The first history of tacos developed in the United States, now revised and expanded, this book is the definitive survey that American taco lovers must have for their own taco explorations.
“Everything a food history book should be: illuminating, well-written, crusading, and inspiring a taco run afterwards. You’ll gain five pounds reading it, but don’t worry—most of that will go to your brain.”—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times
“[Ralat] gives an in-depth look at each taco’s history and showcases other aspects of taco culture that has solidified it as a go-to dish on dinner tables throughout the nation.”—Smithsonian Magazine
“A fascinating look at America’s many regional tacos. . . . From California’s locavore tacos to Korean ‘K-Mex’ tacos to Jewish ‘deli-Mex’ to Southern-drawl ‘Sur-Mex’ tacos to American-Indian-inspired fry bread tacos to chef-driven ‘moderno’ tacos, Ralat lays out a captivating landscape.”—Houston Chronicle
“You’ll learn an enormous and entertaining amount about [tacos] in . . . American Tacos. . . . The book literally covers the map of American tacos, from Texas and the South to New York, Chicago, Kansas City and California.”—Forbes
“An impressively reported new book . . . a fast-paced cultural survey and travel guide . . . American Tacos is an exceptional book.”—Taste
2021 Best Travel Book, International Latino Book Awards
Tacos may have been created south of the border, but Americans have made this Mexican food their own, with each style reflective of a time and a place. American Tacos explores them all, taking us on a detailed and delicious journey through the evolution of this dish.In search of every taco variety from California to Texas and beyond, Ralat traveled from coast to coast and border to border, visiting thirty-eight cities across the country. He examines the pervasive crunchy taco and the new Alta California tacos from chefs Wes Avila, Christine Rivera, and Carlos Salgado. He tastes famous Tex-Mex tacos like the puffy taco and breakfast taco, then tracks down the fry bread taco and the kosher taco. And he searches for the regional hybrid tacos of the American South and the modern, chef-driven tacos of restaurants everywhere. Throughout, he tells the story of how each style of taco came to be, creating a rich look at the diverse taco landscape north of the border. Featuring interviews with taqueros and details on taco paraphernalia and the trappings of taco culture, American Tacos is a book no taco fan will want to take a bite without.
Joanne Raetz Stuttgen’s cafe guides showcase popular regional diner traditions. In her companion book Cafe Indiana she introduces travelers to the state’s top mom-and-pop restaurants. Now, Cafe Indiana Cookbook allows you to whip up local cafe classics yourself. Breakfast dishes range from Swiss Mennonite eier datch (egg pancakes) to biscuits and gravy; entree highlights include chicken with noodles (or with dumplings) and the iconic Hoosier breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. For dessert, try such Indiana favorites as apple dapple cake or rhubarb, coconut cream, or sugar cream pie . All 130 recipes have been kitchen-tested by Jolene Ketzenberger, food writer for the Indianapolis Star.
Cafe Indiana Cookbook reveals the favorite recipes of Indiana’s Main Street eateries, including some rescued for publication before a diner’s sad closure, and documents old-fashioned delicacies now fading from the culinary landscape—like southern Indiana’s fried brain sandwiches.
Finalist, Cookbook, Midwest Book Awards
Works of Distinction, LDEI M.F.K. Fisher Prize for Excellence in Culinary Media Content, 2022
A rare woman’s-eye-view of working in the professional French kitchen
Though women enter France’s culinary professions at higher rates than ever, men still receive the lion’s share of the major awards and Michelin stars. Rachel E. Black looks at the experiences of women in Lyon to examine issues of gender inequality in France’s culinary industry. Known for its female-led kitchens, Lyon provides a unique setting for understanding the gender divide, as Lyonnais women have played a major role in maintaining the city’s culinary heritage and its status as a center for innovation. Voices from history combine with present-day interviews and participant observation to reveal the strategies women use to navigate male-dominated workplaces or, in many cases, avoid men in kitchens altogether. Black also charts how constraints imposed by French culture minimize the impact of #MeToo and other reform-minded movements.
Evocative and original, Cheffes de Cuisine celebrates the successes of women inside the professional French kitchen and reveals the obstacles women face in the culinary industry and other male-dominated professions.
The author of numerous bestselling novels, a masterful short story writer, and an outspoken social activist, Fannie Hurst was a major celebrity in the first half of the twentieth century. Daniel Itzkovitz’s introduction situates Imitation of Life in its literary, biographical, and cultural contexts, addressing such topics as the debates over the novel and films, the role of Hurst’s one-time secretary and great friend Zora Neale Hurston in the novel’s development, and the response to the novel by Hurst’s friend Langston Hughes, whose one-act satire, “Limitations of Life” (which reverses the races of Bea and Delilah), played to a raucous Harlem crowd in the late 1930s. This edition brings a classic of popular American literature back into print.
Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating to be an enjoyable leisure activity or even a serious pastime? To find the answer to these questions, we must accompany Rebecca Spang back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a thing to eat: a quasi-medicinal bouillon that formed an essential element of prerevolutionary France's nouvelle cuisine. This is a book about the French Revolution in taste and of the table--a book about how Parisians invented the modern culture of food, thereby changing their own social life and that of the world.
During the 1760s and 1770s, those who were sensitive and supposedly suffering made public show of their delicacy by going to the new establishments known as "restaurateurs' rooms" and there sipping their bouillons. By the 1790s, though, the table was variously seen as a place of decadent corruption or democratic solidarity. The Revolution's tables were sites for extending frugal, politically correct hospitality, and a delicate appetite was a sign of counter-revolutionary tendencies. The restaurants that had begun as purveyors of health food became symbols of aristocratic greed. In the early nineteenth century, however, the new genre of gastronomic literature worked within the strictures of the Napoleonic police state to transform the notion of restaurants and to confer star status upon oysters and champagne. Thus, the stage was set for the arrival of British and American tourists keen on discovering the mysteries of Frenchness in the capital's restaurants. From restoratives to Restoration, Spang establishes the restaurant at the very intersection of public and private in French culture--the first public place where people went to be private.
Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize
Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize
“Witty and full of fascinating details.”
—Los Angeles Times
Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today.
This is a book about the French revolution in taste—about how Parisians invented the modern culture of food, changing the social life of the world in the process. We see how over the course of the Revolution, restaurants that had begun as purveyors of health food became symbols of aristocratic greed. In the early nineteenth century, the new genre of gastronomic literature worked within the strictures of the Napoleonic state to transform restaurants yet again, this time conferring star status upon oysters and champagne.
“An ambitious, thought-changing book…Rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories.”
—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker
“[A] pleasingly spiced history of the restaurant.”
—New York Times
“A lively, engrossing, authoritative account of how the restaurant as we know it developed…Spang is…as generous in her helpings of historical detail as any glutton could wish.”
—The Times
The neighborhoods that make up Chicago’s rich cultural landscape have been defined by the restaurants that anchor them. In Local Flavor, the popular food writer Jean Iversen chronicles eight beloved local eateries, from Chinatown on the South Side to Rogers Park in the far North, tracing the story of how they became neighborhood institutions.
Iversen has meticulously gathered the tales, recipes, and cultural traditions that define Chicago’s culinary past and present. Rich with firsthand accounts from local restaurateurs, their families, long-time customers, and staff, Local Flavor is a community-driven look at Chicago through a gastronomical lens.
Including recipes for popular dishes from each restaurant that readers can try at home, Local Flavor weaves together ethnography, family, and food history into a story that will enthrall both food and Chicago history lovers.
A BookRiot Most Anticipated Travel Book of 2023
Italian beef and hot dogs get the headlines. Cutting-edge cuisine and big-name chefs get the Michelin stars. But Chicago food shows its true depth in classic dishes conceived in the kitchens of immigrant innovators, neighborhood entrepreneurs, and mom-and-pop visionaries.
Monica Eng and David Hammond draw on decades of exploring the city’s food landscape to serve up thirty can’t-miss eats found in all corners of Chicago. From Mild Sauce to the Jibarito and from Taffy Grapes to Steak and Lemonade, Eng and Hammond present stories of the people and places behind each dish while illuminating how these local favorites reflect the multifaceted history of the city and the people who live there. Each entry provides all the information you need to track down whatever sounds good and selected recipes even let you prepare your own Flaming Saganaki or Akutagawa.
Generously illustrated with full-color photos, Made in Chicago provides locals and visitors alike with loving profiles of a great food city’s defining dishes.
The fifth edition of Michigan’s Town & Country Inns is a guide to more than 50 inns, bed-and-breakfast homes, and historic lodgings in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan.
Choose from lighthouses anchored to the rugged shores of Lake Superior, Victorian mansions built by lumber and mining barons, rustic log lodges, and romantic small town hideaways. Meet the innkeepers themselves, who range from retired military officers and corporate heads to artists and poets. You’ll find detailed descriptions of the accommodations along with information about rates, suitability for children, and policies on smoking and pets. Get a sense of the flavor and mood of each and learn about fun things to do in the surrounding areas. Numerous photos enhance the descriptions and provide a visitor’s-eye view of some of the most unusual and delightful places to stay in Michigan.
The food-obsessed chronicle of an American’s three years in Italy—now available in paperback
I simply want to live in the place with the best food in the world. This dream led Eric Dregni to Italy, first to Milan and eventually to a small, fog-covered town to the north: Modena, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar, Ferrari, and Luciano Pavarotti. Never Trust a Thin Cook is a classic American abroad tale, brimming with adventures both expected and unexpected, awkward social moments, and most important, very good food.
