Fried Butter: A Food Memoir [Hardcover]

Abe Opincar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

"Clever and witty."—Chicago Tribune

"The writing is offbeat, achieving the trick of seeming at once grounded and untethered. . . . Elemental acuity and the burlesque combine here to delicious effect."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"A joyous revelry in good food even when the memories evoked are bittersweet."—USA Today

"Mixes humor and wisdom. . . . Full of piquant philosophical asides and fascinating culinary lore."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Opincar’s bites-of-passage are ruefully funny."—The New York Times Book Review

Foods, flavors, textures, aromas are like memories for Abe Opincar. He remembers leaving his wife the night he baked chicken, being criticized by French hosts for not properly eating ripe peaches with a knife and a fork, eggs sunny side up and first sex, cornmeal mush and his dotty aunt, garlic and his father’s love. We might look at a photograph or memento. Opincar’s recollections are summoned by food.

His life in California, Kyoto, Jerusalem, Paris, Istanbul and Tijuana is all called up by flavors that bring back the moments and places and people he broke bread with and loved. What’s recalled and savored is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, or insightful and poignant, but it is always witty and penetrating and wholly beguiling. We eat what we are. Food is life, and Opincar relishes it.

Abe Opincar has published countless articles and writes for The San Diego Reader and Gourmet. He lives in Southern California and New York.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this debut volume, Opincar delivers an evocative book filled with reminiscences conjured up by food. Traveling between past and present, he recollects ingredients from the black radishes that take him back to waiting in Paris with his friend Sophie as she anticipates her husband's return, to the taste of a Chateau d'Yquem that reminds him of a dying Dalia, who was responsible for his overseas education and pushing him out into the world. In turn, recollections generate memories of food, When Opincar was sent to school in France at 15 he learned proper French table manners, though he mis-speared an under-ripe peach to disastrous effect, an anecdote he recounts as farce. Not all memories are his own; some are from such friends and acquaintances as Iranian Reza (of saffron), as well as from Niang (with her sad memories of childhood and yams in China); and Opincar's mother remembers the soothing smell of eggs frying in butter when she was pregnant with him. While each group of memories forms an interconnected chapter, the volume lacks an overall structure, sometimes seeming as if the stories were picked at random. Despite this slight drawback, the book is a charming read and a nice addition to the world of food writing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This memoir evokes the author's experiences through the tastes, smells, and sounds of the places his life took him. Opincar's remarkable ability to communicate these sensory experiences simply and realistically makes this book worthwhile reading. Recalling the breakup of his marriage, he remembers the smell of a baked chicken he carefully cooked the night he left his wife. He recounts his ambivalent attitudes about a student exchange program that took him to France, where his hosts incessantly corrected his pronunciation. He also shares some provocative thoughts on the French and their love for ripe, rank odors. Opincar's recounting of his encounter in France with black radish will inspire readers to race to the supermarket and confect the spread the author so fondly recalls. A brushfire he endures brings many images to his mind: the ash line in a wheel of Morbier cheese, the eating of ashes in Jewish ceremony, and compulsive ash eating by people afflicted with dietary deficiencies. There are a host of oddments to glean from this memoir. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 150 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156947334X
• ISBN-13: 978-1569473344
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,341,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Food tells the story, May 23, 2003

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fried Butter: A Food Memoir (Hardcover)

San Diego writer Opincar shapes this food memoir as almost a stream-of-consciousness series of vignettes; strong memories attached to food, from the Sabbath chicken he roasted the night he left his wife to a poignant Passover dinner spent with a couple married 50 years.

The title of the book comes from the eggs that his mother craved when she was pregnant with him: "the kitchen smelled always of fried butter," she says. His benevolent, patriarchal father ate raw garlic with his meat at dinner, while beaming over his wife's cooking, his great aunt began her descent into dementia by throwing a pot of Romanian cornmeal mush against the wall. Young Abe engaged in self-conscious sex in Japan while studying sushi and reached the height of embarrassment at a stringent French table peeling a peach.

There's a poignant, almost plaintive air to these pieces - a divorced, melancholy man recalling emotionally vivid, mixed moments throughout his life. In one he's quietly, musingly cooking with turmeric when a "friend" calls to tell him he's never really been in love. In Paris an acquaintance feeds him black radishes in sour cream while awaiting her drunken husband. He recalls eating ashes in Jerusalem, and picking through lentils one by one to avoid eating insects.

Touching and vivid, with bright bursts of humor and food lore, Opincar's memories weave food and life in a wholly absorbing and evocative manner.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Man Knows How to Live and Eat, June 10, 2003

By 

M. Darran (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fried Butter: A Food Memoir (Hardcover)

A friend sent me a review of this book that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm an amateur chef who loves all food writing and the review was so positive I had to buy and read the book. The review was very honest and Fried Butter is an excellent book.

Although many of its stories are quite sad, a lot of them are extremely funny and all of them are very sensuous. Abe Opincar is obviously a man who appreciates life a great deal and he comes across as a very attractive fellow in terms of his personality. I think he would be a wonderful dinner guest. I'd love to cook a great meal for him and hear what he thought of the food and the stories it reminded him of. The picture of him of the book jacket shows him laughing which I think says a great deal about his personality and his writing.

After reading Fried Butter, I don't think I will ever eat the same way again. It really made me think about what goes through my mind when I eat, about all the stories I think of when I eat, and about all the people I remember when I eat. The book really did have a deep impact on me.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life if precious so live, eat and enjoy, January 1, 2011

By 

- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Fried Butter: A Food Memoir (Hardcover)

These days everyone is in a mad rush, work, stress, trying to cook dinner in twenty minutes, back to rushing again... To me a great bite of food can slow down time forever, it can create a memory, an instant snapshot of a moment in a hectic world, speed is overrated, good food never goes out of style. As a food lover, cookbook hoarder and bookworm I was especially excited to read this, when a delicious food memoir lands in my lap I pounce at it, nothing can stop me. What a treat to get to read such intimate moments of someone's life, especially someone who has eaten some extremely good food and has a few stories to share not all of them happy but all full of reflections and life's lessons. What is most interesting is the simplicity of the food, the high points in Abe's culinary career aren't found in expensive and stuffy restaurants but close to the ground and often at some friends place: tomatoes plucked of the vine served at breakfast, lunch and dinner, taste of an orange grown in a special place, the smell and excitement of his life in France where he learned about the art of eating and manners to his years in Japan and reflections about his culture and religion which have followed his culinary journey closely.

After reading this food memoir I can see bits of Abe's life on the cover, the pan fried eggs in rich butter were the only thing that would comfort his then pregnant mother ( while she carried him) and the butter soothed and quieted the family when added to comforting foods while his father was battling cancer. Food is love, it's also memories, something that permeates the senses and grabs chunks of life and makes them stick with us forever. This was such a fast but also delectable read, books such as this one are such a treat, I shall remember it forever as I make my own culinary memories.

- Kasia S.