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Sweet and Low: A Family Story
"Sweet and Low" is the amazing, bittersweet, hilarious story of an American family and its patriarch, a short-order cook named Ben Eisenstadt who, in the years after World War II, invented the sugar packet and Sweet'N Low, converting his Brooklyn cafeteria into a factory and amassing the great fortune that would destroy his family. It is also the story of immigrants to the New World, sugar, saccharine, obesity, and the health and diet craze, played out across countries and generations but also within the life of a single family, as the fortune and the factory passed from generation to generation. The author, Rich Cohen, a grandson (disinherited, and thus set free, along with his mother and siblings), has sought the truth of this rancorous, colorful history, mining thousands of pages of court documents accumulated in the long and sometimes corrupt life of the factor, and conducting interviews with members of his extended family. Along the way, the forty-year family battle over the fortune moves into its titanic phase, with the money and legacy up for grabs. "Sweet and Low "is the story of this struggle, a strange comic farce of machinations and double dealings, and of an extraordinary family and its fight for the American dream.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
41 people are currently reading
1029 people want to read
About the author
Rich Cohen
36 books474 followersRICH COHEN is the author of Sweet and Low (FSG, 2006), Tough Jews, The Avengers, The Record Men, and the memoir Lake Effect. His work has appeared in many major publications, and he is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He lives with his family in Connecticut.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Coh...
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Coh...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
December 23, 2007
In my first house I owned- a tiny bungalow that has since been abandoned -the neighbors had some outrageous family fights. These weren’t your typical domestic violence dealies between a man and his wife. Instead, it seemed the entire extended family would partake. Over time, I began to enjoy the theatrics. I would sit on my stoop, drink beer and giggle uneasily as this cast of characters humiliated themselves. So, it’s no wonder I enjoyed Sweet and Low by Richard Cohen.
Cohen is jaded over his immediate family being screwed out of their inheritance from his G-pappy’s Sweet and Low fortune. So, through brilliant prose (I thought he was an awesome writer), Cohen gives us an entire history of the artificial sugar industry. I have since read reviews by people complaining about Cohen’s use of a macro, sweeping history of things like Brooklyn and sugar to get his point across. For my two cents, I love that stuff. It’s probably why I can watch Forest Gump over and over again. I find irresistible the passage of time, the stream of decades rolling by as a story seems to hang on time’s coat tails. I am, after all, a history major.
As I already mentioned, Cohen seems to think his uncle and aunt and spiteful grandmother and a handful of mobsters screwed him. (I blame the writing style of Cohen for all those “ands” I just used). It’s hard to feel sorry for the whiny Cohen. At first I thought it wasn’t about the money. It was simply the insulting gesture of being left out that hurt him so much. But nay, nay. As the song goes-it must be the money!! After Cohen’s grandmother dies, Cohen’s parents are still raising hell for cash. Perhaps I’m dealing with a little class envy, but it’s just impossible for me to give a damn about inheritances. Inheritances are un-American. They are for wimps who tie on their yellow sweaters by the sleeves or powder faced British aristocrats fanning themselves. While I had no pity for Cohen, I found the break down of his family fascinating. The description of a family owned business that hits it big was cool. And, of course, I love stories about wise guys and corruption. I thought this book was going to be a kind of Royal Tennenbaums type comedy. Instead it’s about a rich Jewish guy snitching on his family for revenge. This brings me to my next point. Sweet and Low is like pornography for anti-Semites. The book pretty much lives up to every stereotype of the New York Jew in the same way that white racists crack up at sitcoms such as Sanford and Son or What’s Happening. If I ever get arrested in a drunken stupor and, God forbid, publicly go off on an anti-Semitic rant, I blame the influence of this book.
****Disclaimer: Charly Streetgang is not an anti-Semite and is aware that the book Sweet and Low is by no means an honest representation of the diverse population of Jewish Americans
Cohen is jaded over his immediate family being screwed out of their inheritance from his G-pappy’s Sweet and Low fortune. So, through brilliant prose (I thought he was an awesome writer), Cohen gives us an entire history of the artificial sugar industry. I have since read reviews by people complaining about Cohen’s use of a macro, sweeping history of things like Brooklyn and sugar to get his point across. For my two cents, I love that stuff. It’s probably why I can watch Forest Gump over and over again. I find irresistible the passage of time, the stream of decades rolling by as a story seems to hang on time’s coat tails. I am, after all, a history major.
