The untold stories behind Chicago's globally celebrated culinary scene—from revolutionary chefs to kitchen disasters to public uproars to Michelin stars, told by the cooks, servers, restaurateurs, critics, dreamers, and rebels who built America's most fearless food city.Whether serious destination diners, weekend visitors, or fans of The Bear, everyone knows Chicago has long outgrown its mid-twentieth-century reputation as a steak-and-potatoes town. The la...

The Chicago Food Encyclopedia is a far-ranging portrait of an American culinary paradise. Hundreds of entries deliver all of the visionary restauranteurs, Michelin superstars, beloved haunts, and food companies of today and yesterday. More than 100 sumptuous images include thirty full-color photographs that transport readers to dining rooms and food stands across the city. Throughout, a roster of writers, scholars, and industry experts pays tribute to an expansive--and still expanding--foo...

**A James Beard Award–winning journalist reveals the surprising forces that shape our eating habits“Sax is great company, a writer of real and lasting charm.” —New York Times Book Review**In this eye-opening, witty work of reportage, David Sax uncovers the world of food trends: where they come from, how they grow, and where they end up. Traveling from the South Carolina rice plot of America’s premier grain guru to Chicago’s gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world...

What was eating them? And vice versa.In What the Great Ate, 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. Here is food• As code: Benito Mussolini used the phrase “we’re making spaghetti” to inform his wife if he’d be (illegally) dueling later that day.• As superstition: Baseball star Wade Boggs credited his o...

Food Snob n: reference term for the sort of food obsessive for whom the actual joy of eating and cooking is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about these subjectsFrom the author of The United States of Arugula--and coauthor of The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary--a delectable compendium of food facts, terminology, and famous names that gives ordinary folk the wherewithal to take down the Food Snobs--or ...

The wickedly entertaining, hunger-inducing, behind-the-scenes story of the revolution in American food that has made exotic ingredients, celebrity chefs, rarefied cooking tools, and destination restaurants familiar aspects of our everyday lives.Amazingly enough, just twenty years ago eating sushi was a daring novelty and many Americans had never even heard of salsa. Today, we don't bat an eye at a construction worker dipping a croissant into robust specialty coffee...

Food expert and celebrated food historian Andrew F. Smith recounts-in delicious detail-the creation of contemporary American cuisine. The diet of the modern American wasn't always as corporate, conglomerated, and corn-rich as it is today, and the style of American cooking, along with the ingredients that compose it, has never been fixed. With a cast of characters including bold inventors, savvy restaurateurs, ruthless advertisers, mad scientists, adventurous entrepreneurs, celebrity chefs,...

A guide to the best of the city from its premier newspaper.The Chicago Tribune Guide to Chicago is a convenient travel guide for the Chicago area, with recommendations from knowledgeable insiders. Drawing on the extensive expertise of the city's most prominent newspaper, it's perfect for tourists and locals alike. Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or an afternoon on the town, you can discover the best Chicago has to offer in dining, entertainment, m...

**“The one food book you must read this year."*—Southern LivingOne of Christopher Kimball’s Six Favorite Books About Food*A people’s history that reveals how Southerners shaped American culinary identity and how race relations impacted Southern food culture over six revolutionary decades**Like great provincial dishes around the world, potlikker is a salvage food. During the antebellum era, slave owners ate the greens from the pot and set aside the leftover po...

Open a copy of the Information Please Almanac and turn to the chapter on famous people. 4000 names and you won't know hardly any. But what about names everyone knows? Pillsbury, Maytag, Kellogg. Nowhere to be found. How many names are more famous than Howard Johnson or Oscar Mayer? But who were these folks? Let's look at the men behind the names where we pull off the road to eat.

Finalist for the IACP Cookbook AwardA Washington Post Notable Book of the YearA Smithsonian Best Food Book of the YearLonglisted for the Art of Eating PrizeFeaturing a new chapter on ten restaurants changing America today, a “fascinating . . . sweep through centuries of food culture” (Washington Post).Combining an historian’s rigor with a food enthusiast’s palate, Paul Freedman’s seminal and h...

Award-winning food critic Steven A. Shaw (a.k.a. "The Fat Guy") can get a last-minute dinner reservation at the most popular hot spot in town. He knows how that flawless piece of fish reached your plate. He can read between the lines of a restaurant review, and he knows the secrets of why some restaurants succeed and others fail. Now he shares his insider's expertise with food lovers everywhere.But Turning the Tables is much more than an invaluable how-to guide to eating out. Writt...