Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater [Hardcover]

Alan Richman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

Alan Richman has dined inmore unlikely locations and devoured more tasting menus than any three other food critics combined. Over the decades, his editors have complained incessantly about his expense accounts but never about his appetite. He has reviewed restaurants in all the best Communist countries (China, Vietnam, Cuba) and supped heartily all over the free world. Wherever he's gone, GQ magazine's acclaimed food, wine, and restaurant critic has brought along his impeccable palate, Herculean constitution, and biting humor.

In this globe-trotting literary smorgasbord, the eleven-time winner of the James Beard Foundation Award for food writing retraces his most savory culinary adventures. Richman's inexhaustible hunger and unquenchable curiosity take him to the best restaurants and most irresistible meals, from Monte Carlo to Corona, Queens. He seeks out the finest barbecue in America -- it's in Ayden, North Carolina, by the way -- the costliest sushi in Los Angeles, and the most perfumed black truffles in France. Along the way he has studied at Paul Bocuse's cooking school in Lyon (and failed), moonlighted as a sommelier in New York (and failed), and charmed his way through a candlelight dinner with actress Sharon Stone (and failed big time).

Through it all -- roughly 50,000 meals and still counting -- one thing is certain: Alan Richman has never come to a fork in the road without a fork in his hand.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It seems like Alan Richman has been writing about food--certainly in GQ--like, forever. Turns out he made the switch from sports writing to food, primarily restaurant reviews, a mere 14 years ago. Fork It Over is his first collection of essays published in those years. He has a charming, easy voice; self-deprecating humor; well-honed wit; and a defined sense of what he does and does not like--about food, restaurants, cities, hotel rooms, waiters, and just about everything else. You are a passenger along for the ride, a willing listener of road stories. The car is decidedly American, the upholstery fine leather.

The collection is laid out like a classic menu of French parentage. In Amuse-Bouche, we are treated to "The Eating Life," an essay written for the book that establishes the writer-critic credentials and ground rules. His mother was a terrific cook; the author can't boil water, nor sees any need to. He's a regular guy from a regular background who can wax as poetic about Philly cheese steak as he can the most delectable and exotic of delicacies. From that point on--through Appetizers, Entrees, Sides, Cheese, Wine, and Gratuity--the reader is escorted from one side of the world to the other, to high-end restaurants and low-end dives. As the fellow traveler, the reader is never allowed to wander off from Richman's voice and perspective. He is, in fact, the axis mundi around which each and every essay revolves. Which is to say, Fork It Over is much more a book about Alan Richman than it is about food.

The essays that comprise Fork It Over appeared in major monthly magazines, one at a time. To read this body of work cover to cover is to run the risk of losing one's appetite in the middle of the meal. It's rich stuff. Delectable. Charming. And a little bit goes a long way. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly

As GQ’s longtime food critic and an 11-time James Beard Award winner, Richman has eaten a lot of fancy food. But the best essays in this collection—culled mainly from his work for magazines—don’t speak of foie gras or truffles. The accounts of Richman’s escapades eating at places like Alain Ducasse’s three Michelin–starred Le Louis XV, and even his reminiscences of meals at dives like the Pantry in Los Angeles, become repetitive when grouped together. The two standouts are the essays about Richman’s parents. In "A Mother’s Knishes," he achieves the quasi-miraculous feat of finding something fresh to say about a food-crazed Jewish mother, in this case by recounting her loss of identity as she descends into senility and loses her culinary skills. The second, the hilarious "Miami Weiss," investigates the "Early Bird" tradition of South Florida. When the doors open at 5 p.m. at the Fort Lauderdale restaurant Fifteenth Street Fisheries, Richman writes, "It’s a sort of Geriatric Olympics." The essays are arranged in menu-like fashion under such headings as "Appetizers," "Entrees," etc. The "Palate Cleansers" are unsatisfactory, brief pieces, with titles like "Ten Commandments for Diners," which come off as condescending. Also, Richman’s attitude toward women is archaic to say the least ("she was a woman who knew how to eat like a man"), which may turn off a good number of readers. Agent, Kathy Robbins.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006058629X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060586294
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,548,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Eating, Fine Writing, December 2, 2004

By 

Bill Marsano (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater (Hardcover)

By Bill Marsano. Just about every columnist of any kind reaches a point at which he thinks it a fine idea to bundle his columns together and make them into a book. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. A few years ago the novelist Jay MacInerney did that with his wine columns for Vogue magazine and the result was, to my mind, embarrassing. What was on display was, mostly, tedious repetition, little imagination and surprisingly dull writing.

