The man who made me like food

“For I, like everybody I knew, suffered from a set of powerful, arbitrary, and debilitating attractions and aversions at meal time. I feared that I could be no more objective than an art critic who detests the color yellow or suffers from red-green color blindness. At the time I was friendly with a respected and powerful editor of cookbooks who grew so nauseated by the flavor of cilantro that she brought a pair of tweezers to Mexican and Indian restaurants and pinched out every last scrap of it before she would take a bite. Suddenly, intense food preferences, whether phobias or cravings, struck me as the most serious of all personal limitations. That very day, I sketched out a Six-Step Program to liberate my palate and my soul. No smells or taste are innately repulsive, I assured myself, and what’s learned can be forgot.”

I am quoting this man called Jeffrey Steingarten, perfectly called, “The Man Who Ate Everything,” author of the National Bestseller book. He is internationally acclaimed (and feared!) food critic of Vogue Magazine.

WHAT AN APPETITE:

"The Man Who Ate Everything" Paperback, October, 1998 by Jeffrey Steingarten

Winner of the Julia Book Award

A James Beard Book Award Finalist

I neither love food or cooking, but I found myself reading his book, during my editorship days for a teen magazine. I was in my early 20s then. I adhere to the thought of being curious about everything, even the things you despised, which is the key to learning—and writing. (I can write about fashion easily, but found myself stumbling when it came to food features). And so, I carried on, clinging on to Mr. Steingarten’s every word.

He opened my eyes that there shouldn’t be any biases when you write about food. Steingarten had certain food aversions to begin with, but he tries his very best to get pass through these "biases" by programming himself to re-learn things and reprogram his taste buds. (Yup, you can reprogram yourself to like your hatest food.)

He immerses himself in the scientific process of learning about food and along the way he discovers "the perfect" sourdough, or "the perfect" ketchup, even "the perfect" mash and down to "the ideal" drinking water. Talk about being down-right obsessive!

His systematized and calculated process might be tiresome to some, but how do we ever really measure perfection if we don’t rely on science itself, right? He succeeds in all this food hubris and finds himself a reformed finicky eater. Hence, aptly, the monicker: "The Man Who Ate Everything!"

Well, almost (!), except for food tainted blue. "I’m fairly sure that God meant the color blue mainly for food that has gone bad,” he says on his aversion, not counting plums and berries.

His book is a compilation of essays from the `80s to the `90s. What I love most about it is that, it is honest, brutal, informative, and delightfully hilarious. One will greatly be entertained from his food tales, experiments, and journeys.

For instance, he goes to Japan to look for the hand-massaged beef Wagyu, flies to Alsace to try the true choucroute, embarks on a tour out of North Africa to discover undiscovered cuisine, and jets off to the mother of all ice creams in Sicily.

Really, what’s not to love? He’s the same guy who said: “Bad bread wrecks my outlook on life.” Yup, I hear yah, Mr. Steingarten.

You can follow him on Twitter. Hello, technology! @jsteingarten. :)

MORE ON THE MAN WHO ATE EVERYTING ________

#1 Favorite meal to prepare at home

"Old roast chicken. My favorite way is still on a 1950s rotisserie, the Roto-Broil 400. They were manufactured in Long Island City between 1955 and ’57."

#2 On Kale

"Maybe you can explain to me why Kale isn't against the law. We don't have to eat everything God created."

#3 'Go-to' book about food and cooking

"You might start out with the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s the greatest dictionary ever written, one keystroke away."

Excerpts from "An Epicurean Inquisition with Jeffrey Steingarten" by Katy Anderson, Gourmet Curator, Lot18. Published on May 9, 2012. Read more here.

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