Customer Reviews

The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I came to this book from an angle that many potential readers possibly share--I'm interested in food but am not a hard core "foodie"; I enjoy revelatory profiles of people but am not a gossip maven; I know some but by no means all of the characters, events, restaurants and so on addressed in this book. "Arugula", for me, is a compelling, spirited, and illuminating story, which Kamp tells with an eye ever on the parallel unfolding of the American character throughout the 20th century. Specific decades and regions are brought to life in ways not accessible to the survey of music or politics. What should be a dizzying amount of detail is delivered with a clarity and judiciousness that propel the tale forward. I came away from this book surprised and grateful that it had never been written before.

On the positive side: Kamp provides a focused account of fine dining and cooking in America - World War II to present. He keeps the "story-line" moving by concentrating on interesting and influential characters rather than trying to cover the whole scene. One follows the Euro-centric cooking (Europe consisting of France and later Italy) through it's transformation to Ameri-centric cooking - local, natural, organic ingredients. This history is traced primarily through New York City and California chefs and restaraunts.

In the negative, this simplification of culinary history ignores the culinary practices in the hinterlands - growing up in rural Eastern Washington in the 1950's I was familiar with roasting your own coffee beans, salmon sold from the back of cars 3-4 hours from the river, raising my own basil from seeds from the local hardware store, ... Sushi entered my vocabulary in 1970. While Kamp correctly attributes much of the Americanazion of ingredients to James Beard, he fails to recognize that Beard's culinary education at Portland's Farmers' Market was repeated on a small scale in all the roadside fruit and vegetable stands throughout the region. History as described by David Kamp may be accurate regarding the urban fine-dining scene but is not representative of the "total American scene."

The ugly - while it is useful for Kamp to provide insight into the personalities and ideological tensions among the various key players in the evolution of American taste, knowing who slept with whom and who engaged in crude and/or psychotic behavior doesn't particularly interest me nor does it add essential information for following the historical changes.

However, with the exception of the attempt to summarize the future in the final chapter, the book is a fascinating read. It provides a useful overview in which to see one's personal culinary experiences. Recommended with reservations.

Wow! I'm surprised that other reviewers found this book to be so gossipy. I enjoyed the little bits of personal info included throughout...helped bring it all to life for me. 'Arugula' is really well written...so dense with information yet doesn't get pedantic. One reason for this is Kamp's use of footnotes at the bottom of many pages with interesting asides. I work in the culinary arena and am somewhat familiar with our food heritage but this book took my knowledge to a more comprehensive level and entertained me in the process. (I'm still wondering how he researched this bad boy...no easy task!) Anyway, loved the book and highly recommend it...a very tasty read.

A great title and sub-title for that matter, but after that the book begins to go downhill. I am a registered foodie--I just got back from the farmers market this morning with some beautiful heirloom tomatoes, wild arugula and tree-ripened peaches--and was immediately drawn to this book's premise: an explanation of how the US became a "gourmet" nation. That book is still waiting to be written. David Kamp's book instead consists of series of gossipy vignettes on the chef/personalities of the US largely focused on the second half of the 20th century. I learned more than I cared to about the sexual proclivities of James Beard and Craig Claiborne. If you are looking for "dish" of that sort, this is the book for you. If you are looking however for an understanding of why we have become a nation of foodies, I am afraid you will be disappointed to find that chapter after chapter you simply get more and more gossip.
I give Kamp's book two stars, because (a) he's got a great ideal--he just didn't execute on it and (b) despite the gossip tone, it appears to be well-researched.

I don't cook a thing, but I enjoyed reading this entertaining book about cooking. The United States of Arugula is an interesting title for a book, so I decided to give this book a chance and read it. I was pleasantly surprised about how well researched this book is. There were some names I was not famillar with. I enjoyed reading about Marion Cunningham. She updated the Fannie Farmer Cookbook in 1979 with recipes like cippino which is a tomato based fish stew. Little Joes is a dish with ground beef, eggs and spinach. I learned that Craig Claiborne was influential food journalist who reviewed restaurants and published recipes for the New York Times in the 1960s I did not know that Spago started out as a pizza restaurant. I learned that Wolfgang Puck was innovative in making pizza topped with shrimp and other seafood like scallops. I learned that he also opened an Chinese restaurant a few years ago. Kamp gives a lot of biographical information about legendary people like Julia Child and James Beard. I enjoyed reading about how they made a name for themselves in the cooking industry. I also enjoyed reading about Laura Chenel and Alice Waters. These women made a name for themselves by following their passion for cheese and French food respectively. I enjoyed reading about how television have transformed cooks like Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay into celebrities. This book is a fun read.

I'm probably more of a foodie than I care to admit, and eagerly dug into this book. For the most part, it was a pretty entertaining and informative read. However, I'd have to agree with some previous reviewers that it really isn't an all-inclusive history. It comes across more like an essay, with the central thesis that James Beard launched an American Food Revolution, perpetuated the likes of Julia Child, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, and the Food Network gang. Prior to Beard arriving on the scene after World War II, the American culinary world was a highly isolated, Franco-centric world. After Beard arrived on the scene, American's began to turn inward to American, or at least non-French, sources of culinary inspiration. In addition, American home cooking evolved from dreadful jello-molds of the 50's to wide variety of cuisines and recipes, where the ingredients could be picked up at the local mega-supermarket or neighborhood farmer's market.

