Delights and Prejudices - Softcover

Beard, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 002030465X ISBN 13: 9780020304654

Publisher: Touchstone, 1990

Synopsis

The author recounts the development of his palate, beginning with his Oregon childhood and continuing through his world travels, and shares the memories of his best meals and some of his favorite recipes

About this title

Review:

James Beard's 1964 classic, Delights and Prejudices, has been reprinted in a newly illustrated edition. This is wonderful news for all who love food and food writing. Erudite yet intimate, Delights and Prejudices is, first, the memoir-with-recipes of a great American gastronome. It's also fascinatingly panoramic on good meals taken worldwide; on ingredients as diverse as the potato and the truffle; on great food places, markets to restaurants; and on food people, from Beard's cantankerous, food-muse mother to many of the stars of the last century's food firmament, including Julia Child. This is not only Beard's greatest work but also one of the best books we have on food and what we know about it.

Beard's gastronomic life began in bounteous early-20th century Portland, Oregon, where his mother cooked for several hotels. An early culinary memory has the near-infant Beard relishing an onion, skin and all. From there the story captures a world of gastronomic likes and dislikes from "sensational" veal roasts to the gherkins known as cornichons, "one of the mistakes the French make in eating." Beard's love of French food is, however, usually unmitigated, matched only by his adoration of traditional, locally produced American cooking. Recipes for this fare, including clam soufflé and candied-ginger pumpkin pie, are among the 150 formulas offered, a Beardian crème de la crème that also encompasses hors d'oeuvres, breads, and cakes. The book also chronicles Beard's ascent to fame, beginning with his 1940s appearance on I Love to Eat, TV's first cooking show, to the arrival of his many influential cookbooks. It ends, characteristically, in his kitchen, "the place where [he] can best satisfy the eccentricities of [his] own palate." The journey makes am enthralling read. --Arthur Boehm

About the Author:

James Beard had a national reputation as an authority on every phase of food. Consultant to a wine and spirits establishment, he wrote seventy-six other books and numerous articles for national magazines on widely varied phases of cooking. Mr. Beard, who knew the cooking of every corner of our country, cooked in nearly every language. He lived abroad, traveled throughout Europe a number of times, saw most of the Western Hemisphere, and visited Hawaii and North Africa. His familiarity with exotic foreign foods spiced his extensive knowledge of American cooking at its best.

Mr. Beard was adviser to several large food companies, was food editor of Argosy magazine, and made many appearances on radio and television. His first three books are Hors d'Oeuvres and Canapes, Cook It Outdoors, and Fowl and Game Cookery. Equally at home in the kitchen of his own New York apartment and that of a hotel, James Beard brought the same sure touch to a half-hour supper as he did to the most elaborate buffet. He died in 1985.

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 002030465X
• ISBN 13: 9780020304654
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352