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Food has played a starring role in the lives of so many famous or infamous people. Diplomatic agreements have been negotiated over elaborate feasts, novels have been fueled by strong coffee, and marriages have ended over a meal gone bad.

In What the Great Ate, brothers Matthew and Mark Jacob have cooked up a bountiful sampling of the peculiar culinary likes, dislikes, habits, and attitudes of famous — and often notorious — figures throughout history.

In this photo from the 1920s, First Lady Grace Coolidge samples a cookie that was made by a Girl Scout troop in New York State.  President Calvin Coolidge made derisive comments about his wife's kitchen skills.

Rube Waddell was one of baseball's outstanding pitchers during the early 1900s.  But he had a habit that greatly aggravated his catcher and roommate — eating animal crackers in bed.  The team's owner got Waddell to sign a contract in which the pitcher agreed to cease this annoying habit.

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PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

  • "... a smorgasbord of amusing tidbits on the favorite foods of prominent artists, scientists, sports stars and, yes, politicos."
  • The Washington Post

  • "... many fascinating facts" CBS News' Health Blog

  • An "amusing grab-bag of food-related anecdotes"
  • The Wall Street Journal

  • "... an impressive catalogue of food-related tales about the world's most famous people." New York Daily News

  • "Brims with fun-filled anecdotes ..." Andrew W. Smith, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food & Drink

  • "This is a fascinating read." Jeff Houck, The Tampa Tribune

  • "... a good helping of the book's pleasure comes from the cognitive dissonance of the 'great' eating, well, the small. Does it trivialize the president to learn that Ronald Reagan was a lover of jelly beans?" The New Yorker

  • "... one of the most enjoyable, enlightening, informative and, frankly, simply fun books." Rick Kogan, Chicago's WGN radio

  • One of "17 Food-Themed Books You'll Want to Eat Up"
  • More magazine

  • The Jacob brothers "must've mucked through skyscraper-size piles of research materials to put together this book."  Philadelphia City Paper

  • Named one of 13 "Books on Foodies' Beach Blankets" for the summer. 
  • Publishers Weekly

  • "This is one book I had a hard time putting down."
  • Food editor, Winston-Salem (NC) Journal

  • "... it was with gusto that I devoured [this] book ..."
  • The Montreal Gazette

  • The book is "one that I'm certain you will enjoy sharing with your friends and family."  Around the Horn, a baseball blog

  • "It's a book to nibble on, not consume all at once, but will provide plenty of curiosities with which you can fascinate friends."
  • Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union

  • "There are enough interesting stories in here to spark many good dinner party conversations."
  • The Calgary Herald

  • "This book has a massive collection of amusing food trivia ..."
  • ifood, a web portal

  • "... on our list of must reads"
  • "Let's Just Talk," WQRT radio in Cincinnati

  • "... a book that's full of fun food facts, trivia and other tidbits ..."
  • The Post-Bulletin (Rochester, MN)

  • "This looks like an interesting book." ExploreMusic.com

  • A "delicious book"
  • Francophilia Gazette

Enter a State of Foodphoria
Foodphoria is the Weblog written by co-author Matthew Jacob. Foodphoria offers Matthew's irreverent, no-nonsense commentary on eating, drinking and dining. Click here to visit the blog.
10 Things You Might Not Know...
... about beer, France and lots of other things. Click here to read samples of the Chicago Tribune's "10 Things You Might Not Know ..." series, which is written by co-author Mark Jacob.

Entries in Kerouac (1)

Tuesday
Apr102012

American Pie

DateTuesday, April 10, 2012 at 09:37PM

In his script for the 1999 play "Boston Marriage," Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Mamet observed: "We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie." A lot of famous people have found their refuge in a slice of pie.

  • Apple pie a la mode was the favorite dessert of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac.
  • Sweet potato pie was something that Martin Luther King, Jr. longed for.
  • When he was asked about the common practice among New Englanders of eating fruit pie for breakfast, Ralph Waldo Emerson replied, "What else is pie for?"
  • Dwight Eisenhower's mother taught him how to cook the family's Sunday dinner, including the apple pie that capped the meal.
  • Elvis Presley had a gargantuan appetite for everything, including sweets.  He enjoyed a variety of pies, from so-called Eskimo Pies to fruit pies. For Elvis, pie-eating sometimes meant eating an entire pie, not just a slice. 
  • The attorney Clarence Darrow loved eating pie. He recalled that "as a boy, I liked pie better than anything else that I could get to eat; and i have not yet grown so old but that I still like pie."
  • President Calvin Coolidge had a low opinion of his wife's cooking and was willing to share it. After Grace Coolidge baked an apple pie, the president attacked the dessert with sarcasm. "Don't you think the road commissioner would be willing to pay my wife something for her recipe for pie crust?" 
Authormark & matthew | Comments Off |
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