5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ALIVE WITH ANECDOTES AND A ZEST FOR LIFE, February 7, 2004
Renaissance man and restauranteur George Lang has experienced life in extremis and sat at table with kings. As recounted in his anecdote spiced memoir Nobody Knows The Truffles I've Seen, the years, luck, and determination have taken him from the stark deprivation of a forced labor camp, to freedom through the perils of a mine field and, eventually, to occupy an office in the luxe Waldorf-Astoria.
The only child of Jewish parents Lang was born in a small Hungarian village in 1926. From his tailor father he learned attention to detail and pride in self; from a mother, who fashioned 42 pairs small pants for him from his father's leftover materials, he acquired ingenuity and an appreciation for life. He would need all of these traits plus some to survive the Holocaust.
After escaping from the labor camp to which he was consigned at the age of 19, enduring torture at the hands of sadistic captors, and learning that his parents had died at Auschwitz, Mr. Lang felt there was no future for him in Hungary and determined to reach America. With the aid of border smugglers he was hidden in a coffin only to be abandoned by them, left to navigate a live minefield alone. He remembers little of this "deadly walk," only that he avoided the visible path as entrapment and forged ahead.
In 1946, with little more than dreams of becoming a concert violinist and a string-tied papier-mache valise in 1946 he boarded a "rickety Liberty ship" - one of the very first to ferry refugees to the United States once the war was over. It was in New York City that his only-in-America success story began.
While a music student the young emigre made do with a series of odd jobs. Then, upon hearing Jascha Heifetz play, he realized that in all probability his career would not be on the concert stage. Fortunate enough to eventually find work in the kitchen of the legendary Hotel Plaza, he observed, waited and learned. Before too long he assayed "the switch from behind the range to management."
His entree to oversight was found at the Lower East Side's Chateau Gardens, which resembled "a muted version of Frankenstein's castle circa 1898." From such inauspicious beginnings he rose to arrange banquets at the Waldorf-Astoria for the rich and royal, and then he took over the famed Four Seasons. When torn between two intriguing professional offers, he discovered that he could have his cake and eat it too , work for both parties by forming his own company. Thus, he embarked on a then new occupation - restaurant consulting.
Accomplished both intellectually and professionally, Mr. Lang has penned a poignant, amusing if somewhat elliptical memoir. We know much of him professionally - little of him personally. He is a diarist who devotes pages to a meal, and a paragraph to a marriage.
However, we do see that he has survived the unthinkable with uncommon fortitude and grace to live a story that would make Horatio Alger pale. And, with his store of anecdotes regarding everyone from James Beard to Luciano Pavarotti, he's a boon companion. That may be all we need to know.
- Gail Cooke
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
George Lang's book left a good taste in my mouth, October 26, 1998
By A Customer
Being a college student at the Rochester Institue of Technology as a Hotel/Food major I found this book very inspirational. Mr. Lang took advantage of his life. He dreamed big, and his dreams came true! Sometimes I couldn't belive the oppourtunites he created for himself. He proves that you can open doors for yourself if you know your stuff and the right people. Mr. Lang, you are a inspiration to me! I too dream big!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
unexpected dividends, November 25, 2000
By A Customer
I thoroughly enjoyed the book; the saga of his undaunted struggle to survive - and succeed - was a real page-turner. As a born-and-bred New Yorker of a "certain age," Mr. Lang's tales of old, familiar landmarks were an unexpected dividend, as was his demi-cookbook at the end, which, as an American of Hungarian extraction, solved many mysteries of my Grandma's cooking.
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