The Tummy Trilogy

by Calvin Trillin

Book Overview

In the 1970s, Calvin Trillin informed America that its most glorious food was not to be found at the pretentious restaurants he referred to generically as La Maison de la Casa House, Continental Cuisine. With three hilarious books over the next two decades--American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings--he established himself as, in Craig Claiborne's phrase, "the Walt Whitman of American eats." Trillin's three comic masterpieces...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374524173
• ISBN13: 9780374524173
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Eat your way across America

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

Saluting America with coleslaw

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.

A gourMAND as well as a gourmet

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.

Warning: Stock the fridge before you read these books

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.

American chow, well done!

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!