Customer Reviews

Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World

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`Last Chance to Eat' by Toronto culinary journalist Gina Mallet is an uncommon mix of memoir, culinary history, and polemic against the march of agribusiness and the resulting loss of important artisinal foods in the name of hygiene, often masking the interests of big businesses. It's an odd mix of Ruth Reichl's memoirs with Eric Schlosser's `Fast Food Nation' and Mort Rosenbloom's `A Goose in Toulouse'.

First of all, the book is very engaging to read. Like Reichl, the author has had an interesting family and life, so her childhood stories are entertaining.

Then, the book covers the history of several major food sources. These stories often amaze me when they show how recent (or how old) many major food developments have been. One interesting story is the breeding of beef cattle to yield an animal that would reach full market size in the shortest time. This is not a 20th century agribusiness development. It was done in the early 18th century in Scotland, before the American Revolution. A parallel development was the breeding of a cow that will produce a lot of milk. This story is directly connected to endangering a classic artisinal product, Normandy butter, produced from cows that give a very high butter fat milk. Unfortunately, these cows produce a very low volume of milk, so they are not profitable except to produce a high priced product.

Finally, it pokes its nose into corners of international food business in politics that most people probably don't even know exist. Most food channel junkies know about the wards against importing raw milk products into the United States. The current often ignored law limits import of raw milk cheeses to those that have been aged for at least 60 days. While there is bootleg cheese importing and small family run raw milk cheese operations in the united states which violate this regulation, the prospect which is not well known is that there is an interest in changing the ban to prohibit all raw milk cheeses. I felt a distinct jolt when the author stated that that would ban the import into the US of Parmesano-Reggiano! I felt a distinct discomfort in the pit of my stomach over that one.

The biggest surprise comes with the author's stories about the development of a food Codex that codifies how all food products are to be made worldwide. Although proceedings take place in Brussels, this is not just a European Union party. American representatives play a big part in the deliberations and the American reps are primarily representatives such as Kraft Foods employees who have a vested interest in putting down anything which will compete with American products.

Other stories are equally dismal, such as the deep drop in the egg business in the 1970s when the awareness of cholesterol dawned on us and superficial studies gave the egg a bad rap because its role in the good cholesterol / bad cholesterol picture was not well understood. In the same essay, the author repeats many of Eric Schlosser's muckraking descriptions of production henhouses. The author's egg story is leavened with a great tale of her family's attempt to raise chickens in food rationed England just after World War II.

Each of the five major essays on eggs, milk and cheese, beef, vegetable gardens, and fish combine personal observations with current and historical trends in food business. My only reservation about Ms. Mallet's polemical content is that unlike Schlosser's writing and the famous Rachel Carson book `Silent Spring', both of which Ms. Mallet quote, all of her warnings and charges are undocumented except by secondary sources rather than primary sources with notes giving chapter and verse on the sources. I believe Ms. Mallet is on the side of the angels and nothing she says disagrees with anything I have read elsewhere, but please note that her essays are more informed opinion than they are research.

This is a highly engaging read for all foodies and anyone else who enjoys good memoir writing. Recommended.

Last Chance to Eat is a great book for Alton Brown and Jeffrey Steingarten fans, for people who love good food but hate the fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding so much of it today, and for people who read cookbooks like novels. The author, in the context of her own experiences growing up in several different countries with a well-to-do family that centered around food, takes five important foods (eggs, cheese, beef, fish, and tomatoes) and chronicles their tragic decline. She enriches her personal narrative with enough scientific information to keep any kitchen geek happy, and while some of it's stuff most foodies already know, some of it's pretty surprising--and depressing. While cheese is by and large my favorite of all the foods discussed, my favorite part of the book was about eggs, from the hundreds of delicious ways Escoffier used them in his cooking in the early 1900s to the cholesterol scare of the 80s and the BS "science" that was behind it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys eating, cooking, and talking about food.

Attempting to get a book published under the banner "people don't eat right"--even with great gobs of anecdotal evidence--would probably elicit little enthusiasm from potential publishers. Who wants to be scolded, especially about all those Big Macs you're tucking away? Ah, but wrap this theme around a weighty political or social commentary theme--say, people don't even know what food *tastes* like anymore and evil forces are conspiring to keep it that way--and you might have something to sink your teeth into. Consciously or not, Gina Mallet is in a scolding mood in "Last Chance to Eat" and while I appreciated her broadsides against food hypocrisy the barely-concealed "you people don't know what's good for you" tone was often hard to, well, stomach.

This perspective sours, for me, an otherwise superb extended essay on good, basic food and why we love it. The author is at her lamenting best when skewering nonsensical food regulation; the bit on a chapter dedicated to eggs (`The Imperiled Egg') displays in naked terms how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other bureaucratic dimwits drove the egg market to the point of extinction--for absolutely no scientific reason. This expose comes after a long paean to eggs in history, how gourmands from Escoffier to Julie Child have feted them, how wonderfully nutritious they are (eaten *properly*, of course), and segueing into their ill-deserved bad rap. Ms. Mallet's equally loving descriptions of beef, fish, cheese, and produce clearly show her love of The Real Deal; it's when she starts tut-tutting what's happened to the apparently glorious near-past of cuisine that she loses me.

