In 1924, Peter Levant’s opened what was one of Whiting’s famous “perch palaces,” a place that served freshly caught perch right from Lake Michigan. They also advertised such menu items as steak, chicken, and, of course, this being The Region, frog legs—mostly likely from nearby Lake George. Indeed, frog legs were so in…
Category: Food History
Mark Bittman: Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal
Mark Bittman never does anything in a small way. His cookbooks typically run some 600 pages and have titles like “The Best Recipes in the World,” and his ten-book “How to Cook” series such as “How to Cook Everything Fast,” “How to Bake Everything” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.” They’re so pack full of…
THE 17TH ANNUAL BEST BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCE 2020 AWARD RECIPIENTS
American Book Fest has announced the winners and finalists of The 2020 Best Book Awards. Awards were presented for titles published in 2018-2020. Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest said this year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from mainstream and independent publishers. These were then narrowed down to over 400 winners and finalists in 90…
A Blissful Feast: Celebrations of Family, Food, and History
“In our culture we have lost our connection to cooking,” says Teresa Lust, author of A Blissful Feast, Culinary Adventures in Italy’s Piedmont, Maremma, and Le Marche ( Pegasus Books 2020; $19.19 Amazon hardcover price), The Readable Feast’s 2020 winner for Best Food Memoir. Lust, who teaches Italian at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire and…
Lincoln Roadtrip: Following the backroads to find Abraham Lincoln
I am proud to announce that my book, Lincoln Roadtrip: The Backroads Guide to America’s Favorite President, published by Indiana University Press, is a winner in the 2019-20 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, taking the bronze in the Travel Book category. The annual competition is sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Winners…
Ten Restaurants That Changed America: Howard Johnson’s A Roadside Gem
Howard Johnson’s: As American As Fried Clams.
Food of the Italian South by Katie Parla
It’s personal for Katie Parla, award winning cookbook author, travel guide and food blogger who now has turned her passion for all things Italian to the off-the-beaten paths of Southern Italy, with its small villages, endless coastline, vast pastures and rolling hills. “Three of my grandmother’s four grandparents are from Spinoso, deep in a remote…
Book Signings: Lost Restaurants of Chicago by Greg Borzo
For those of us who grew up in and around Chicago, there are names of long gone restaurants that still tug at our heart, evoking memories of foods no longer served, surroundings replaced and aromas we many never smell again. For me, that’s the allure of Greg Borzo’s latest book, Lost Restaurants of Chicago…
The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook
Still worried about that extra Halloween candy you gobbled down? Imagine how many miles you’d have to spend on the treadmill after attending the 1450 banquet, held in England celebrating the enthronement of an archbishop where guests munched on 104 oxen, six ‘wylde bulles,’ 1,000 sheep, 400 swans and such game birds such as bustards…
Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits and Wanderers Created a New Profession
Andrew Friedman calls himself a chef writer because, as much as he loves food, he’s passionate about the stories chefs have to tell. “My point of view is writing not so much about the food but about the chefs, that’s why I say I’m a chefie not a foodie,” he says. “I think too many…
