Farmbrarian

Click here to find at a library near you!

Boston bacon and beans, Cutthroat trout from Lake Tahoe, and Philadelphia terrapin soup are just a few entries on Mark Twain’s list of more than 80 favorite foods. Author Andrew Beahrs not only prepares meals of some of Twain’s favorite dishes, he also traces Twain’s life’s journey in order to understand the great author’s experiences with food. In Twain’s Feast: Searching For America’s Lost Foods In the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens (2010), Beahrs recounts all of his findings and experiences. The result is a truly unique book that discusses food traditions dating back a hundred and fifty years.

Sadly, many of the meals Twain enjoyed are simply not available to us anymore. The Illinois prairie chickens described in the book sound tantalizing, but the replacement of “twelve-foot-high big bluestem” prairie grass with corn monocrops effectively ended the availability of the prairie chicken by stealing its habitat. According to the author, the first John Deere plow made this habitat “transition” possible. Lahontan Cutthroat trout of Lake Tahoe were once recorded at up to thirty pounds. Today, however, they are much harder to find due in part to the Army Corps of Engineers altering the course of the Truckee River, the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe.

Twain’s Feast takes readers back to the time when seasonal, local eating was the only type of eating. Thankfully, we are slowly realizing that food traditions are important and worthy of looking after. Twain yearned for American food while traveling in Europe, and I fear that we too will end up longing for our traditional, tasteful and nourishing foods if we let mass produced, tasteless foods take over our tables.

Click here to find at a library near you!

Alice Waters is widely known as the creator of California cuisine, which aims to prepare delicious food by utilizing the freshest local ingredients available. And Chez Panisse is recognized as one of the best restaurants in the United States. In the first authorized biography, Thomas McNamee triumphs in telling the intricately woven story of the famed restaurant and its renowned proprietor.

McNamee chronicles the early years of Waters’ life, the experiences that led her to open Chez Panisse, and the many “romantic, impractical, eccentric, ultimately brilliant” events of the years that followed. This is also very much the tale of the chefs, waiters, farmers, cooks, foragers, friends, mentors, lovers, and countless others who form the Chez Panisse famille.

McNamee’s conversational tone and inclusion of lengthy dialogues will make you feel like you’ve occupied a cozy corner in Chez Panisse since its inception. By the end of this captivating and inspirational story you’ll feel like a genuine member of the family.