Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World

Last Chance to Eat is a great book for Alton Brown and Jeffrey Steingarten fans, for people who love good food but hate the fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding so much of it today, and for people who read cookbooks like novels. The author, in the context of her own experiences growing up in several different countries with a well-to-do family that centered around food, takes five important foods (eggs, cheese, beef, fish, and tomatoes) and chronicles their tragic decline. She enriches her personal narrative with enough scientific information to keep any kitchen geek happy, and while some of it's stuff most foodies already know, some of it's pretty surprising--and depressing. While cheese is by and large my favorite of all the foods discussed, my favorite part of the book was about eggs, from the hundreds of delicious ways Escoffier used them in his cooking in the early 1900s to the cholesterol scare of the 80s and the BS "science" that was behind it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys eating, cooking, and talking about food.

`Last Chance to Eat' by Toronto culinary journalist Gina Mallet is an uncommon mix of memoir, culinary history, and polemic against the march of agribusiness and the resulting loss of important artisinal foods in the name of hygiene, often masking the interests of big businesses. It's an odd mix of Ruth Reichl's memoirs with Eric Schlosser's `Fast Food Nation' and Mort Rosenbloom's `A Goose in Toulouse'. First of all, the book is very engaging to read. Like Reichl, the author has had an interesting family and life, so her childhood stories are entertaining. Then, the book covers the history of several major food sources. These stories often amaze me when they show how recent (or how old) many major food developments have been. One interesting story is the breeding of beef cattle to yield an animal that would reach full market size in the shortest time. This is not a 20th century agribusiness development. It was done in the early 18th century in Scotland, before the American Revolution. A parallel development was the breeding of a cow that will produce a lot of milk. This story is directly connected to endangering a classic artisinal product, Normandy butter, produced from cows that give a very high butter fat milk. Unfortunately, these cows produce a very low volume of milk, so they are not profitable except to produce a high priced product. Finally, it pokes its nose into corners of international food business in politics that most people probably don't even know exist. Most food channel junkies know about the wards against importing raw milk products into the United States. The current often ignored law limits import of raw milk cheeses to those that have been aged for at least 60 days. While there is bootleg cheese importing and small family run raw milk cheese operations in the united states which violate this regulation, the prospect which is not well known is that there is an interest in changing the ban to prohibit all raw milk cheeses. I felt a distinct jolt when the author stated that that would ban the import into the US of Parmesano-Reggiano! I felt a distinct discomfort in the pit of my stomach over that one. The biggest surprise comes with the author's stories about the development of a food Codex that codifies how all food products are to be made worldwide. Although proceedings take place in Brussels, this is not just a European Union party. American representatives play a big part in the deliberations and the American reps are primarily representatives such as Kraft Foods employees who have a vested interest in putting down anything which will compete with American products. Other stories are equally dismal, such as the deep drop in the egg business in the 1970s when the awareness of cholesterol dawned on us and superficial studies gave the egg a bad rap because its role in the good cholesterol / bad cholesterol picture was not well understood. In the same essay, the author repeats many of Eric Schlosser's muckraking descripti

I know almost nothing about food, except for what I like (or more often don't like). But I did know Gina Mallet's writing, having lived in Toronto where I read her Canadian newspaper and magazines articles, and what I knew was that she was a good writer. Having now read "Last Chance to Eat," I'll have to amend that to say Ms. Mallet is a very good writer - articulate, entertaining, infinitely knowledgeable and terrifically iconoclastic on a subject I previously found as dull as my mother's parish cookbook. I don't know if they give Pulitzers for food books, but Gina Mallet deserves one.

This book dropped into my lap just as we were reading of the death of Julia Child, and it could hardly have done so at a better time. As one who spent the 60s clutching Mastering the Art in one hand and juggling a wooden spoon, a job, and diapers with the other, it was a delight to come across such a vigorous paean to real food. An intrepid investigation of what has gone wrong over the years was flagged from the back cover, and Ms Mallet does indeed deliver a stinging blow to the powerful mass food market which is destroying the good and healthful and leading us into an era of obesity and its attendant ills. This trenchant analysis is both welcome and overdue. What I was not prepared for was the charm and wit with which the author has spiced her account. Wonderful bits of history lead us from the Roman egg to the present day grilled cheese sandwich, while telling anecdotes are interspersed with reminiscences gleaned from her family's hilarious battle to evade English post-war rationing and resurrect some of the glory of the prewar years. Her invigorating gastronomic journey leads her from Europe to LA, from NY and Connecticut to Toronto, via curious byways which all serve to enlighten and amuse. Despite the destruction already wrought (and her ironic postlude), all is not lost and Ms Mallet also investigates the progress now being made toward a more thoughtful and intelligent future for our tables as small producers and the Slow Food movement influence an increasingly motivated and knowledgeable public, tired of the diktats of Government agencies and the EU. If the news is getting you down, just read Ms. Mallet's description of a cheese soufflé and your spirits cannot help but rise too. Sit back with this splendid book and an apple (preferable Cox's Orange Pippin) and rejoice.