenfeld; Matt Tyrnauer; Henry Alford (who makes an excellent case for James Beard as America’s foremost unwitting humorist); Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips; Peter Richmond and Melissa Davis; Larry Mufson and Betsy Fillmore; Doug Stumpf; Susan Kittenplan; Adam Platt; Jim Nelson; Josh Sens; Susi Cahn, the renowned goat-cheese heiress, and her husband, Mario Batali, the one chef in this narrative whom I consider—Department of Full Disclosure—a friend (not that this disclosure is painful; we should all have friends who cure their own meats and pour a generous glass of Tignanello).

I am grateful to Charlie Conrad, Alison Presley, Bill Thomas, and Steve Rubin of Broadway and Doubleday for patiently and supportively shepherding this “two-year project” through its three-year gestation. I am also grateful to Suzanne Gluck and her deputy at William Morris, Erin Malone, for being my staunchest advocates and doing the dastardly, agenty things that agent people do. I must thank the various people who helped me out with research at different junctures: Cindy Embleton, Claire Smith, Elizabeth Tarpy, Brian Healy, Matt Hermann, and Melissa Goldstein. I am also indebted, research-wise, to Marvin Taylor and his staff at the Fales Library at New York University; and to COPIA, the lovely and hospitable museum and culinary education center in Napa Valley. Eugene Corey deserves special thanks for transcribing hundreds of hours of interviews, many of them with thickly accented Frenchmen. And Jack Mazzola deserves a shout-out for the continuous, shade-grown, stir-brewed, Fair Trade caffeine drip that got me through the writing process. I’m kind to Starbucks in this book because I think it truly elevated the taste experience of coffee drinking in this country, but dedicated local cuppers like Jack go Starbucks one better.

I must acknowledge the direction and insight provided by Nina Planck, Laura Shapiro, Greil Marcus, Bonnie Slotnick, Jonathan Ned Katz, Christopher Hitchens, and Carol Blue. I should add to this list the name of Alan Davidson, the brilliant and endearingly eccentric English food historian behind
The Oxford Companion to Food
, who, shortly before his death in 2003, provided me with some excellent leads, and who tenderly checked in on me after I succumbed, ironically enough, to food poisoning during a visit to London.

There are two longtime food writers and restaurant critics who have been especially helpful in the course of this book’s preparation: Alan Richman of
GQ
and James Villas, who was for years
Town & Country’s
knife-and-fork man. Alan and Jim do not share my optimistic outlook about the food world, the former arguing that things peaked in the early nineties, before celebrity chefs started opening multiple restaurants, the latter insisting that it’s all been downhill since the sixties, the last period in which elegant service and ardent Francophilia reigned in America’s finest restaurants and home
kitchens. Despite all this, Alan and Jim were of tremendous help to me as I prepared this (to them) utterly wrongheaded book, offering their thoughts and recollections and invectives free of charge. For their cantankerous good company, for their kindness, for their piquant writing, and for sacrificing their livers and digestive systems over a period of decades so that we could learn from them, I salute these two bibulous cranks.

I must single out Jim and Rosemary Bell for their generosity in letting me pull down volumes from their expansive food and wine library without expecting these books back for months or even years. Rosemary is also the best home cook I’ve encountered in my life; it’s a good thing I married her daughter.

On the subject of family: it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to write such a book if my mother and father, along with my sister, Alice, and my brother, Ted, had not been adventurous eaters and home cooks. We had our
Moosewood Cookbook
phase; we had our Julia Child phase; we had our paella phase; we had our “cook every meal in the Crock Pot” phase; and we had our “do everything
The New York Times
Weekend section tells you to do” phase, which always seemed to involve visiting the Lower East Side and eating baked farmer cheese. It was the best preparation a future chronicler of food as popular culture could have wished for.

