Finding the Flavors We Lost: From Bread to Bourbon, How Artisans Reclaimed American Food – How Exceptional Taste Triumphed Over Mass Production

by Patric Kuh

The multiple-James Beard Award–winning restaurant critic for Los Angeles Magazine delivers an arresting exploration of our cultural demand for “artisanal” foods in a world dominated by corporate agribusiness.

We hear the word “artisanal” all the time—attached to cheese, chocolate, coffee, even Subway sandwiches—but what does it actually mean? We take “farm to table” and “handcrafted food” for granted now but how did we get here? In Finding the Flavors We Lost, acclaimed food writer Patric Kuh profiles major figures in the so-called “artisanal” food movement who brought exceptional taste back to food and inspired chefs and restaurateurs to redefine and rethink the way we eat.

Kuh begins by narrating the entertaining stories of countercultural “radicals” who taught themselves the forgotten crafts of bread, cheese, and beer-marking in reaction to the ever-present marketing of bland, mass-produced food, and how these people became the inspiration for today’s crop of young chefs and artisans. Finding the Flavors We Lost also analyzes how population growth, speedier transportation, and the societal shifts and economic progress of the twentieth century led to the rise of supermarkets and giant food corporations, which encouraged the general desire to swap effort and quality for convenience and quantity.

Kuh examines how a rediscovery of the value of craft and individual effort has fueled today’s popularity and appreciation for artisanal food and the transformations this has effected on both the restaurant menu and the dinner table. Throughout the book, he raises a host of critical questions. How big of an operation is too big for a food company to still call themselves “artisanal”? Does the high cost of hand-crafted goods unintentionally make them unaffordable for many Americans? Does technological progress have to quash flavor? Eye-opening, informative, and entertaining, Finding the Flavors We Lost is a fresh look into the culture of artisan food as we know it today—and what its future may be.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Cookbooks, History, Cooking, Food and Drink

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 2016

About the author

Patric Kuh is a Paris-trained chef who has worked in preeminent restaurants in France, New York, and California. He has written for Gourmet, Esquire, and Salon.com and is the author of a novel, An Available Man. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews

[Kendyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author is too engrossed in dropping names of famous chefs that only people heavily involved in the restaurant business would know. The chapters bounce around and have no relationship to each other. It is more a collection of individual foodie articles about people the author knows than actually reclaiming American cuisine through the artisan movement. I finished the entire book but only enjoyed about 10% (when the author was describing the process by which some of the foods were produced...crusty breads, bourbon, aged cheeses) rather than the constant name dropping.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had such potential. I was expecting a cohesive thesis style study with some narrative based storytelling thrown in. What I instead got was a fragmented, jumpy, disorganized, disconnected shell of a book. As I kept reading, I was given the historical narrative of distilling, baking and brewing. These three chapters were the only redeeming qualities of this book. Even then, these chapters were dry. An artisan takes a staple that we have taken for granted and breathes new air into it, reinvigorating the product while educating us on the history from whence it came. This author seems to have missed the point entirely, writing in a way that disinterests the reader on a very interesting topic.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A whole lot of words, good words but a lot of them. I lost momentum about half way. Other than THAT NO COMPLAINTS. Well one but it's not about the quality of the writing or the subject; I would have like some talk of nutrition along with flavor. The focus was completely on flavor. Oh well.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finding the Flavors We Lost: From Bread to Bourbon, How Artisans Reclaimed American Food by Patric Kuh (ECCO 2016) (641.013). The author is a Los Angeles based food critic and writer. He explores the rebirth of the craft of artisanal cooking and food preparation in today's society. He explores in depth the rediscovered crafts of specialty cheese making, specialty bread making, and the brewing of beer and spirits. This is a fascinating look at the art, craftsmanship and scholarship involved in applying rediscovered food preparation techniques in the twenty-first century. My rating: 7/10, finished 2/8/18.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many descriptions of the clothes that artisans were wearing when the author met them. Or the buildings where they make the cheese or bourbon or what have you. I was most interested in learning how Nancy Silverton struggled with unyeasted bread recipes for months before opening La Brea Bakery. I get Kuh's point that many artisans struggle with learning the basics of a lost technique because the processes were not recorded. But his point or points are not clearly articulated and this book mostly seems like one example after another.

[Lex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Kuh's artful, evocative writing, and enjoyed a few of the stories immensely. Yet those high points were overshadowed a bit by the book's general tendency to ramble. A lot of the stories, each of which follows a different artisan food/beverage producer in some way, seemed meandering and disconnected, and there wasn't a solid throughline in the book. Sometimes I felt like a chapter ended just when it was getting interesting. Still, I appreciate this thoughtful look at good food.

[Gail Richmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of essays about…what else? FOOD and the people who have been instrumental over the past 40 years in changing what American taste, how they eat, and why. Well done….each essay stands alone, and everything is covered: fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, cheese, grains, wine, alcohol….if humans ingest it, there is a story about it!

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative account of artisanal food businesses and how they began. At times, it becomes difficult to follow as detail upon detail are described along the way. Sometimes the point is lost in the details.

[Nancym · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book combines personal stories and food history. It is quite well done especially the historical materials. The personal stories contain a little too much hyperbole. The approach is unique and the book is successful. I'd recommend it.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe too niche for me. I couldn't get excited over all the names, top flight restaurants, chefs and culinary techniques that had no real explanations.

[Jeffrey Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patric Kuh looks at a variety of efforts to get back to traditional flavors in American food production. The term "artisan" is used frequently throughout, but in a very focused and disciplined manner. Artisan cheese, bourbon, bread, beer, wine, and other foodstuffs are explored. Kuh's method is to interview the participants in this movement by going to their places of work and to try to trace the origins of their efforts in terms of personal histories. While in some cases, such as the Oregon Pinot Noir producers, universities made a major contribution by mapping the most likely territories for particular wine grapes and analyzing how to match or exceed the quality of overseas producers. In most of the cases, however, learning by doing with a little help from local experts is the method of choice. Often the artisan producer skips shortcuts used by industrial food producers in order to get the highest quality. Bread makers, for example, do not use packaged yeast but rather create and maintain their own yeast cultures. Cheese makers age their cheeses to get the best results. Unlike other food writers, Kuh questions whether it is necessary to remain at low production levels (and high prices) to get and maintain the desired quality. He is definitely not an anti-technology person. In the latter part of the book, Kuh writes about the efforts of some individuals to reduce waste in the system by repurposing food that is normally thrown away at markets and restaurants. He even goes out to pick citrus fruit for Food Forward in Los Angeles (his home territory) that would usually fall to the ground and rot. The fruit is donated to homeless shelters and other worthy causes.

[KC · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would like to thank Edelweiss, Patric Kuh, and Harper Collins for the advanced digital copy. This book was a narrative of artisan food and their tastes and the history of how this movement came about.

[Leslie]

LA Times, 7/9/16

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another food book that I find interesting, but not always the most exciting.

[Adriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very engaging and enjoyable tour through the passions of passionate artisans of food.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very fractured book, there was no clear storyline or resolution for most of the people and stories we were introduced to. It felt far more like a collection of articles then a cohesive book.