Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition [Hardcover]

Georgia Pellegrini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2010

In Food Heroes, Georgia Pellegrini introduces readers to the lively stories of artisanal food devotees such as New York mushroom forager Marion Burroughs, French fig collector Francis Honore, fish missionary Jon Rowley in Washington State, and Ugo Buzzio in New York City, one of the last makers of traditional dry-cured sausages in the United States. Filled with colorful anecdotes, photographs, and recipes, this book offers an accessible introduction to the artisanal food movement, and vicarious living for armchair travelers, food lovers, and others who might won­der what it would be like to drop everything and start an olive farm, or who yearn to make and sell their own clotted cream butter. Thirty-two fantastic recipes follow the profiles, and encourage readers to find their own local suppliers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Georgia Pellegrini's passion for artisanal foods began when she was a child growing up in the Hudson Valley, where her family raised chickens and honeybees, and where the notion of local and sustainable was a daily practice. She attended Wellesley and Harvard and spent a brief stint on Wall Street before attending the French Culinary Institute in New York.

Pellegrini has worked in two of New York's most esteemed restaurants-Gramercy Tavern and Blue Hill at Stone Barns-as well as in one of the premier restaurants in France, La Chassagnette. She currently roams the world, tasting good food and meeting the good people who make it--and writing about them on her popular blog: www.georgiapellegrini.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang (September 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584798548
• ISBN-13: 978-1584798545
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My passion for good food, for simple food, began at an early age, on a boulder by the side of a creek as I caught my trout for breakfast. I grew up on the same land my great-grandfather owned and worked. This place was called Tulipwood, and there my great-aunt could name every photosynthetic organism on the land; my grandmother made meatloaf, balsamic vinaigrette and egg dip with an intoxicating savoir-faire; and my father raised honeybees and quince trees with the care typically devoted to a newborn. This connection to the land and the deep satisfaction one gets from manual labor stayed with me through college and even during the years that I strayed onto the path of least resistance and into the world of finance.

After a bit of soul searching I decided to leave the cubicle world behind and enrolled in culinary school. I soon began to work in farm to table restaurants in the U.S. and France, driving heavy farm equipment, and harvesting both meat and plants for dinner. I found that I was most interested in the foragers and fig collectors and salami makers that arrived to the restaurants with their goods, and soon befriended them and went on journeys with them, through the woods, into curing rooms, and over the rolling hills of olive oil vineyards. They took me under their wing and shared their stories about what it is like to step off the grid and devote one's life to doing things the slow way, the traditional way, simply because it is what you love to do. I call them "Food Heroes," and their stories are now a book.

Next I took my adventure one step further and into the wild. I rolled up my sleeves myself and got to the heart of where my ingredients as a chef really come from. My next book "Girl Hunter," is my wild journey over field and stream in search of the main course. It is full of stories and delicious recipes, offering inspiration on how to be a more self sufficient eater.

I continue to chronicle my adventures every day at: www.georgiapellegrini.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST IN ARTISANAL FOOD, September 19, 2010

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition (Hardcover)

Can you imagine selecting the foremost artisanal food devotees from not only the U.S. but throughout the world? A daunting task, albeit a tasty one. Georgia Pellegrini more than rose to the challenge in her lively, informative FOOD HEROES as she shines a spotlight on those who are preserving tradition.

Compiling the book was a labor of love for Pellegrini who grew up in the Hudson Valley where her family raised chickens and honeybees. She followed her interest in food to the French culinary Institute in New York and two of N.Y.'s most highly rated restaurants. Thus, she brings intelligence, information and passion in her tribute to FOOD HEROES.

Each vignette reveals more about the individual artisan and includes photos as well as anecdotes. Once you've read about them you'll feel you know them, perhaps most of all you'll want to taste their food.

For instance, in a chapter titled Smoking Hog she introduces Alan Benton, hog breeder, and purveyor of some of the finest bacon and hams to be found. (www.bentonshams.com) It seems that in 1973 when Benton was a college guidance counselor he determined that he had made the wrong career choice. He knew he couldn't make it on the salary he received, so he just quit with no future plans. As his father said, "Son, that's not very prudent thinking."