Now Alan Richman, award-winning food writer and restaurant critic for the likes of GQ and Food & Wine, has taken the gamble--but this time the result is a winner.

Richman is a generous and imaginative soul with an easy, flowing style; he is articulate, not glib; he is funny and drily wittyl he is adventurous, with firm but not savage opinions and prejudices. He's old enough to have a wide frame of reference backed by an excellent memory. And he has the rare gift of being able to take a reader along with him. He makes you feel like a confidant.

That makes it unalloyed please to follow his adventures: dining extravagantly for a week with rich wine collectors in France; fumbling his way through two nights as a wine steward at a fancy restaurant; suffering a disatrous dinner with Sharon Stone; driving the coast of North Carolina to gorge himself on his beloved barbecue sandwiches; memorializing that disappearing artifact, the Jewish Waiter. These are but a few of his explorations, and those I haven't mentioned are just as much fun.

His prejudices are pointed, openly admitted and neatly expressed. I'm inclined to agree with many of them, including the vexed question of men dining with women and especially the problem of waiters who won't shut up. Indeed, I recently was a guest at Per Se, a notably expensive new restaurant in New York opened by the star of Napa's French Laundry, and I was astonished by the intrusiveness of the service. There were ten of us at table, all engaged in eager conversation--and constantly being told to hush up by our waiter, who insisted on interrupting at every course to describe at length the very dishes that were so clearly described on the menu. I guess that I, like Richman, am of the old school: I think waiters should wait (for a pause), say "Excuse me"--then put the plate down and scram.

A serious failing of this book is that it's so short--but that suggests rigorous selection. Richman has given us only his best here, so reader discipline is required. Read these pleasures one at a time, now matter how tempted to tear through them one after another, or you'll be at the end of the book in no time. On the other hand, you can always start over again.--Bill Marsano is an award-winning writer on wine, food and travel.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Foodie's Delight Well Served With Vinegar, November 6, 2004

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater (Hardcover)

Raconteur Alan Richman, food critic at large for "GQ" magazine, seems to be tapping into his inner David Sedaris in these short accounts of his various experiences with food and dining across the country and around the world. Culled from over a decade of columns in "GQ" and "Bon Appetit", his stories are clever and entertaining, reflecting a wellspring of culinary knowledge and life experiences, which lend a particularly idiosyncratic view to the way he looks at food.

As a fellow "foodie", I can appreciate his curmudgeon view of vegans and their holier-than-thou attitudes toward carnivores. He also includes a vitriolic portrayal of the Hamptons, which he views as a desolate area for quality restaurants where a greater importance is attached to Billy Joel sightings; and an equally acerbic tour of Louis Farrakhan's $5 million Chicago eatery, Salaam, where you can apparently watch pro golf on the TV in the lounge. Other pieces describe a dinner date with Sharon Stone, Richman's elusive fantasy come true; an insistent drive through the Carolinas in search of the perfect barbecue sandwich; the undervalued art of wine spitting; a bemused but ultimately loving view of the archetypal cranky Jewish waiter; and perhaps most amusing, a desperate, Godot-like quest to find a celebrity chef, any celebrity chef, present at his own restaurant. There is even something touching about his recollections of his own tour of duty during the Vietnam War as he sits down for baked squab at a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. Sometimes his hardened opinions are at odds with the conversational tone of the book, but his passion for food more than compensates for the acidity. I think the Food Network could use him since no one there (with perhaps the exception of Anthony Bourdain and Alton Brown) shows a fraction of the wit Richman displays here. This is entertaining reading for food aficionados.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great sample of Alan Richman, November 29, 2004

By 

Christopher A. Noone "canoone" (Jackson, MS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater (Hardcover)

I consider Alan Richman the finest food writer out there and this book provides a sampling of the quality writing GQ and Bon Appetit readers have known for years.

The article on dining at the Nation of Islam restaurant in Chicago is reason enough to buy the book. Richman manages to weave religion, racism, and social commentary into an article on a restaurant. Outstanding.

Other outstanding essays in the book revolve around the disappearing Polynesian restaurant, the sad current state of Paul Bocuse in France, and the hilarious "My Beef with Vegans."

Richman breaks up the articles with his "Ten Commandments" for both diners and restaurants, as well as "Ten Reasons White Wine is Better Than Red."

All-in-all a fantastic book by a great writer. Richman has joined Steingarten, Villas, and Claiborne in reaching the mountaintop of fine food writing.