It Must've Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything (Hardcover)

by Jeffrey Steingarten (Author) "Aft here, drive 'em aft," I shouted..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York City, United States, San Diego (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Vogue magazine food writer Steingarten picks up where The Man Who Ate Everything left off, offering foodies a mouthwatering collection of nearly 40 obsessive essays. "Sometimes, I feel like a giant bluefin, my powerful musculature propelling me around the world in search of food," he explains in an essay about toro, the tender tuna belly used in Japanese cuisine. Equal parts travelogue and investigative reporting, Steingarten's writing is funny, fast-paced and clever. Whether re-creating a perfect plate of coq au vin using rooster procured from a live poultry market, braising ribs for his dog or taste-testing espresso in his Manhattan loft cum laboratory ("Right now there are 14 brand new, state-of-the-art, home espresso makers in my house...."), Steingarten proves himself a true gastronome. Of course, his interest in food goes beyond haute cuisine-freeze-dried foods, hot dog buns, even his beloved Milky Way bars do not escape scrutiny. A few essays aren't even about food. One follows the author's south-of-the-border search for phen-fen; another contemplates New York City's "reservation rat race." Recipes-and only Steingarten could add humor to the form-appear throughout. Devoted readers will savor this collection (many of the essays have won awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals); those unfamiliar with the author will be clamoring for more.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Fast becoming a star among contemporary food writers, Steingarten returns with another compilation of his columns from Vogue. Steingarten's breakneck tour through the world of unlimited consumption takes him aboard a tuna boat to find the source of his favorite sushi selection, raw fatty bluefin. The reader benefits from Steingarten's thorough research into the murky history and spreading popularity of sushi. In another personal encounter, Steingarten takes issue with a government ban on a popular diet drug that had helped him maintain his gluttonous intake volume and still lose weight. He debunks current outrageous claims for the superiority of tony, expensive sea salts over the everyday blue-box variety. Steingarten watches a pig butchered in France and explores the origins of the outrageously complex Cajun dish, turducken. Ever on the lookout to skewer others' pretentious food allergy claims, he calls into doubt claims of MSG sensitivities. Despite his silly New York disdain for the Midwestern heartland, Steingarten casts useful illumination on many hitherto dim areas of our fascination with food. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (November 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375412808
• ISBN-13: 978-0375412806
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #218,318 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It must have been something I read and loved!, December 23, 2002

By	Irene Land "iland" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

I feel I was lucky enough, first of all, to meet Mr. Steingarten at a book signing at DiPalo's Fine Italian Foods in Little Italy. While waiting to buy my usual selection of the best Italian cheeses, meats, etc. and talking to the usual shoppers with whom we've become such friends over the years, I started glancing through the book. I couldn't stop so it had to be one of my Christmas presents to myself. Others also felt the same way and Mr. Steingarten couldn't sign fast enough. And how wonderful to find a whole chapter about DiPalo's and Luigi DiPalo who has carried on his father's tradition, not only as the store owner but as a walking encyclopedia of everything Italian from every different olive oil and it's characteristics to the four-months seasonal Parmegianno Reggiano (he once had a tasting of all four seasons and explained the reasons why each season had it's clear differences). Mr. Steingarten wrote such a beautiful chapter on Luigi, his vast knowledge, his vast supply of the best of Italy that it took me back to the many years I have spent every Saturday morning there. Mr. Steingarten tells story after story in such superb style and panache and he is a man with such humility and joy talking to people that he is an icon in the food world. How lucky we are to be able to read this talented writer yet again. If you enjoy food and Jeffrey Steingarten (how could you not) you HAVE TO OWN THIS BOOK because you will read and reread it always.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Written by the love child of Bill Bryson and Alton Brown, January 12, 2004

By	Margot Vigeant "Mom, engineer, and cook" (central PA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: It Must've Been Something I Ate (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book, as was the first. Encompassing, more or less at random: travel and food, history and food, science and food, technology and food and a healthy helping of the sociology of eating, it was a fast and funny read. There are books devoted to each of these topics which does a more rigorous job at it, but no one else rolls them all into so fun and informative a package. And, as opposed to a book which deals strictly with, say, the science of food and cooking, you can use this one to learn the names of the best French cooks and the names of their and countless other worthy restaurants.
I haven't previously found anyone willing to discuss the merits of caviar AND cricket tacos within the same volume.
I'd recommend the purchase of this at the same time as "The Man who ate Everything" - you won't be able to read only one.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Tutorial in How to think about Food. Buy It!, August 3, 2005

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: It Must've Been Something I Ate (Paperback)

`It Must've Been Something I Ate' is Jeffrey Steingarten's second collection of Vogue columns, following the earlier `The Man Who Ate Everything'. Monsieur Steingarten is certainly better recognized these days among the foodie masses as he has appeared as the anchor judge on many of the new Food Network `Iron Chef America' shows, and adds gravity to the show as one of the few people who can trump commentator Alton Brown's perceptions on food.