As it turned out Benton heard of a man who was selling his business and decided he wanted to take it over. He never thought he'd become rich but some 36 years later his "intoxicating combination of pork, salt, smoke, brown, sugar, and time" result in what some consider the best ham and bacon in our country.

Pellegrini also discovered Stuart and Anissa Hull in Tellico Plains, Tennessee. The young couple converted an old bank building into a bakery complete with wood-fired brick oven on the ground floor and living quarters on the second floor. Tellico Grains Bakery (www.tellico-grains-bakery.com) offers some of finest breads and pastries extant. True artisans they bake croissants so fine they literally melt in your mouth while their Italian Bread is deeply satisfying with a crunchy crust and fresh, natural taste.

Rocky Mountain Organic Meats (www.rockymtncuts.com) is another of the author's finds. Based in Powell, Wyoming, Rod Morrison offers Certified Organic grass-fed beef and grass-fed lamb. He even provides pet treats! All of his meats 100% grass-fed.

And there are more artisans to be found in FOOD HEROES plus 32 recipes. This is a stand alone volume - one you'll want to keep and also share. We hope Georgia Pellegrini continues in her travels and some day offers us volume two.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love food, you'll love this book, November 2, 2010

By 

James J. Pellegrini - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition (Hardcover)

I'm not a fan of most food books these days. The ones that aren't just plain trash are overtly commercial vehicles for celebrities hawking their latest line of pots & pans. Wait a minute, those are just plain trash, too.

But once in a while, a book comes along that's written by somebody who obviously loves what they're writing about, and can do it well. This is one of those books.

Chef Georgia Pellegrini (unrelated to me) is a breath of fresh air in a culinary scene that worships 30-minute-meals and the wonders of boneless, skinless meats. She's a real food lover who values timeless traditions embodied by the slow foods and artisan producers profiled in her book. This is not a "how-to" book (though it does contain a handful of brilliant recipes), or a deep dive into a narrow area of culinary minutiae. It's an eclectic celebration of the art of artisan food processing, delivered in the form of artisan profiles. The stories are moving, heart-felt descriptions of artisans and their craft, and will make you long for the foods described in each chapter.

The only criticism I have, if you can call it that, is the Euro-centric focus (considering that most American food traditions are handed down from Europeans). Perhaps this is an opportunity to even further expand horizons for future works. I vote for a chapter on miso artisans in your next book!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hunting for the real, September 30, 2010

By 

wogan "the book reader" - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition (Hardcover)

Georgia Pellegrini grew up with a family that used sustainable foods, she drifted to Wall Street in adulthood but quickly returned to the food world and has picked out 16 culinary heroes from across the world to write about. Her writing is both easy to read and illuminating, even if you are not quite `into' the world of sustainable ingredients. She will teach you that you definitely need to enter it and appreciate and support these men and women who are continuing the practice of good natural foods.

These heroes are ones who preserve food types and preparations of: potatoes, smoking hogs, fungus-mushrooms, beer, salami, olive oil, heirloom seeds, honeybees (containing a very interesting theory for the worrying disappearance of a number of honeybees), oysters, cheese, butter, chocolate, tamales, persimmons, whiskey and figs. The stories of these individuals and Georgia's visits to them are engrossing, she includes a to-do list and a listing of names, addresses phone numbers and web sites of those and more than she writes of. A conversion chart is included, as is a recipe index for the several recipes that follow each chapter, as well as a normal index.
Hint... do not miss the whiskey salad and bourbon pecan tart recipe - they are amazing..

As Georgia writes, people today "seek satisfaction in the drive-through. In response chefs today seduce patrons with novelty and food pyrotechnics; little towers of nothing in the center of oversized plates, while customers are increasingly distracted by what is stamped `healthy'. Artisanal beer is abandoned for a lower-calorie version. Fat is avoided like the plague. And as a result, good food has lost its luster."
This sums up what the goal of this book is and if you wish to gain knowledge of what real food is, you would do well to read and learn.