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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting concept, odd execution, June 13, 2001
This review is from: The Last Days of Haute Cuisine (Hardcover)
While the idea of a history of restaurant culture in the US is a fascinating one, this book doesn't really do it justice. The author's intent was quite obviously to produce a lush story, interlaced with meaningful personal vignettes. Unfortunately it comes off as flordily purple prose interspersed with bewildering switches to first-person. To make matters worse, the personal stories are often seemingly unrelated and quite often self-serving (Kuh's tale of his decision to become a writer is oddly placed in his chapter on Wolfgang Puck, where the connection is tenuous and strained). Stylistically, this was apparently supposed the feature the same sort of rich descriptiveness that the cuisine itself often garners, but instead the reader is bombarded by adjective-heavy sentences and repeated references to famous names (and dishes), often with little to no actual explanation. Some segments are given short shrift while others are beaten into the ground. Henri Soule's labor management tactics and personal quirks are referenced again and again, while Julia Child's television series and the "democritization" of french cooking (arguably some of the more important factors in the development of Amercan cuisine) are given a mere page - the rest of the chapter is devoted to her left-leaning politics. M.F.K. Fisher's influence is occasionally referenced, but more time is devoted to her husband's illness and her depression after his death - all of which would be important character points if they actually lead somewhere. While this is a book ostensibly about Haute Cusine, I can't help feel that Kuh overemphasizes the importance of French cooking in the development of "american" culinary tradition. There is some discussion of ethnic influence, but it's fairly limited in scope to Italian chefs and MFK Fisher eating beans in Mexico. To read this, american restaurant cuisine consisted of nothing but roast beef, bread and water before Soule's arrival in the late 30's. With a culinary melting-pot culture as varied as the US, the book's focus on classic french cooking's arrival in the US seems to not do justice to a much richer history. This is a book that could've been.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An insightful history, June 5, 2002
I wanted some light reading for a vacation & grabbed this book. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. There I was, on vacation, doing just what I could have done at home -- reading a book. Though many chefs and restauranteurs are profiled or interviewed, it's definitely not a collection of celebrity interviews. Nor is it about kitchen philosophies or tips for success. Rather, it's a social analysis of the entire idea of cuisine. Food is only a third of it: economics, class, socio-political movements, entrepreneurship, and the immigrant experience make up the rest of Kuh's subject. He tracks the changes in top-tier American restauranting from the eyes of owners, chefs, patrons, food critics, cookbook writers, and economic statistics. What emerges is a portrait of a cyclic symbiosis of purveyor and audience. Restauranteurs challenge the notion of what food is to be; the public absorbs the notion and changes it in a uniquely American way, which then facilitates the next generation of restaurants. It might sound dry (and there are indeed a few dry spots), but overall it's engaging, personal, and interesting. As others have noted, occasionally an overly-abstract sentence might leave you scratching your head, but that wasn't nearly enough for me to knock off a star. I thought this was a fine book.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The American Synthesis, October 24, 2001
This review is from: The Last Days of Haute Cuisine (Hardcover)
The usefulness of this well-written--if uneven--book lies in its description of the emergence of the modern American concept of a restaurant. The story of the emergence of Restaurant Associates and the company's influence on today's restaurants is a story that has not been told before. From a restaurant model imposed from France (ultimately untenable), and all of the poorly executed imitations in every regional city in America, has emerged the American synthesis balancing innovation, profitability,and popularity. The real thread of Kuh's story is not about food enthusiasts or how Julia Child changed home cooking or how M.F.K. Fisher became a spiritual guru to foodies everywhere. It is about the change in the profession of restaurant management and the emergence of celebrity chefs, in the beginning two unique American innovations, now widely imitiated. Go back and read Joseph Wechsberg's essay on La Pyramide in Blue Trout and Black Truffles and you'll be reminded how cutting edge the American restaurant concept pioneered by Restaurant Associates once was, and how different the celebrity chef is from his predecessors, like the overinflated Paul Bocuse. Kuh's chapter on Wolfgang Puck is solidly in the tradition of the great Wechsberg, and this portrait and others make this a delightful and fascinating exploration of an exciting time. Kuh deftly draws contrasts between his own overseas and American immigrant experiences and those of Restaurant Associates' partners (who would have thought that the concept for the Four Seasons dining room in New York, the opening of which brought Julia Child to tears, was worked at a New Jersey airport restaurant owned by Restaurant Associates?), themselves products of the school of hard knocks. There are many suggestive directions here for others to take up in writing about the evolution of American cuisine.
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