California Dish: What I Saw (and Cooked) at the American Culinary Revolution

Years back the standard Jeremiah Tower press kit claimed the master's hand in the development of everything to do with food just this side of the invention of fire. California cuisine? Café dining? Franco-Asian fusion food? All Jeremiah. Well, that was PR, a subject Tower addresses in his memoir of his life in food and the food business, California Dish: What I Saw (and Cooked) at the American Culinary Revolution. This isn't to say that Tower doesn't make his own argument for all his contributions, setting the record straight where he thinks the record has slipped into mythology. His contribution to the rise of Chez Panisse, for example. This is a man with an apparent lifelong habit of journal keeping. He isn't waiting for his own demise for the story to unfold. Rather, Tower tells all--his version of all--in the here and now, letting the chips fall where they may. The pleasure may be vicarious, but it-s a pleasure none the less.

In 50 years the organizing principle of this memoir, that the rise of California cuisine and who gets credit for what actually matters, may hold no water. But California Dish will remain invaluable as a memoir of the time by one of its more outlandish characters, a man who spent a good deal of his youth on ocean liners and in upscale hotel dining rooms. He shares all this in the spirit of James Beard's Delights and Prejudices, which documented an earlier time and way with food. Tower will be accused of cattiness, no doubt. And he is. He'll be accused of self-promotion. And he does. But he also lays on the praise where he believes it is due. When he admires other chefs and their work, he says so. In a series of scenes he returns to James Beard the dignity of his sexuality, like throwing the switch from two to three dimensions.

The first-person point-of-view often reveals much more about the writer than the writer ever intended. It's the nature of the beast. Tower may have been aiming at an improved press kit version of his life. But what press kit was ever poignant? For all the names of the famous, for all the celebrity happenings, the constant world travel, the designer labels, Jeremiah Tower seems a lonely man by book's end, a glass of fine champagne his best friend. --Schuyler Ingle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Tower opens this memoir with the story of going head to head with French chef Guy Savoy at a sort of junket for the culinary press back in 1983 and how he won over his audience with an audacity born of equal parts pride and inexperience. His fusion of cooking talk with more personal gossip and the inclusion of the revealing aside is sure to captivate foodies. But Tower's pacing meanders, and his gracious facade shows more than a few rough and brittle edges. An abiding bitterness is the only thing revealed in Tower's version of the creation of Chez Panisse and the rivalry with Alice Waters that ensued. Other sections-especially the chapters on his running San Francisco's Stars-likewise avoid topics of obvious interest to make room for name dropping and ax grinding. The occasional insertion of menus or recipes is random. Tower's personality comes through in bits and pieces as he frankly remembers the highs and lows of an important career, but the picture as a whole is less than flattering.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.