Sweet and Low: A Family Story (Hardcover)

by Rich Cohen (Author) "Cumberland Packing, the company that manufactures Sweet'N Low, occupies a boxy building across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Joe Asaro, Cumberland Packing (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Sweet and Low by Richard Cohen bills itself as "the unauthorized true story of one Brooklyn family." And what a family. Cohen, the disinherited grandson of the artificial sweetener Sweet 'n' Low's inventor, combines two parts Horatio Alger-memoir, one part cultural commentary and three parts personal criticism into a fascinating snapshot of American life, immigrant experience and a broad sermon on the perils of fortune. Cohen's maternal grandfather, Ben Eisenstadt, a mid-grade inventor and Brooklyn restaurateur concocts the idea of selling sugar in individual packets--a revolutionary concept in the age of crusty, unsanitary sugar dispensers. His idea stolen by the big sugar companies, Cohen squeaks out a post-war living selling his packets in their shadow until he and his son, Marvin, invent the formula for the saccharine sweetener and catch the first big wave of the American diet craze. Those little pink packets create a vast fortune soon tarnished by interfamily squabbles, Mafia influence, FDA edicts and, mostly, the baser aspects of human nature--greed, jealousy and pride. Cohen, a writer for Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, among other publications, weaves a compelling and often biting narrative about his mother's family. Using those pink packets as metaphor, he paints a dystopic portrait of the American Dream, that, in his family's case, was as devoid of nourishment as any artificial sweetener.--Jeremy Pugh

From Publishers Weekly
Disinherited from the family fortune built by his maternal grandfather, Ben Eisenstadt, who invented the artificial sweetener Sweet'N Low, Cohen mines a wealth of family history in this funny, angry, digressive memoir. Ben worked as a short-order cook during the Depression and conceived of but failed to patent the sugar packet before he and his son Marvin hit pay dirt in the 1950s with the saccharin formula for Sweet'N Low. Today a distant third to Equal and Splenda, Sweet'N Low is run by Marvin's son Jeff, who took over after Marvin and several other chief officers were charged with tax evasion and criminal conspiracy in 1993. This story of the family-owned, Brooklyn-based company is, at its heart, a tale of immigrant strife and Cohen's fractious Jewish clan, including his grandmother Betty, for whom "love is finite," and his hypochondriac, housebound Aunt Gladys ("a tongue probing a sore"), who connived to eliminate her sister (Cohen's mother) from Betty's will. Though Cohen often dollies back in a self-conscious if breezy effort to pad his memoir with big ideas—the history of artificial sweeteners, the post-WWII weight-watching craze, etc.—the real grace of his writing (seen in Tough Jews) lies in the merciless, comic characterizations of his relatives. Photos. (Apr. 11)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (April 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374272298
• ISBN-13: 978-0374272296
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #391,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HOW SWEET IS REVENGE?, April 24, 2006

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: Sweet and Low: A Family Story (Audio CD)

They say revenge is sweet. How about revenge is "Sweet and Low," a not very flattering account of family and fortune? Author Rich Cohen evidently had get-even in mind as he makes it plain that he doesn't much care for members of his family and he certainly didn't like being disinherited.

Nonetheless, scandal and vitriol often add spice to the listen and this is the case with Cohen's narrative. His grandfather, Ben Eisenstadt, began it all when he opened a diner across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Ever on the lookout for an opportunity, he saw the wisdom of putting sugar into little packets rather than having it sit in clogged glass table dispensers. As the tale goes, he pitched his brainstorm to a sugar company that claimed it as their own.

Angry but undaunted Eisenstadt then came up with the idea for Sweet `N Low, which was offered initially as an aid for diabetics but soon swiped by diet crazed Americans. The family was in high cotton.......until studies linked saccharin to cancer. As they say, there goes the business. Or, as Cohen would say, "Fourteen rats get cancer and nothing will ever be the same."

Once corruption was discovered within the company court battles ensued, Cohen's mother's side lost, and their names were whited out in wills.

Cohen may be bitter but he's also a dandy writer ("Lake Effect" and "Tough Jews"). His descriptions of family from the kind of woman "who wanted you to think she never went to the bathroom" to Uncle Marvin who said to call him Uncle Marvelous are hilarious.

The highs and lows of Sweet `N Low isn't exactly The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire but it is an interesting and often smile provoking listen.

- Gail Cooke

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Classic, May 20, 2006

By	Zeke Wagner (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This book is large. In it, the writer, Rich Cohen, disinherited from the vast sweet n low fortune, comes to see the history of his family, and the history of our time, in the little white granules that sweeten our coffee, but leave a bitter aftertaste. It is told with panache and humor, and also with a great deal of compassion, even toward those who did his side of the family wrong. It is an American story as old as the west, or as old as the Great Gatsby. It is the story of the American dream, and what happens when that dream comes true. It is a be careful what you wish for story, or, as my grandmother used to say, "We were happier when we were poor."

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet, sour, bitter and salty....all in one!, April 24, 2006

By	Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Rich Cohen's new book "Sweet and Low" is a breezy and fun-filled romp through the broken fragments of a family that has more ditzy characters than an offbeat novel. The author states on the back cover, "to be disinherited is to be set free" and in his liberation the readers of his book have much about which to cheer. Cohen is wickedly humorous and spares no one and no detail. He gives "dysfunction" a new name.

Ostensibly a story about the discovery of the first widely used sugar substitute, the Cumberland Packing Corporation which packages it and the company's successes and failures, "Sweet and Low" is really about the men and women in the Eisenstadt/Cohen family and what life was like under the surface. Patriarch Benjamin Eisenstadt, the hard luck/good luck founder of the company is the rock that holds the family together. Beyond that, look out. There's the agoraphobic, housebound Aunt Gladys, Uncle ("marvelous") Marvin, the eternal man-child son of Ben, vitriolic grandma Betty and suicidal great-grandma, Bubba. Reading "Sweet and Low" is like watching a tv variety show without the tv. Yet it is author Cohen who really puts everything in perspective. What makes this book so enjoyable is the writing and it is, indeed, very good. Cohen has a way of not only grabbing the reader's attention, but holding it, then guiding it through the twists and turns of his family's "behavior". It is a tour de force. While the author allows himself some bitter feelings (perhaps more wistful, had everyone gotten along) he nonetheless has some nice things to say. His ability to stick the knife in cleanly is balanced by a notion that while people may have bad attributes they aren't necessarily bad people.

"Sweet and Low" could have been just a kiss-and-tell book about a family gone awry. It's much better than that and it's due to Rich Cohen and his marvelous way of telling the family story. I loved "Sweet and Low" and encourage readers to purchase a copy and enjoy it.