Customer Reviews

The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life (Modern Library Food)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first read this book 40 years ago in college, happily soaking up its gentle and appreciative attitude toward life, as well as an early dose of cultural relativism. I learned soup-making from Professor Pellegrini, and gratitude, and something about what's important in life. I've often repeated his stories--the one about how to serve polenta to the family when you only have one sardine to go with it, the one about the crowd of boys on market days choosing which horse to follow, the one about how as a young man he horrified a girlfriend and her parents by following his own ideas about food. The professor's recipes--e.g., for soup--are more than a list of steps; they show the reader how to _approach_ soup. Once you know how to approach it, you can invent freely within the framework provided. Although it's the soup I remember the most, he talks about preparing many kinds of food, growing fruits and vegetables, and living life in a life-preserving and life-affirming manner. In many ways, the Professor was way ahead of his time, and as I grow older and relearn from experience some of the things about life that I first learned from him, I enjoy yet again the daring of the 12-year-old who came to this country alone from Italy, ate ham and eggs across the country, became an English professor, and put so much wisdom into this small book. It's a joy to see the book being reprinted and made available to a whole new generation of readers and cooks.

It's hard to believe this book was written and published in the '50s, when watery pot roast and martinis were America's idea of fodder for dinner parties. I loved Pellegrini's story about searching for olive oil in a friend's medicine cabinet, so he could dress a chicken--no one used olive oil for cooking then! You can skip every fancy book out now on Tuscan cuisine, trattoria cooking, etc. once you have this book, because it has the best recipes for risotto, rabbit, chicken, polenta, greens, cardoons, and more importantly, it makes an argument for eating well but in moderation -- a more sensible way to keep weight down without spoiling one's enjoyment of food. GARDENERS should also read this book, or his book, THE FOOD LOVER'S GARDEN. He writes just as lovingly about working in his garden as he does about cooking the foods he grows in it. Forget expensive organic produce at your local grocery and follow his instructions for a home garden to eat from, especially if you live in a mild climate like Prof. Pellegrini did (Seattle, WA).

This is one of the best books of its kind ever written.
Originally composed nearly 60 years ago, it reads as if it'd been submitted to the publisher only recently. His culinary opinions are spot on, and his writing style is wonderful. One of my all time favorites.

It's intimidating to weigh in here with a less than stellar review (if three stars qualify as less-than-stellar) when the likes of Jacques Pépin, Daniel Bouloud, and Mark Kurlansky have heaped unreserved praise upon the book. I've searched, and there doesn't exist anywhere on the web a review that could be interpreted as slightly critical. Everybody loves Pellegrini, and everybody loves this book.

Pellegrini has a great voice. He is at his best when he writes about his experience as a poor immigrant coming to America and running smack into the Horn of Plenty. He was not impressed by the skyscrapers, the cars and the trains, the magnificent metropolis, but by "the food stalls; the huge displays of pastries and confections, the mountains of fish, flesh, and fowl; the crowded cafes, where the aristocrats sat beside the drayman in overalls, gulping coffee drawn from huge urns and soberly eating ham and eggs." This voice finds resonance in most people, after all, what is an American if not an immigrant? He recounts snippets of his childhood in Italy, his hatred of pilchard (a kind of sardine), and a hillarious story told in one-up-manship about a childhood where one gets to bat at a pilchard hung on a string with his polenta. One infers that the hated fish is such a costly thing you couldn't eat it outright but only dab at it for flavor over several days.

In other essays Pellegrini gives his opinion on what should be grown in the home veggie patch, what should be kept in the pantry, how to dress up a salad, how to keep meats simple. 60 years ago when America was hip-deep in the great Casserole Bake-Off, such advice would have been refreshing and vanguard. Today, where I could find a Wild Oats, a Whole Foods, a Dean & Delucca, AND a bakery run by an authentic Frenchman in one square mile in Kansas City (no lie), it seems trite and dated.