And finally, I give thanks to the family with whom I spend every day: my children, Lily and Henry, whose concept of kid food—calamari, quesadillas, and avocado rolls—demonstrates how much things have changed since my childhood; and my wife, Aimée Bell, with whom I never go skiing, spearfishing, horseback riding, or windsurfing, because all of those activities pale in comparison with the simple pleasure we derive from sharing a good meal and a bottle of red wine. Looking back on her marriage after her husband had died, Julia Child told her authorized biographer, Noël Riley Fitch, “We did everything together until the end … That is why you get married, as far as I am concerned.” Julia knew what she was talking about.

D.K.

IN THE COURSE OF RESEARCHING THIS BOOK, I READ HUNDREDS OF ARTICLES FROM
various newspapers and magazines, some still with us, others no longer around. For expediency’s sake, I’ve only included the longer and more heavily leaned-upon articles in this bibliography. However, I’d like to credit the following periodicals for being especially useful to me:
The New York Times
, the
New York Herald Tribune, New York
magazine,
The New York Review of Books, New West
magazine (and its later incarnation as
California), Los Angeles
magazine, the
Los Angeles Times
, the
San Francisco Chronicle, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Saveur, Food Arts
, and
Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture.

Andrews, Colman. “California: Celebrating America’s Capital of Food and Wine.”
Saveur
, May/June 2001.

Batterberry, Michael, and Ariane Batterberry.
On the Town in New York: The Landmark History of Eating, Drinking, and Entertainments from the American Revolution to the Food Revolution.
New York: Scribner, 1973.

Bayless, Rick, with Deann Groen Bayless.
Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1987.

Bayless, Rick, with JeanMarie Brownson and Deann Groen Bayless.
Mexico: One Plate at a Time.
New York: Scribner, 2000.

Beard, James.
Beard on Bread.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973.

Beard, James.
The Complete Book of Barbecue & Rotisserie Cooking.
New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1954.

Beard, James.
Cook It Outdoors.
New York: M. Barrows & Company, 1941.

Beard, James.
Delights and Prejudices: A Memoir with Recipes.
New York: Atheneum, 1964.

Beard, James.
The Fireside Cook Book: A Complete Guide to Fine Cooking for Beginner and Expert.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949.

Beard, James.
Hors d’Oeuvre and Canapés, revised edition.
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1963.

Beard, James.
James Beard’s American Cookery.
Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1972.

Beard, James.
James Beard’s Fish Cookery.
Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1954.

Beard, James. Ferrone, John,
Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles: Letters to Helen Evans Brown.
New York: Arcade, 1994.

Becker, Marion Rombauer.
Little Acorn: Joy of Cooking, The First Fifty Years, 1931–1981.
Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1981.

Beebe, Lucius.
Snoot If You Must.
New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1943.

Belasco, Warren J.
Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry, 1966–1988.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

Brenner, Leslie.
American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a National Cuisine.
New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme.
The Physiology of Taste.
Translated by Anne Drayton. New York: Penguin, 1994.

Brown, Edward Espe.
The Tassajara Bread Book
, 25th anniversary edition. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.

Brown, Helen Evans.
Helen Brown’s West Coast Cook Book.
New York: Bonanza Books, 1952.

Bundy, Beverly.
The Century in Food: America’s Fads and Favorites.
Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2002.

Cahn, Miles.
The Perils and Pleasures of Domesticating Goat Cheese.
New York: Catskill Press, 2003.

Chamberlain, Samuel.
Clementine in the Kitchen
(revised edition). New York: Modern Library, 2001.

Chamberlain, Samuel, and Narcissa G. Chamberlain.
The Chamberlain Sampler of American Cooking.
New York: Hastings House, 1961.

Child, Julia, and Simone Beck.
From Julia Child’s Kitchen.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.

Child, Julia, and Simone Beck.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Child, Julia, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

Child, Lydia.
The American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy
, 1975 facsimile. Boston: Carter, Hendee, and Co., 1833.