I was always puzzled by the fact that a magazine like Vogue, which I have never once picked up to read, and which I perceived as a home largely of advertisements for goods appealing to women who have more money than they know what to do with (sic). I was chastised somewhat when I discovered that Mr. Steingarten's role at Vogue was formerly staffed by none other than Elizabeth David, one of the most interesting and respected culinary writers of the 20th century.

Mr. Steingarten's writing has a `family resemblance' to Ms. David's work, but they are really doing a slightly different kind of dialogue with their readers. Elizabeth David took conventional food writing with recipe plus commentary and elevated it to its highest level. Her closest students were Jane Grigson and Claudia Roden. Like James Beard with American cooking, her knowledge of food, especially European and Mediterranean food was encyclopedic.

Steingarten is doing something different! I would even argue with the blurb on the cover of my Vintage edition that states that he `knows more about food than any man now eating'. That perception may be due to the fact that Steingarten looks into food issues more deeply than almost any other writer I can cite, with the possible exception of Harold McGee. But Steingarten is a much better writer than McGee, so he is much more enjoyable to read. I think of him as being a culinary Sherlock Holmes who uses, or who has friends who use all of the very best scientific methods for tracking down the scoop on interesting food issues.

A classic example of his `modus operandi' is the article on differences in the varieties of salt. The jumping off point for the story is the fact that appreciation for salt has reached levels formerly lavished on olive oils. The heavy of the story is fellow food writer Robert Wolke who published a series of articles that claimed that the differences from one salt to the next are small and are largely due to the shape of the salt crystals. Like me, Wolke comes to culinary matters from a background in chemistry. And, since I know, like Wolke, that virtually all forms of salt are simply 98% Sodium Chloride. And, the odds are that the remaining one or two percent of the chemical composition is composed of inorganic compounds which simply do not register either on our tongue or nose. This is not to say that there are not important differences between salts. Kosher(ing) salt, for example is truly superior to table salt for seasoning simply because it is easier to handle while cooking.

Since Steingarten and his colleagues are more attuned to the culinary aspects of things than chemist Wolke, Steingarten felt Wolke was missing something. So, he enlists some pretty serious medical and statistical talent to conduct a true double blind test of the differences in taste. To make the experiment even better, the differences in crystal shape is factored out by doing the tasting of a 2% solution. I am very quickly getting the feeling that it is not Steingarten but the famous science writer, Stephen Jay Gould who I am reading.

Since it makes a great story, Steingarten is not at all shy in confessing that statistically, the first experiment showed very little difference in the various salts. Steingarten did not lose me when he felt that further investigation was needed. The aesthetic perception of something that not everyone can appreciate is an entirely familiar story. Just scratch the opinions of ten people at random to ask them what they think of Jackson Pollack's oil paintings and you will find more than half believing they are shams. Steingarten and his high priced scientific talent repeat the experiment with somewhat different conditions but with no loss of scientific rigor and come up with some, but not compelling statistical basis for saying that the tastes of one or two of the salts was different from the table salt controls.

Steingarten was probably constrained by the space allotted him on the pages of Vogue, but I would have liked him to take things just one step further and consider the relative costs of the `artisinal' salts compared to the perceived differences in taste. I suspect that Steingarten won this battle, but the salt enthusiasts may have lost the war to establish the greater culinary cachet of arcane salts.

But, unlike scientist Gould's work, this book is simply not about whether Steingarten reaches either the right or the desired conclusion. It is about the vistas opened to ways of thinking for yourself about food and the enjoyment you get from Mr. Steingarten's immensely talented way of writing about food. As with the case of the investigation into salt, I may have agreed with Professor Wolke's conclusion, but I think Steingarten was superior in every way in how he approached the issue. Wolke is good, but Steingarten is better.

Very highly recommended culinary reading!