The Tummy Trilogy

Okay so I'm late at reading Calvin's books, but what a yummy way to write. I would have read the book in one sitting, but I kept getting so dang hungry, I would have to stop and go eat something! A person could get fat reading this book. Of course all his talk of barbecue, and crawfish festivals, left this East-Texas gal longing for home. He's right in the south 'eat anywhere' is the goal of many. This book was delightful and delicious! A great book for the cook in the family. Margie Toone-author The Country Gourmet

What qualifies the author to write this book is concisely summarized in a quote from his daughter: "Daddy likes to pig out." In the grand history of American gluttony (dating back to the first Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose), no one has ever pigged out with more demonstrable relish and native lack of hauteur than Calvin Trillin. His ode to the glories of Arthur Bryant's Barbecue - The Single Best Restaurant In The World - is a dithyramb worthy of Whitman. He is, in short, a true patriot - albeit one whose vision of multiculturalism is expressed in Italian fried-pepper sandwiches and Polish pierogies. There are lots of laughs in this volume but I value it more for its whole-hearted embrace of our authentic appetites. In a time of spiralling culinary pretention (whose standard bearer is Charlie Trotter and his dishes with paragraph-long names), "The Tummy Trilogy" is a palate-cleansing dish of sanity.

Trillin talks about food cleverly and with great humor, but not snobbily. I learned all about barbecue in Kansas City, oyster po'boys, Chinese food in NYC, and a ton of other delicious things. Three of the best food books of all time! But also excellent reading for someone who just enjoys well-written and funny stories.

The books in Calvin Trillin's Tummy Trilogy instilled in me forever a love of reading books aloud and an insatiable penchant for "American cuisine." I grew up reading them to my mother, a caterer, as she was busy in the kitchen. Aside from being absolutely hilarious, his descriptions of different dishes - from the humble french fry to more exotic regional dishes - would make our mouths water. Those descriptions and stories have never left me, and I've made a point of trying to visit some of the places he described in his books, including what I'd have to call a pilgrimage to the legendary Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City. Books to be savoured over and over again, preferably with an Italian sausage sandwich in hand.

Becuase it is a collection of columns, there is a certain amount of redundancy; but, overall, it's a rollicking jaunt through the off-beat dineries of a vanishing America. Any easy, breezy read, one gets the feeling a dinnier with Trillin would be overshadowed by the company. Delicious!