Going with the Grain: A Wandering Bread Lover Takes a Bite Out of Life

by Susan Seligson

Book Overview

"My lifelong love affair with bread has less to do with crust, crumb, and the vagaries of sourdough cultures and more to do with bread as a reflection of people's varied beliefs, daily lives, and blood memories....Bread tells the most essential human stories."

So begins Susan Seligson's personal and often humorous journey to discover the secrets of the baker's trade and the place bread has in the lives of those who consume it. Part...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743255518
• ISBN13: 9780743255516
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

BREAD MAKING BOOK..RECIPES WITH A STORY

GOING WITH THE GRAIN . NOT ACTUALLY WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS BUYING,STRICTLY A BOOK OF RECIPES ,BUT BETTER...THIS IS ABOUT HER TRAVELS AND DISCOVERY OF DIFFERENT BREADS OF FOREIGN LANDS.THE RECIPES ARE GOOD AND SO IS THE TRAVEL.RECOMMEND IT.TOOK IT ON VACATION AND IT KEPT ME READING,SO IT HAD TO BE GOOD . BY THE WAY,THE VACATION WAS A CRUISE TO THE CARRIBEAN . NUFF SAID. ANNIE IN TEXAS

An exuberant, joyful romp

What a joyful, exuberant book this is. Seligson is compassionate, funny, self-effacing, inciteful and fearless. Unless you're humor impaired you'll laugh throughout while this intrepid reporter hops around the globe showing us how diverse cultures worship the ancient tradition of bread making. Her writing is filled with fine-honed, priceless gems. I love this book!

Fun and fascinating

This isn't just another travel book with a gimmick: as Seligson points out, bread is central to almost every culture in the world, so observing how people make their distinctive form of bread tells us a great deal about their approach to life in general. The author is curious, a good observer, and respectful of the people she visits; so not only are her stories fascinating, but she's able to take us into situations where tourists are rarely welcome. I was favorably impressed with her chapter on horno bread: when it turns out that the pueblos aren't eager to welcome yet one more travel writer, she respects their wishes and adopts a low-key approach rather than becoming invasive (or writing a whiny "my bad experiences with the Indians" piece, which seems to be a far too common practice!). (I should add that horno bread varies widely: the loaf she tried was uninteresting, but I recently got a loaf from San Felipe pueblo that's right up there with the boutique farm breads.) As a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was sorry that Seligson didn't explore sourdough in more depth, although, as she notes briefly, commercial starters have taken their toll (so it's not just cranky old age that makes me insist that "it doesn't taste as good as it used to"!). But that's just a quibble; in general, the book is fun to read and surprisingly informative, and I recommend it highly.

A Fun and Informative Travel Tale

I had to keep reading tidbits to my wife, for fear she would steal the book away from me when I put it down. In reading Susan Seligson's book, "Going with the Grain", I learned a lot more about bread, than I thought I would be interested in. If someone would have suggested reading a book on bread, I would have turned it down," another cook book". I love cookbooks, but this is no cookbook. Although I have tried a few of the recipes at the end of each chapter, that were quite successful. I love traveling, and have been to a number of the countries that Susan traveled to. I felt drawn into every location, by her descriptive and exhilarating style, and intrigued by the people she came in contact with. Each chapter would bring me to a very different culture, with people and their cuisines as diverse from each other, as their breads were. Susan seems to have her own unique way of getting herself in and out of interesting situations. This makes for some very fun and upbeat reading. You really want to know what she will be up to next. I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful book.

A delicous read

I love Susan Seligson's writing style. It is entertaining, informative, crisp, and memorable. I enjoyed every chapter of this book, particularly the ones in which we travel to exotic locales. Although I must say, the chapter on Wonder Bread was excellent, too. My only problem with this book was that it made me hungry for bread.