Simply put, Mallet's gripes against her imagined food villains--the FDA excepted--hold little water (primary source references and research--not to mention footnotes--are nowhere to be found) and undercut the backside of her argument: that good food and "taste" are imperiled in our fast food/agri-business-dominated culinary wasteland. That a huge food conglomerate may strive to extend irrational bans on unpasteurized cheese, for example, might be no surprise. But to rely on "my friend Guy" as an authority (hey, he lives in *Paris*!) on the evils of big food business doesn't pump me with confidence. (For good measure we find Guy's politics are hardly confined to the food business: the cheese chapter culminates with a bizarre non-sequitor that importing can't be more diverse because according to him "this is all about trade." I've heard plenty of unsupported anti-trade arguments but this reaches a new low.)

The author uses a family narrative context--interspersed with interesting recipes--to present her arguments. This works reasonably well, though the uniqueness of her youthful experiences (daughter of a director of luxury hotels!) makes cozying up to her culinary perspective a bit difficult at times. Harder to swallow is the relentless "Philistine America steamrolling Noble France" subtext that I hope will even bore the French before too much longer.

Given how politically charged all our lives have become--from what we drive to what toilet paper we use--I appreciated Gina Mallet's attempt to stake out the high ground on food. (I like to think it's mine too.) When she stays optimistic--relating family stories, history, and her clear love of good food--I found her book very enjoyable and even inspiring. It's most of her pessimistic side--especially some very ill-informed economic rants--that drag down an otherwise intriguing effort.

This book dropped into my lap just as we were reading of the death of Julia Child, and it could hardly have done so at a better time. As one who spent the 60s clutching Mastering the Art in one hand and juggling a wooden spoon, a job, and diapers with the other, it was a delight to come across such a vigorous paean to real food.

An intrepid investigation of what has gone wrong over the years was flagged from the back cover, and Ms Mallet does indeed deliver a stinging blow to the powerful mass food market which is destroying the good and healthful and leading us into an era of obesity and its attendant ills. This trenchant analysis is both welcome and overdue.

What I was not prepared for was the charm and wit with which the author has spiced her account. Wonderful bits of history lead us from the Roman egg to the present day grilled cheese sandwich, while telling anecdotes are interspersed with reminiscences gleaned from her family's hilarious battle to evade English post-war rationing and resurrect some of the glory of the prewar years. Her invigorating gastronomic journey leads her from Europe to LA, from NY and Connecticut to Toronto, via curious byways which all serve to enlighten and amuse. Despite the destruction already wrought (and her ironic postlude), all is not lost and Ms Mallet also investigates the progress now being made toward a more thoughtful and intelligent future for our tables as small producers and the Slow Food movement influence an increasingly motivated and knowledgeable public, tired of the diktats of Government agencies and the EU.

If the news is getting you down, just read Ms. Mallet's description of a cheese soufflé and your spirits cannot help but rise too. Sit back with this splendid book and an apple (preferable Cox's Orange Pippin) and rejoice.

Gina Mallet writes fabulously and with originality about one of the most overwritten subjects - food. I wanted to run out and buy raw milk cheese right away, pick up newlaid eggs, find the best Holland tomatoes before they vanish....And despite all the food fears and scares discussed, the author avoids polemics, even has a sense of humor about the contradictions and paradoxes that make a meal today.

I give this book two stars because it is clearly well researched, and a couple of the author's comments actually made me laugh out loud. Beyond that, I strongly recommend skipping this book. Stuffed full of personal anecdotes, most of which are disjointed or irrelevant, the weak or non-existant transitions between ideas made it very choppy to read. In her efforts to touch on all the various issues related to her subject, she deal effectively with none of them.
Most frustrating, however, was the author's baffling and inconsistent opinion. While her points about modern food scientists and false alarms are valid, her choice to treat all food safety concerns as an unnecessary nuisance was disconcerting. Solely concerned with taste, Mallet scorns both the industrial and organic movements in turn, but offers no better ideas. Sadly, this book failed to live up to the promise of it's thesis.

I know almost nothing about food, except for what I like (or more often don't like). But I did know Gina Mallet's writing, having lived in Toronto where I read her Canadian newspaper and magazines articles, and what I knew was that she was a good writer. Having now read "Last Chance to Eat," I'll have to amend that to say Ms. Mallet is a very good writer - articulate, entertaining, infinitely knowledgeable and terrifically iconoclastic on a subject I previously found as dull as my mother's parish cookbook. I don't know if they give Pulitzers for food books, but Gina Mallet deserves one.

The author comes off as pretentious and snobby, and much of the book seems to be a memoir of her priveleged upbringing. Her message is very inconsistent in the book and she provides no real ideas for improving the food situation. Skip this title and check out works by Michael Pollan instead.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in eating wonderful, exciting food which has not been tainted by the huge macro food business. Gina writes with a superb command of the English language and one can literally taste food she describes.
It is a touching, humorous great read and I think anyone who loves to eat and/or cook would be very happy to have this book.

The author writes beautifully about her food experiences in post-war England and North America. She helped me understand why food in America, as a rule, just isn't as good as the food I've eaten in Europe. It has nothing to do with culinary skills, but rather that American culture truly does view food as death. We've been protected by FDA requirements and production standards, as well as market pressures right out of most of the taste of our foods. Unpasteurized Brie, anyone?

Excellent read, excellent information. A must read for any foodie.