Claiborne, Craig. “Elegance of Cuisine Is on Wane in U.S.”
The New York Times
, April 13, 1959.

Claiborne, Craig.
A Feast Made for Laughter: A Memoir with Recipes.
New York: Doubleday, 1982.

Claiborne, Craig.
The New York Times Cook Book.
New York: Harper & Row, 1961.

Claiborne, Craig, and Pierre Franey.
Cooking with Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey.
New York: Times Books, 1983.

Claiborne, Craig, Pierre Franey, and the Editors of Time-Life Books.
Foods of the World: Classic French Cooking.
New York: Time-Life Books, 1970.

Clark, Robert.
The Solace of Food: A Life of James Beard.
South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1993.

Clarke, Paul.
Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter.
Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1999.

Colen, Bruce David. “Michael, Throw the Gloat Ashore.”
Los Angeles
, July 1979.

Colen, Bruce David. “Wolfgang Finds Life After Ma Maison.”
Los Angeles
, April 1982.

Cooper, Artemis.
Writing at the Kitchen Table: The Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David.
New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 1999.

David, Elizabeth.
South Wind Through the Kitchen: The Best of Elizabeth David.
New York: North Point Press, 1998.

Davidson, Alan,
The Oxford Companion to Food.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Davidson, Alan, ed., with Helen Saberi.
The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy: 20 Years of the Best Writing from the Journal “Petits Propos Culinaires.”
Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2002.

Ephron, Nora.
Wallflower at the Orgy.
New York: Viking, 1970.

Escoffier, Auguste.
Le guide culinaire.
Translated by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann. New York: Wiley, 1983.

“Everyone’s in the Kitchen.”
Time
, November 25, 1966.

Farmer, Fannie Merritt.
The 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
, facsimile of 1896 original. New York: Gramercy, 1997.

Farmer, Fannie Merritt.
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
, 12th edition. Revised by Marion Cunningham with Jeri Laber. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.

Ferguson, Priscilla Parkhurst. “Writing Out of the Kitchen: Carême and the Invention of French Cuisine.”
Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture
, Summer 2003.

Field, Michael.
Michael Field’s Cooking School.
New York: M. Barrows & Company, 1965.

Field, Michael.
Michael Field’s Culinary Classics and Improvisations: Creative Leftovers from Main-Course Masterpieces.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967.

Fisher, M.F.K.
The Art of Eating.
New York: Collier Books/Macmillan, 1990.

Fisher, M.F.K., and the Editors of Time-Life Books.
Foods of the World: The Cooking of Provincial France.
New York: Time-Life Books, 1968.

Fitch, Noël Riley.
Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child.
New York: Doubleday, 1997.

“Food: The New Wave.”
Newsweek
, August 11, 1975.

Franey, Pierre.
60-Minute Gourmet.
New York: Times Books, 1979.

Franey, Pierre, with Richard Flaste and Bryan Miller.
A Chef’s Tale: A Memoir of Food, France and America.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Franey, Pierre, and Bryan Miller.
Cuisine Rapide.
New York: Times Books, 1989.

Fussell, Betty.
I Hear America Cooking.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1997.

Fussell, Betty.
Masters of American Cookery: The American Food Revolution & the Chefs Who Shaped It.
New York: Times Books, 1983.

Fussell, Betty.
My Kitchen Wars.
New York: North Point Press, 1999.

Gelb, Arthur.
City Room.
New York: Marian Wood/G. P. Putnam, 2003.

Glaser, Milton, and Jerome Snyder.
The Underground Gourmet Cookbook.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975.

Goines, David Lance.
The Free Speech Movement: Coming of Age in the 1960s.
Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1993.

Goines, David Lance, and Alice Waters.
Thirty Recipes Suitable for Framing.
Berkeley: Saint Hieronymus Press, 1970.

Greene, Gael.
Bite: A New York Restaurant Strategy for Hedonists, Masochists, Selective Penny Pinchers and the Upwardly Mobile.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971.