Gastro obscura A food adventurer's guide

Cecily Wong

Book - 2021

"Taste the World! It's truly a feast of wonder: Created by the ever-curious minds behind Atlas Obscura, this breathtaking guide transforms our sense of what people around the world eat and drink. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia's "Threads of God" pasta? Egypt's 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of curious minds delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food's central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history-trace the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture-picture four million women gather...ing to make rice pudding. Travel-scale China's sacred Mount Hua to reach a tea house. Festivals-feed wild macaques pyramid of fruit at Thailand's Monkey Buffet Festival. And hidden gems that might be right around the corner, like the vending machine in Texas dispensing full sized pecan pies. Dig in and feed your sense of wonder. "Like a great tapas meal, Gastro Obscura is deep yet snackable, and full of surprises. This is the book for anyone interested in eating, adventure and the human condition." -Tom Colicchio, chef and activist "This exquisite guide kept me at the breakfast table until dinner time." -Kyle Maclachlan, actor and vintner"--

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

641.3/Wong
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 641.3/Wong Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Anecdotes
Published
New York : Workman Publishing 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Cecily Wong (author)
Other Authors
Dylan Thuras (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
438 pages : illustrations (chiefly colour) ; 27 cm
ISBN
9781523502196
  • Europe. Great Britain and Ireland ; Western Europe ; Eastern Europe ; Scandinavia
  • Asia. The Middle East ; South and Central Asia ; East Asia ; Southeast Asia
  • Africa. North Africa ; West Africa ; East Africa ; Southern Africa
  • Oceania. Australia ; New Zealand ; Pacific Islands
  • Canada. Western Canada ; Eastern Canada
  • The United States. West coast, Alaska, and Hawaii ; Four corners and the Southwest ; Great Plains ; The Midwest ; The Southeast ; The Mid-Atlantic ; New England
  • Latin America. Mexico ; Central America ; The Caribbean Islands ; South America
  • Antarctica.
Review by Booklist Review

A break-out from the online travel magazine Atlas Obscura, this richly illustrated collection of food facts, arranged geographically--Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Canada, United States, Latin America, Antarctica--would be kitsch if it didn't get to the cultural truths of what we humans around the world like to eat and drink. For example, that Sylvester Graham created his eponymous cracker to prevent, among other things, masturbation. Or that, while citrus is an astonishingly diverse family, today's specimens derive from just three ancient varieties: the Malaysian pomelo, the North Indian citron, and the Chinese mandarin. Or that "Welshman's caviar" is a nutrient-packed salty and crisp spread of black seaweed that's laid on toast or mixed with oatmeal to form an iconic Welsh cake called laverbread. Irresistible.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Like a cross between Larousse Gastronomique and Ripley's Believe It or Not!, this sprawling, encyclopedic odyssey is crammed to its "air-breathing monster fish" gills with weird delicacies, lost histories, potent potables, bizarre bazaars, and circumspect rituals of consumption. Culled from submissions by the editors and readers of the travel oddity website Atlas Obscura, the brief entries lift the veil on the sport of haggis hurling in Scotland, the medicinal use of Soviet-era blood candy (for "treating low levels of iron"), and the importance of camel jerky in northern Somali wedding ceremonies (it can make or break a groom's reputation). Chapters are arranged geographically, leaving almost no cave, mountain, or seabed unexplored for readers to gleefully browse at will. A modern-day oyster vending machine in France shares a page with cocaine-laced wine of the late 19th century, as do a cow's head barbecue in Texas and a potato doughnut from Utah. Elsewhere, a write-up of the Chinese city of Gaoyou, known for its double-yolked duck eggs, comes close on the heels of a thumbnail history of China's rou jia mo, the world's first sandwich (circa 221--207 BCE). This compendium is a must-have for those who like their pickles brined in Kool-Aid or crave the chewy texture of Inuit blubber cubes. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Wong (writer, Atlas Obscura online magazine) and Thuras (cofounder and creative director, Atlas Obscura) have written a hard-to-pin-down and hard-to-put-down book about food in relation to culture, people, and history, plus random food facts. Short entries organized by continent (Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, North America, South America, and even Antarctica--with the heaviest emphasis on the U.S.) highlight notable national and regional dishes and their origins, alongside unique food items, restaurants, or food-related cultural institutions. Each entry has "How To Try It" guidance for finding the dish (in its place of origin or online) or making it at home. Sprinkled throughout are narratives of highlighted figures, histories, and other cultural context. In the mold of the Atlas Obscura site, this book is meant to be browsed, rather than read straight through. VERDICT Pick a region, pick a page--you can't go wrong. Armchair travelers and foodies will be left hungry, nostalgic, more knowledgeable about dishes from all over, and, most importantly, ready to try something different, whether it's found around the corner or across the world.--Zebulin Evelhoch, Deschutes P.L., OR

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.