Parmesan thieves. Tortellini based on the shape of Venus’s navel. Infiltrating the secret world of the balsamic vinegar elite. Life in Modena is a long way from the Leaning Tower of Pizza (the south Minneapolis pizzeria where Eric and his girlfriend and fellow traveler Katy first met), and while some Italians are impressed that “Minnesota” sounds like “minestrone,” they are soon learning what it means to live in a country where the word “safe” doesn’t actually exist—only “less dangerous.” Thankfully, another meal is always waiting, and Dregni revels in uncorking the secrets of Italian cuisine, such as how to guzzle espresso “corrected” with grappa and learning that mold really does make a good salami great.
What begins as a gastronomical quest soon becomes a revealing, authentic portrait of how Italians live and a hilarious demonstration of how American and Italian cultures differ. In Never Trust a Thin Cook, Eric Dregni dishes up the sometimes wild experiences of living abroad alongside the simple pleasures of Italian culture in perfect, complementary portions.
Fish & Game restaurant in Hudson, New York, is a leader in the local foods movement. Its core approach—engaging intimately with nature both wild and domestic, building relationships with farmers, and exploring the joys of fermentation—is one of interest to anyone, anywhere, who yearns to cook and eat better food. Established in 2013, Fish & Game, with its chef/owner Zakary Pelaccio and his co-chefs and partners Kevin Pomplun and Jori Jayne Emde, is already receiving national accolades and honors, including the 2016 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast; 2015 James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Restaurant Design; 2015 & 2016 Wine Enthusiast: America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants; and 2014 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant.
Project 258: Making Dinner at Fish & Game presents an enticing selection of seasonal recipes, profiles of key producers who supply the restaurant, and a fascinating, beautifully illustrated look at the processes—both intellectual and culinary—behind the food at Fish & Game. Taking no shortcuts, Pelaccio and his staff handcraft many staple ingredients, including fish sauce, vinegars, maple syrup, and prosciutto. He explains how the methods and techniques practiced at Fish & Game can be applied to the food that grows wherever you live. If you ever wonder “what does this place taste like?,” let Project 258 be your guide and inspiration for locally based food sourcing and eating.
Rooted in tradición mexicana and infused with Texas food culture, tacos are some of Texans’ all-time favorite foods. In The Tacos of Texas, the taco journalists Mando Rayo and Jarod Neece take us on a muy sabroso taco tour around the state as they discover the traditions, recipes, stories, and personalities behind puffy tacos in San Antonio, trompo tacos in Dallas, breakfast tacos in Austin, carnitas tacos in El Paso, fish tacos in Corpus Christi, barbacoa in the Rio Grande Valley, and much more.
Starting with the basics—tortillas, fillings, and salsas—and how to make, order, and eat tacos, the authors highlight ten taco cities/regions of Texas. For each place, they describe what makes the tacos distinctive, name their top five places to eat, and listen to the locals tell their taco stories. They hear from restaurant owners, taqueros, abuelitas, chefs, and patrons—both well-known and everyday folks—who talk about their local taco history and culture while sharing authentic recipes and recommendations for the best taco purveyors.
Whether you can’t imagine a day without tacos or you’re just learning your way around the trailers, trucks, and taqueros that make tacos happen, The Tacos of Texas is the indispensable guidebook, cookbook, and testimonio.
To Texans, barbecue is elemental. Succulent, savory, perfumed with smoke and spice, it transcends the term "comfort food." It's downright heavenly, and it's also a staff of Texas life. Like a dust storm or a downpour, barbecue is a force of Texas nature, a stalwart tie to the state's cultural and culinary history. Though the word is often shortened to "BBQ," the tradition of barbecue stands Texas-tall.
Photographer Wyatt McSpadden has spent some twenty years documenting barbecue—specifically, the authentic family-owned cafes that are small-town mainstays. Traveling tens of thousands of miles, McSpadden has crisscrossed the state to visit scores of barbecue purveyors, from fabled sites like Kreuz's in Lockhart to remote spots like the Lazy H Smokehouse in Kirbyville. Color or black-and-white, wide angle or close up, his pictures convey the tradition and charm of barbecue. They allow the viewer to experience each place through all five senses. The shots of cooking meat and spiraling smoke make taste and smell almost tangible. McSpadden also captures the shabby appeal of the joints themselves, from huge, concrete-floored dining halls to tiny, un-air-conditioned shacks. Most of all, McSpadden conveys the primal physicality of barbecue—the heat of fire, the heft of meat, the slickness of juices—and also records ubiquitous touches such as ancient scarred carving blocks, torn screen doors and peeling linoleum, and toothpicks in a recycled pepper sauce jar.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press