Sex Life of Food: When Body and Soul Meet to Eat
Author: Bunny Crumpacker
“The sex life of food” doesn’t mean that the strawberries have fallen in love with the oatmeal. It’s a look at food—and sex—and how they go together in our daily lives much more often than we realize. There are so many ways that hunger and desire act on each other, and so many things that can influence our preferences. Not only are people moved by the taste, texture, and the shapes of the food they eat, but even the names of some dishes can kindle hunger—of both kinds—in some. As the author writes, “Sometimes cooking is foreplay, eating is making love, and doing the dishes is the morning after.”
The many things Bunny Crumpacker shares with the readers of her fascinating book almost could have inspired her to write a novel, sending Adam and Eve (with their apple) traveling through history as the icons of our passions. Instead, she has gone far beyond the obvious to bring us unexpected and tantalizing knowledge of how much and in how many surprising ways we assuage our hunger for both food and sex and how where there’s one, there is often the other. The result is a continued delight. There’s history and humor, obvious connections and truly amazing ones. The author enlightens us on a myriad of topics, including food in fairy tales, what politicians eat, comfort food, and manners at the table.
But enough! There’s too much to say. Turn the pages and let Bunny Crumpacker introduce you to The Sex Life of Food.
The Washington Post - Julie Powell
Crumpacker is best when she's idiosyncratic, explaining, for example, that kiwi remind her of "a boy I knew in high school -- just too precious, we all thought, for sex. Not that a kiwi is asexual, exactly, just unsexy, like Billy." Or take this slightly mysterious musing on food as status: "The land of plenty polishes its rice along with its nails and bleaches both its flour and its hair."
Publishers Weekly
Sensual, comforting and "tangled into every human emotion," food has long evoked love in all its forms, and Crumpacker (The Old-Time Brand-Name Cookbook) explores how our two most raging appetites play upon each other to soothe, satisfy and seduce. Dishing out gobbets of gastronomic history candied with sweet-tart musings, Crumpacker slices into provisions from apples to wedding cake as symbols beyond mere sustenance. In her gloss, both what and how we eat are expressions of the psyche, unremitting quests to fulfill our most primal urges. She takes particular pleasure in teasing out food's more piquant associations (such as "dripping, fleshy mouthfuls" of fruit). Parsing the subtexts of American chow, she considers fast food (wolfed down in bites, it reflects our aggressive, anxious national temperament), ethnic food (oozing with "a rich, fatty kind of love") and salad bars (delighting with array and abundance), and also makes a case for the restorative intimacy of cooking. The obligatory list of aphrodisiacs appears, though Crumpacker debunks their mystique, sticking to her thesis that "we are all beautiful when we are well loved and... well fed." Though seasoned haphazardly with purple prose, Crumpacker's clever insights and lyrical aphorisms blend into an indulgent read. (Feb. 7) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Using a clever mix of psychology, physiology, and passion, Crumpacker paints a vivid and utterly fascinating portrait of the role that food plays in people's secret and not-so-secret lives. The author, who wrote two previous cookbooks based on historical recipe pamphlets, uses her own observations as well as a variety of research studies, common sayings, and examples from the arts to weave a rich yarn of the impact food really has. Explaining that food is "tangled into every human emotion," she does an excellent job of showing how food is an expression of personality, neuroses, and psyches. For instance, in Chapter 10, "I Say It's Spinach-Food Eccentricities and Problems," she looks at phobias and the meanings behind refusals to eat certain foods. The title itself is somewhat misleading because Crumpacker covers much more than just the sex life of food! And although she refers to a variety of studies and historical facts and events, she does not include any bibliographical references or suggested readings. Overall, recommended for public and academic libraries.-Lisa A. Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A bubbling stew of food lore, presented with panache and a dash of humor. Crumpacker, a pastry chef and cookbook author, sees food as sexy-e.g., red meat is masculine and so are carrots and bananas; dairy products are feminine, as are oysters and puddings. She finds a deep connection between the way we eat and the way we make love, and she writes joyously of this connection, arguing that if one wants to know what to expect of a prospective lover, he or she should just watch that person eat. Food and sex have been paired from our very beginnings, she says, and cooking can be seen as an act of love; even the smell of food is sexy. However, the food/sex theme occupies only a portion of her book. Almost anything to do with food seems to fascinate her: food eccentricities and phobias, the wide variations across cultures and among individuals in what are perceived as comfort foods, the history of dining out, the atmosphere of fast-food restaurants, the evolution-and decline-of table manners. She also focuses on the role of food in American politics: Herbert Hoover's failed promise to put a chicken in every pot and Gerald Ford's gaffe with a tamale wrapper are but two of the many anecdotes presented. She delights in finding character-revealing traits in Richard Nixon's fondness for cottage cheese with catsup, Ronald Reagan's for jelly beans and Bill Clinton's for virtually everything. Even cannibalism in its various manifestations gets a close look from the author, who provides unexpected information on cooking methods and preferred cuts. For her discussion of vegetarianism, she turns to Hitler, recounting his exceedingly abstemious eating habits and disturbing fears about food, and concludingthat he was as asexual as he was amoral. Crumpacker's zest is boundless, even overwhelming.
Book about: Die Welt der Mode
Doughs, Batters, Meringues, Vol. 1
Author: Alain Escoffier
Volume 1 of this series presents all of the important techniques used to make the basic pastry preparations.
Table of Contents:
Pastry Techniques and Skills.
Doughs and Batters.
Creamy Whipped Rising Batters.
Airy Whipped Rising Batters.
Whipped Rising Batters of Liquid or Semiliquid Consistency; Deep-Frying Batters.
Tart and Pie Dough.
Puff Pastry Dough.
Leavened Dough.
Viennese Pastry Dough.
Leavened Dough for Buffets.
Leavened Puff Pastry Dough.
Glossary.
Glossary Cross-Reference List.
Index.