For the most part, Kamp is a pretty good storyteller, but the book has some slow parts. The book has a lot of witty moments, although a few jokes fall flat. And while I didn't find it the gossipy tell-all some reviewers found it to be, Kamp certainly doesn't hesitate to provide plenty of juicy details.

I suspect Alice Waters is not particularly thrilled with this book. I figured the kitchens full of drugs and sex described by Tony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential were overblown products of Bourdain's imagination, until I read about the various escapades in Water's Chez Panisse. At best, Waters comes across as a visionary and a tireless advocate for locally grown food. At worst, she comes across as a manipulative credit hog. Puck's chef stardom seems to be as much a product of his overbearing, and now ex-, wife, as is his culinary skills and creativity.

As a history, parts of the book come across as too brief, and too focused on too few players. Kamp certainly has a lot to say about how the American culinary world got to where it is today, but the book can't really be considered definitive.

The United States of Arugula is ostensibly about how America changed from a burgers and fries, Swanson TV dinner, baloney sandwich and Fritos kind of country to a sushi and edamame, Whole Foods, imported bottled water nation. What it really is though, is a collection of some of the best gossip I've read in a long time. This is quality stuff.

The stars of the story are food pioneers Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Child. Along with accounts of their careers, we learn of their various trysts and relationships. Even Julia Child, of whom there are no revelations of extra marital affairs here, comes across as rather bawdier than we are used to seeing her. Alice Waters gets the full treatment as well. What a busy bee she's been - that kitchen at Chez Panisse sure gets hot.

Author David Kamp has really done his homework. We learn how Whole Foods, Zabar's, Dean & DeLuca, and Williams Sonoma got started. We get the lowdown on how the French cooking craze that Julia Child started morphed into Nouvelle Cuisine in New York and into California Cuisine in Berkeley. Chefs Jeremiah Tower, Thomas Keller, and Wolfgang Puck make cameo appearances. Find out how Peet's Coffee in the Bay Area begat Starbuck's.

I can't think of anyone Kamp has left out of his book. Even Jane and Michael Stern, who specialize in finding the "best" greasy spoons, and The Frugal Gourmet (remember him?) are mentioned, if only in chatty and rather informative footnotes. But back to the gossip. Here you'll find out what food critic made Emeril Lagasse cry, what Alice Waters said to Rick Bayless when he appeared in Burger King commercials, and about the feud between Mexican food experts Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless.

Of course, if you'd rather take the high road, you can join in on the debate over whether America is better off, food-wise now than we were forty years ago. Were things more natural and healthier before high fructose corn syrup and DDT and Fast Food Nation? Or are they actually better now with organic choices and farmers' markets and the Food Channel? Argue amongst yourselves. I'm going to scour the footnotes for more gossipy morsels.

David Kamp sets his treatise, THE UNITED STATES OF ARUGULA, at that precise moment in time when America came of age culinarily -- when this nation amalgamated a discrete cuisine of its own, no longer looking to France for inspiration.

Kamp focuses on the many elements which combined to form what we have come to call American cooking. This ranges from the types of ingredients we now take for granted, such as sun-dried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar, through the concepts of regional and seasonal produce, and on to the foreign influences of Asia and Europe.

He explicates the theories of organic foodstuffs and sustainable farming and he pays tribute to those who gave life to these movements.

He also acknowledges the cookware stores which literally brought us the tools of fine cooking, such as Williams-Sonoma. He explains in detail about the gourmet shop Dean-&-DeLuca, which first showcased many imported ingredients we take for granted today, and prepared some of the first dishes those ingredients created: For example, pasta salad in balsamic vinaigrette with sun-dried tomatoes and basil -- and, of course, arugula.

Along the way, Kamp could not fail to pay attention to the brigade of writers who fed this new interest by bringing pertinent information into every kitchen, especially mentioning Julia Child, James Beard and Craig Claiborne.

Also included are the chefs and restaurateurs who originally popularized -- and often created -- these new trends, people who now are household names, such as Wolfgang Puck, Michael McCarthy, Thomas Keller, Alice Waters, Jeremiah Towers and Danny Meyers.

THE UNITED STATE OF ARUGULA is a must-read for anyone with interest in modern American gastronomy. And it's a fun walk down memory lane for anyone who participated in those first days of America's adventure in codifying the elements of fine dining.

Not only do I suddenly feel way more clued in when dining with my foodie friends, but I have a whole new appreciation for how and why I can suddenly buy good food in this country nearly everywhere. More importantly, however, is the imperative to eat now, and eat well that this book instills in me every time I read more than a few pages. I don't think I've ever eaten as many great meals as I have while reading this book.

The footnotes contained some of the most interesting information. Similar to most history texts, this book was filled to over-flowing with names and dates, so many that it was difficult to keep up with later references, and soon I gave up flipping back and forth. While the gossipy, insider information about the culinary star's personal lives appealed to my voyeuristic side, it was not helpful to understanding the evolution of food in America. Perhaps the next attempt to understand why and what we eat in America should be shared with a sociological, ecological and spiritual framework.