Elsewhere in the book, the quaint voice, quaint like an old uncle who goes to the Moose Lodge and wears a bow tie, becomes annoyingly judgemental. He writes as if he was the first immigrant to come to America, the rest of us have been here forever clutching in our greasy paw a hotdog in one and a can of cream of mushroom soup in the other. The hotdog claims provenance from Wien and Frankfurt. In its authentic incarnation, it is immigrant food, and who can say it's inferior to anything else cooked up in the Old Country? On page 100, he ridicules Americans from turning away from organ meat, and then launches into a smug sermon about how his father used to make this killer omelet with chicken intestine! He chides Americans for being wasteful in their land of plenty, so wasteful that they don't eat chicken intestine. I want to find a person that would willingly eat chicken intestine instead of chicken breast, given the choice. Not everyone has fond memories of their dad making intestine omelet and basking in the glow of the family table eating said intestine omelet, which makes for fondness of intestine omelets. One, maybe two generations later, no immigrant child will ever chose chicken intestine over chicken breast, because intestines were cooked and eaten as a necessity by people who couldn't afford to be wasteful. It doesn't actually taste good, otherwise Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller would be serving it in their restaurants next to the veal sweetbreads and truffled foie gras.

There is a section where Pellegrini advocates giving a teaspoon of rum in the milk of children as young as three, and wine to 5 months old babies, to teach "temperance." No doubt the author firmly believes in this. It is a howler. He gives some wine to his little daughter after some minor fall so that "she forgets her pain." But then he observes that the accident rate seem to increase. She also prefers to dunk her toast into his coffee, where he dispenses rum without the measuring aid of a spoon. He also tells you to "avoid the bony steaks, such as T-bone and porterhouse." Wait. What?

As much as Pellegrini is right about American propensity for wastefulness, and our limited palate, and our preference for large birds like chicken and duck over teeny little sparrows and larks, a large part of this book is dated, and has little practical value for a modern cook. I still recommend it, though. Here is an author with a unique and entertaining voice, who pronounced 60 years ago some principles of food and life that are being embraced today. Read it with a cellar of salt, and judge for yourself.

I knew Angelo Pellegrini when i was a kid, and was frequently at the house for dinner, wandering in the garden, hanging out on the grape arbor covered patio, and helping to make wine...Even as a young girl, I found him fascinating, and to reconnect with him by reading The Unprejudiced Palate has been a great joy...Sure he advocates wine and rum for children, but Angelo's spirit lives on this in this wonderful book. Read it for the stories and the spirit...Read it for a unique perspective on American culture, read it because it will bring you joy and make you laugh...It made me remember how gregarious he was, how he and his family could sit in a restaurant, laughing and having the best time ever, not worried that they were too loud or boisterous...Can't we all just live like that?

I picked it up based on the reviews from others. Excellent book. Very much of a how to enjoy a balanced life kind of a philosophy.

Ms. Waters says that the book should be called "The prejudiced palate", and I agree. Angelo Pellegrini's book is both a cookbook and a gustatory memoir. It reminded me of many foods that I have not had since I was a child growing up in southern Spain, including rabbit, and odd cuts of meat, impossible to find at the local market. This book is a must for anyone interested in basic cooking, able to find and use wonderful ingredients with minimum fuss. It is also a lesson in taking advantage of the bounty available in the US and using it to full advantage. It is a great read, funny and intelligent

This is a great read. The author is quite charming and his outlook on food is inspiring and practical.

this is a great book, nothing made me want to leave my urban lifestyle as much as reading about his gardens and 50 feet of raspberry bushes and making his own wine and foraging, and reading about his wild working childhood in Italy makes me want to take my boys to the country. However, I draw the line at putting rum in my 3 year old's coffee. I draw the line at the coffee! but booze? Very dated in a somewhat weird way, unlike the rest of the book which is timeless. Except for that chapter I am a believer.