We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food ,A Share Our Strength Book
Editorial Reviews
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In We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food, some of America's best writers recall how food has defined their existence. "In my house, curry would have been more exotic than heroin," professes editor Mark Winegardner in the introduction. "Maybe it's a family thing. Maybe it's the potassium benzoate," explains Jill McCorkle in her hilarious admission to a life of junk-food addiction. Food is at once the most common and most personal experience we all have, and in these 24 essays, the authors explore the varied experiences that accompany our sustenance. This includes Paul Auster recalling an onion tart in Provence that he believed to be his last meal, and in the shortest and most poignant essay, Gita Mehta writes of how hard it is to be hungry in the land of plenty. All of the essays were donated by the writers, and the profits from We Are What We Ate will benefit Share Our Strength, a program to alleviate and prevent hunger in the United States and around the world. Mark Winegardner has done an excellent job of assembling this diverse and entertaining collection of essays illustrating the immense variety of the American food experience. From junk food to gourmet fare, from those blessed with the heritage of taste to those of us with a white-bread tradition, We Are What We Ate offers good food and good writing for all. --Mark O. Howerton
The Orlando Sentinel, October 18, 1998
"'I grew up in two-story brick house that never had an onion in it,' writes Winegardner in his introduction to the essays and reminiscences contributed by noted authors for the benefit of Share Our Strength, the national anti-hunger organization that also sponsors the annual Writers Harvest National Reading Day (Oct. 29th this year). Winegardner, who directs the creative writing program at Florida State University, recalls the spiceless meals of his youth to illustrate how food can provoke autobiography - and it's not just a matter of Proust and his madeleine. Here, julia Alvarez writes about being a picky eater, Jill McCorkle confesses to being a junk-food junkie ('My Chee-to Heart'), Stewart O'Nan recalls working as dishwasher for a synagogue caterer and Jessica B. Harris makes the connection between the collards her family cooks to the greens prepared by ancestors an ocean away."
We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food ,A Share Our Strength Book
We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food ,A Share Our Strength Book,Mark Winegardner,Harvest Books,0156006235,Cooking / Wine,Eating customs,Essays,Food,Food habits,Gastronomy,General,Literary Criticism,Literature: Classics,United States,Cooking / Essays
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