David Sax - The Tastemakers: Why We're
Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue (2014)
This is a journalist’s book, mainly a slapped-together
collection of articles related in some way to food trends. Sax did the research, interviews and pulled
that together into stories but there’s nothing to synthesize them and barely
even a connection among them. For
instance he opens with a chapter about the cupcake trend, locating the start at
a bakery in New York that accidentally became a hotspot then the NYC-based media
picked up the story, fed each other’s interest and that spilled out to the rest
of the country. It’s a familiar story
and seems likely to be true but that familiarity and nothing new means that the
story feels a tad dubious. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that this
started in LA or Minneapolis but NYC gets the credit because that’s where the
journalists are. More importantly the
chapter doesn’t get into why this became a trend – after all not everything
pushed by NYC media hits the rest of the country. Sax does offer the idea that cupcakes appeal
to people because it reminds them of childhood, something that makes sense, is
easy to believe and is obviously wrong.
That he doesn’t see how his stories are just more gloss means the book
becomes mainly one to be mined for stray bits of info and background. I didn’t realize for instance that one reason
bacon started appearing on fast food menus is because they began to overcook
them from fear of lawsuits and consequently needed a flavor boost. The book has bits like this but tends to lose
sight of its purpose. When he gets to
food trucks for example Sax spends most of the chapter on their legal battles
which is interesting (well ok it’s not at all interesting but let’s just say it
is) without getting to the point of why something that can offer only
convenience and the probability of inferior food became trendy. The Tastemakers is a book
that touches on various trends offering little of substance about them.
Michael Pollan - Cooked: A Natural History
of Transformation (2013)
Pollan had the idea to explore what he considers the four
approaches to food preparation – heat, liquid, baking and fermentation. Like the Sax book he’s done the research and
in this case even gone out to do this first-hand. And like the Sax book he doesn’t really
bother to pull together the material.
Though it feels like a stronger editor could have helped, for all I know
the book was even more a mess and the editor did make it somewhat
readable. Let’s just give Pollan his
basic idea however unlikely or even silly it might be. (Tying these approaches to the classic four
elements? Really? You know that’s a European thing that won’t
explain other cultures right?) The
bigger problem is that going hands-on meant he only uses historical information
in scattered bits though he certainly gets more substantive material than Sax
apparently even thought to do. With this
ready then he gives us a lopsided book that jumps from watered down academics
to overly detailed descriptions of baking.
When talking about barbeque he even spends pages on the biography of one
cook for no real point. That’s what an
editor or Pollan himself should have done – cut the book by about half. Trimmed and focused this might have been
something worth reading.