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Informationen zum Autor Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell Klappentext Stories from the Kitchen is a one-of-a-kind anthology of classic tales showcasing the culinary arts from across the centuries and around the world.Here is a mouthwatering smorgasbord of stories with food in the starring role, by a range of masters of fiction-from Dickens and Chekhov to Isaac Bashevis Singer, from Shirley Jackson to Jim Crace and Amy Tan. These richly varied selections offer tastes as decadent as caviar and as humble as cherry pie. They dazzle with the sumptuous extravagance of Isak Dinesen's "Babette's Feast" and console with a prisoner's tender final meal in Günter Grass's The Flounder. Choice tidbits from famous novels make an appearance: the triumphant boeuf en daube served in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Marcel Proust's rhapsodic memories of the family's cook preparing asparagus in Remembrance of Things Past, Émile Zola's outrageously sensual "cheese symphony" scene from The Belly of Paris. Here, too, are over-the-top amuse-bouches by Gerald Durrell, Nora Ephron, and T. C. Boyle; a touching short story about food and love by M. F. K. Fisher; and a delightful account of the perfect meal by eighteenth-century epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote, "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."From a barrel of oysters endowed with powers of seduction to a dish of stewed tripe liberally spiced with vengeance, the fictional confections assembled here will tantalize, entice, and satisfy literary gourmands everywhere. Charles Dickens, "Love and Oysters" If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of ‘‘Old Boys’’, and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require. To what precise causes the rapid advance of old-boy population is to be traced, we are unable to determine. It would be an interesting and curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient space to devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys have been gradually augmenting within the last few years, and that they are at this moment alarmingly on the increase. Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys into two distinct classes—the gay old boys, and the steady old boys. The gay old boys are paunchy old men in the disguise of young ones, who frequent the Quadrant and Regent-street in the day-time: the theatres (especially theatres under lady management) at night; and who assume all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of youth or inexperience. The steady old boys are certain stout old gentlemen of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the same taverns, at the same hours every evening, smoking and drinking in the same company. There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the circular table at Offley’s every night, between the hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. We have lost sight of them for some time. There were, and may be still, for aught we know, two splendid specimens in full blossom at the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet-street, who always used to sit in the box nearest the fireplace, and smoked long cherry-stick pipes which went under the table, with the bowls resting on the floor. Grand old boys they were—fat, red-faced, whiteheaded old fellows—always there—one on one side the table, and the other opposite—puffing and drinking away in great state. Everybody knew them, and it was supposed by some people that they were both immortal. Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we don’t mean immortal, but steady), a retired glove and braces maker, a widower, resident with three daughters—all grown up, and all unmarried—in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. He was a short, round, large-faced, tubbish sort of man, with ...
