The Gallery of Regrettable Food
by James Lileks
|
Our Price: $54.84 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.09 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Gallery of Regrettable Food
Book Review: Some pretty darn easy targets
Summary: 3 Stars
You gotta wonder who ever believed some of the monstrosities featured in this book were appetizing. I mean, I understand why the simplicity and undoubted uniqueness of many of these recipes would appeal to housewives of the 1950s and 60s, trying to find some way to liven up their suburban ramblers come dinnertime. But still, Mary Margaret McBride's Link Loaf (p. 70), the Veal Ring Salad (p. 138), and the whole Cooking With Ketchup section (pp. 101-8) are just plain revolting. There are no two ways about it.Still, there's no arguing about taste ... and I guess that applies as much to book reviews as to cooking. This book is entertaining (and disturbing) enough, but seldom did I find it really, really funny. The premise is pretty clear: find a photo of a disgusting piece of food and make self-consciously funny comments about it. Vary that by sometimes excerpting old cookbook or recipe copy, and then make self-consciously funny comments about that, too. Sure is cool to live in the sophisticated and ironic *now* instead of the dull and conformist *then*. It's a very MST3K approach to entertainment -- but as much as I dearly love MST, I'm not convinced the approach works equally well on every possible medium or subject.
Many reviews have pointed to the author's web site, where a great deal of funny material resides (I've been there too). For some reason, it seems to work better there.
Book Review: Gastric Abominations
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Gallery of Regrettable Food" is a hilarious nostalgic look back at the cheesy foods of the '50s... back in the day when adding pineapples made something Hawaiian, and adding soy sauce made something Asian. The food is truly horrifying to look at. The Veal Ring Salad resembles Han Solo frozen in carbonite, the classic "How Famous Chefs Use Campfire Marshmallows" (too bad Giada, Rachael, Bobby and Guy aren't doing this),and groovy '70s Jell-O desserts. Penguins are a frequent decorative motif. There's the infamous "Specialties of the House" with horrifying pasta and what looks like polenta, I think.
"Gallery of Regrettable Food" is so bad, it's GREAT! It's true that Food Network personalities like Rachael Ray Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book: Her Biggest Ever Collection of All-New 30-Minute Meals Plus Kosher Meals, Meals for One, Veggie Dinners, Holiday Favorites, and Much More! and Sandra Lee Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Fast-Fix Family Favorites have tried to revive the retro... but nothing matches the Specialties of the House!
Book Review: about the funniest thing I've ever seen
Summary: 5 Stars
Nearly every page in this witty gem had me laughing out loud. The products and ads are funny enough on their own, but James Lileks's sarcastic commentary makes them all the more entertaining. I purchased this after looking at Lileks's website --
Growing up in the 60's and 70's -- and in the midwest to boot, I'm all too familiar with the jello molds and "salads" of fruit cocktail and mayonaiise and miniature marshamallow -- so this was a trip down memory lane. I'm guessing anyone over 40 would find plenty of humor herein. I honestly don't know what younger folks would think. If you're not sure whether the humor is to your liking, check out the website first. It really is the same as what is on the website.
A lot of people bemoan the highly processed, overly packaged and produced food available today -- but I'd take today's processed food over what passed for gourmet in 1960 anyday! You'd be amazed at the variety of recipes that feature hotdogs arranged in all sorts of odd and unappealing ways -- and the section on how top chefs use marshmallow is hysterical.
Get this, laugh your rear end off, and be thankful for
all of the culinary advances of the past 50 years.
Book Review: Give it a read, then give it to your Web-challenged friends
Summary: 5 Stars
While most of the material in this volume can be found on the Lileks Web site, this book is just too good to pass up! Mr. Lileks passion for rehashing some of the worst of mid-century pop culture results in brilliant humour. Though I grew up in the 70's, I recall seeing cookbooks very similar to these in our family library, and I thank God my parents did not use them.The sheer volume of the material presented (and the cookbooks are just the tip of the iceberg on the Lileks website) would lead one to believe that people in the 30's - 60's had absolutely no (or bad) taste and were motivated by an entirely commercial culture. While the Gallery of Regrettable Food is funny in the extreme, once you've finished reading it and brushed the tears of laughter from your cheeks it's also interesting to contrast the (perhaps unjust) impression of an advertisement driven mid-20th century to the reality of today's highly commercialized society.
Even if you are already familiar with Lileks' Web site, I recommend this book because it will look great on your coffee table, and it may be the only way your Web-challenged friends (read: your parents) will be able to enjoy this outstanding brand of humour.
Book Review: Spelunking into a forgotten culture
Summary: 5 Stars
People think of the era covered by Lileks book as "recent history" because we have television and film from this era, but really, it's not very recent at all. Sure, there are some people alive now who were alive then, but the cultural upheavals and historical lava flows that have occurred since then make them more like visitors from a foreign country than people of our time.
Lileks answers the burning question: what nameless horrors did Wally Cleaver eat, that made him think becoming a hippy and destroying Western Civilization was a good idea? This book shows some of these culinary atrocities. It was the last era where corporations were seen as more or less benign entities. You can see where Wally Cleaver got the other idea: I mean, food made with 7-up? All those marshmallows? The twinkie defense was invented not long afterwords. After reading the book, you can understand why the kids were so angry in the 1960s. They'd been eating sinister marshmallow covered 7-up roasts prepared by their moms in the 1950s. Sure, they railed against sexism and racism and colonialism, but considering what the same people did in the 70s and 80s, perhaps it was just indigestion.