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Title: The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks ISBN: 0-609-60782-0 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 11 September, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (75 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Pokes fun at our own bad taste -- I looked, loved, laughed!
Comment: Looking through this book brought back many nostalgic memories - and many of them had nothing to do with the pictures per se. Sure, the Home Ec class films made in the 50s and 60s could've been the Technicolor prototypes to the photographs of Cabbage Swirl Pie and Hot Dogs in Aspic; all delectable combinations of avocado green, saturated lumps of red, appetizingly congealed like the Blob in the centers of pink plates and yellow formica tabletops. The best part, though, was reading the acerbic sidebar comments made by the author. It was a keen flashback to the days when my sister and I would sit making wisecracks about the pictures in pretentious books, or supply alternate dialog to bad cinema. Outrageous fun!
The author explains that he was first inspired to share with the world the joys of cookbook photos of decades past when he rediscovered a cookbook his mother had kept hidden away somewhere for many years (because she, thankfully, never actually used it on her grateful family). Feeling a sense of duty to explore the folly of our ancestors, he then went on a search for the pictorial formulas of all things ghastly and retro. The result is the Gallery of Regrettable Foods, a cautionary tale lest we, too, go that unfortunate route. The names of the chapters alone will clue you in: Submit to the Dominion of Ketchup; Cooking with 7up; the World of Molds; and so on... best you pop an antacid tablet before you look.
I felt that the book was compiled in a spirit of morbid fascination, softened by a somewhat affectionate regard for our silly cultural past. If you look at it as a humorous study of how our tastes and fashions have shaped food over time, you can really enjoy looking through this book. It would certainly make a great coffee table conversation starter.
Just save the anchovy balls for your cats.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle
Rating: 5
Summary: This book will make you laugh so hard that you'll cry
Comment: A friend and I were leafing through this book while at a local bookstore. Neither of us could restrain our laughter which was approaching annoyance level. Another shopper walked toward us and asked what could possibly be that funny. We handed her the book and watched her face. She broke into laughter and said "Thanks to you, I'm going to buy this book." Need I say more?
Rating: 5
Summary: A belly laughing good time
Comment: I'm not sure what catagory this book fits into truthfully...Its part cook book, part time capsule...part just plain horrifing to realize that people actually ate this stuff! Or that the advertisers thought these pictures would jump start anyone to actually purchase their product...the mind boggles.
But it was a different world back than...and maybe these dreadful combo's had the worldly appeal that.... ceviche...or sushi...or gummy worms have today. Or the same appeal the the show *a cooks tour* has as we watch tony bourdaine suck down beating cobra hearts... perhaps considering that, the bacon shake looks almost mundane...
I can't help but admitting that I have bought more than a few *vintage* (read: old and tacky and never to be used for anything more than amusement) cook books on ebay... and i am sure that I enjoy them for the same reason that I just love this book. A glimpse at another time when I sit and shake my head and say "what were they thinking?" but when I read this book, its kind of like having company as the author has a funny running commentary going the whole time... and I don't feel quite so odd about my fascination for all of these retro....errrr... gourmet treats.
Altho I havent bought this as a gift I can see it being a great one for the right person. Perhaps someone who decorates with a retro twist...someone just starting out in a new apartment and you wnat to buy some cooking tools and a cookbook for (ok, a gag cook book for :) or someone who likes retro martini things..i think this would fit right in.
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Title: Bad Hair by James Innes Smith, Henrietta Webb ISBN: 1582343292 Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Pub. Date: 20 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970 by Ken Smith ISBN: 0922233217 Publisher: Blast Books Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: JELL-O: A Biography by Carolyn Wyman ISBN: 0156011239 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 31 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Fresh Lies by James Lileks ISBN: 067173704X Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: SPAM: A Biography: The Amazing True Story of America's "Miracle Meat!" by Carolyn Wyman ISBN: 0156004771 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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