355854 Sun Dec 31 17:22:05 -0800 2006 9 33 Food Media and News 0 2141658 "Why everything you think you know about food is wrong" Reviewed in today's Los Angeles Times. From the review: Another stand-out chapter, "The Food Adventurers," juxtaposes restaurant elitists at both ends of the spectrum, from highbrow purists like the New York Times' William Grimes, who believes "subtlety, finesse and refinement deserve a higher score," to the mostly younger and more reactive digital community at chowhound.com. http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-vankin31dec31,0,1067113.htmlstory?coll=cl-bookreview Sun Dec 31 17:22:05 -0800 2006 28703 RicRios 1 2143988 From your link: >He ... suggests that McDonald's is the great populist >dining hall of our society, where people of all ages, >ethnicities and classes commingle, cheerfully, at brightly >lighted, antiseptic tables. > that's laying it on a bit thick, isnt it? or am i just missing these McDs with a table d'hote dining option? Mon Jan 01 22:22:44 -0800 2007 2141658 16770 psb 2 2144066 For me the pearl is "Irradiation may not be such a bad idea". Hey, the link is not mine, it comes to you as a courtesy of L.A.Times. I'm just passing it along at cost, for the enlightenment of the CH community... Mon Jan 01 23:01:49 -0800 2007 2143988 28703 RicRios 3 2144334 >Hey, the link is not mine ... > are you being defensive? :-) I didnt mean for it to come off as personal. Absolutely worthwhile link. >For me the pearl is "Irradiation may not be such a bad idea". > I guess the scientists and engineers need to sit down with some marketing people over a happy meal under the golden arches and rebrand the process ... a la eliding "nuclear" to go from NMR to MRI [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mri#Nomenclature], or making no reference to radiation when naming the CT scan. Then again the place I work used to be called "The Rad(iation) Lab". An engineer I met, some decades ago, proposed a grocery checkout system that tagged items with a small radiation dose proportional to the price. So instead of going item by item, you could just measure the radioactivity of the whole pile ... I wonder why that didnt take off! Tue Jan 02 01:17:02 -0800 2007 2144066 16770 psb 2 2144203 When was the last time this dude was in McDonald's? Then again it's been a while since I've been in one perhaps people are cheerfuly comingling these days...but some how I really don't think so. Tue Jan 02 00:11:07 -0800 2007 2143988 23758 Withnail42 1 2149192 Hey--this thread is going off the mark. I read the review and picked up the book, which is by the guy who wrote THE CULTURE OF FEAR. It has a really interesting section on chowhound, lots of and great stuff about elitist restaurant reviewers and other topics. He is hardly pro-Mickey Dees, and if he barely mentions irradiation! As the LATimes reviewer says, he's a fan of Slow Food and great food. This is a fabulous book. Wed Jan 03 19:00:59 -0800 2007 2141658 63844 eaterinla 2 2155075 Agreed...Glassner comes with a much different approach than most food literature with his Sociology background. Rather than offering anecdotal evidence, he actually backs his theories up. Fri Jan 05 03:47:57 -0800 2007 2149192 49889 PhillyFoodFanatic 2 2300084 That is exactly why I picked up the book, I LOVED Culture of Fear and consider it recommended reading for all my female friends!! The thing to remember though, is that he's an academic, not a restuarant critic, not a chef, not even a foodie. His approach from outside the box and use of studies on society is really made me question my own attitudes about food. The best part of the book for me, was the first chapter tho'. He he cited that study that claimed the more you enjoy food, the more neutrients you get, totally myth busting that whole "Why French Women Don't Get Fat" nonsense! :P --Dommy! Fri Feb 16 12:58:21 -0800 2007 2149192 10659 Dommy 1 2155103 http://www.barryglassner.com/reviews.html ... More positive praise from the media--- LA Times, Anthony Bourdain included. Fri Jan 05 03:58:38 -0800 2007 2141658 49889 PhillyFoodFanatic 1 2274979 I am not sure I find him interesting enough yet to consider reading his book. An interview with the author at http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/eat_drink/2007/01/23/glassner_qa/index.html "Q: Food adventurers can be annoyingly focused on finding undiscovered places, but aren't most just saying, "Go out, and eat foods that aren't necessarily in the mainstream"? What's wrong with that? Glassner: I'm very enthusiastic about the food adventurers but, as with every other group I discuss in the book, you get a substantial subpopulation of them who just go to extremes or limit what they consider acceptable. In their case, the limits often revolve around the notion of authenticity, and that's a very difficult notion and in the end not terribly helpful. I am critical of food adventurers who dismiss out of hand mainstream reviewers of the sorts of places that they go, who think that if the reviewer for the Village Voice or the L.A. Weekly discovered a place and liked it, why would you go there? Their point is to go only to places people either wouldn't know about or wouldn't like. When, in fact, there are some great food critics out there, who specialize in the sorts of places food adventurers like to say they discovered." Thu Feb 08 22:42:28 -0800 2007 2141658 61426 grocerytrekker