Food Reading

Before my 12 hour (!) trip from back east last week, I stopped in Marsha's favorite little bookstore in the airport terminal looking for something to entertain me on the plane. Browse, browse, browse. And then I found it.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but if Jake Gyllenhaal raves about it, it's got to be good. Riiigght. Actually, think about it... I know it sounds ridiculous, but if a book can capture the attention of someone who could instead get laid by Kirsten Dunst or do all sorts of fun things that celebrity-dom may bring -- and he'd still rather read some book about the history of salt, then perhaps it's worth a look-through -- especially if you love reading about food. Needless to say, I was 200 pages in when the plane landed. Definitely entertaining.

If salt's not quite your thing, what about this one that I read about yesterday in Bon Appetit. Here's the article by the gothamist on the author. Basically, one guy photographs everything that he eats in a year. Everything. Kind of bizarre reading about salt and then seeing the description of this book. In Salt, Kurlansky goes into detail about what people ate at various points of history... now here's this book with an accurate description of what one person ate in 2004. Imagine seeing the same book from someone who did that in 1885? 1940? 1982? Very cool to have a record of it. Little mini food time capsule. I wonder which of our foods will be a mark of our time like mallomar (1913), Maypo (1953) or salmagundi (1747) and which will persist for generations like A1 Steak Sauce (1824) or pumpkin pie (1653)? (via Food Timeline)