Customer Reviews

Fried Butter: A Food Memoir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

...as butter itself is Abe Opincar's spare prose and his eye for detail. Linkages between foods and personal memories are beautifully described as are the many characters the author has encountered in what can only be described as a fully-textured life journey. 'A food memoir' is accurate on as far as it goes...this is a wonderful little book about life. Highly recommended!

I found Opincar's writing style to be very disjointed and abrasive. While the content was brutally honest, I found it mostly uninteresting and vague. Opincar is not a man I would ever want to encounter in this lifetime.

Putting my dislike for the author's personality aside, this was a fast, easy read and on occasion contained small morsels of fascinating food facts and history.

while i confess to only having read the first couple pages of this book, there are times a mere paragraph, or even a sentence, is enough to know you are availing yourself to a great story teller, an author, maybe even a sage. i've ordered the book based on a sample chosen by the new york times. i look forward to writing a longer review upon completion. from what i've read, anyone with a mind or an appetite would feel nourished by the pages of abe opincar.