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The Food Of A Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait Of Food In Pre-World War II America (2009)

by Mark Kurlansky(Favorite Author)

3.38 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1594488657 (ISBN13: 9781594488658)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: A very intriguing look back into what America ate in the 30's, from the Federal Writers Project. This portrait takes you region-by-region across the United States with everything from a brief paragraph to essays to full recipes highlighting what American ate and why. Because the project was never finished (as the FWP was disbanded when WWII came along) some of the accounts are rough, but some are robust, and all of them are interesting. Food was much more regional, seasonal and utilitarian (well, less utilitarian when you're talking about church feeds and such...) than it is now.
review 2: Disclaimer: I did not listen to the last section of the book thanks to forgetting to stop my iPod when I put it away. I wasn't really into the book especially not enough to t... morery to figure out where I had left off. This review is based on the first two thirds or so. I did not like the narrator. It's one that I've heard before and while he isn't awful, he is not engaging and has a cadence almost perfectly tuned to lull a reader to sleep. When the book first started I really enjoyed it. The author started by describing the project and a few of the events leading up to it. After this section finished though I because increasingly turned off by all the quotations. This is due in large part to two things. One, I was unfamiliar with the book's subtitle and purpose. I thought it was a history of the project or at least a work that gleaned heavily from these documents. Two, the audiobook format makes it difficult to discern the starting and ending points of the quotation. Neither of those two points is a mark against the book. They simply contributed to my dislike. Since I love travel, I liked a few parts of the book. For the most part though, I battled severe disinterest as well as dozing brought on by the narrator and lack of stimulating content. I think this could have been a much better book if the author had created a narrative of his own instead of "copy and pasting" most of the original essays, including recipes, into his book. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this book. less

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