As I already mentioned, Cohen seems to think his uncle and aunt and spiteful grandmother and a handful of mobsters screwed him. (I blame the writing style of Cohen for all those “ands” I just used). It’s hard to feel sorry for the whiny Cohen. At first I thought it wasn’t about the money. It was simply the insulting gesture of being left out that hurt him so much. But nay, nay. As the song goes-it must be the money!! After Cohen’s grandmother dies, Cohen’s parents are still raising hell for cash. Perhaps I’m dealing with a little class envy, but it’s just impossible for me to give a damn about inheritances. Inheritances are un-American. They are for wimps who tie on their yellow sweaters by the sleeves or powder faced British aristocrats fanning themselves. While I had no pity for Cohen, I found the break down of his family fascinating. The description of a family owned business that hits it big was cool. And, of course, I love stories about wise guys and corruption. I thought this book was going to be a kind of Royal Tennenbaums type comedy. Instead it’s about a rich Jewish guy snitching on his family for revenge. This brings me to my next point. Sweet and Low is like pornography for anti-Semites. The book pretty much lives up to every stereotype of the New York Jew in the same way that white racists crack up at sitcoms such as Sanford and Son or What’s Happening. If I ever get arrested in a drunken stupor and, God forbid, publicly go off on an anti-Semitic rant, I blame the influence of this book.
****Disclaimer: Charly Streetgang is not an anti-Semite and is aware that the book Sweet and Low is by no means an honest representation of the diverse population of Jewish Americans
June 24, 2007
I thought I would like this book since I like non-fiction with some drama and a bit of teaching involved. But I found the whole thing rather uninteresting. The family really had no redeeming features. The history of Sweet and Low (and the diet revolution) also was tiresome. I sped through to the end to see why the author's family was disinherited and ended up not caring.
November 10, 2012
So I've been doing a crazy amount biking lately, which may I please just say is the best goddamn thing ever. I've gotten a little obsessive about it; like zero to biking everywhere, every day, all the time, inventing faraway errands to run just so I can bike to them, or only making plans in other neighborhoods because biking around Williamsburg isn't good enough, or just getting on the bike at midnight and zipping around because I can. I didn't bike in the hurricane (this guy did, though), but I have developed a little fiveish-mile loop that I do when I just gotta goooo and have nowhere particular to be.
That loop, in case you care about Brooklyn geography, goes from East Williamsburg to Greenpoint, then along the coast of Brooklyn down through Williamsburg, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and around into Dumbo, ending at Brooklyn Bridge Park, which happens to be the most beautiful spot in Brooklyn, and therefore the most beautiful spot in the world, right in between two huge bridges, the East River in front of you reflecting the whole sick slick glittering city, Dumbo and its upscale lofts at your back. It's so gorgeous, in fact, that you can't sit in the park for five minutes without a wedding party traipsing by like a bevy of tricked-out birds, fluffing their plumage as their harried photographer, laden with props, stumbles along behind.
ANYWAY. The middle of this ride, as I said, is the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a massive sprawling little secret port town that is mostly locked up to the public because it's being used for important things like making warships and unloading massive shipments of cargo and who even knows what all else. Much of it is wild and abandoned and overgrown, but I think parts of it have been continually active since white people came here and started fucking shit up—or probably long before that, I guess, but the visitor's museum doesn't trace the Yard's history back before the Revolutionary War. There's all sorts of industry that needs to be by the water, obvs, and the Navy Yard is home to some iconic Old Brooklyn factories still.
Like the Sweet and Low plant. (You never thought any this was going to be relevant to the book, did you?)
Sweet and Low was invented in Brooklyn three generations ago, and is still made & packaged & shipped in the same factory in the Navy Yard that it's been in for decades. The building has the Sweet and Low logo painted three stories high on its side, and after biking past it a few hundred times, I finally registered both that that's what it was and also that I had this book sitting on my shelf from god knows when I ever thought to pick it up.
It's a pretty fascinating story—components include Old Brooklyn immigrant grit, the mafia, embezzlement, tax fraud, family drama worthy of the most melodramatic soap opera (including a shut-in cripple who ties her drug-addled octogenarian mother to a chair), a contested will, disinheritance, and probably more that I forgot. It's a long book.
Our narrator is the grandson of the inventor of Sweet and Low, whose mother was the one disinherited. (On the back of the book it says, "To be disinherited is to be set free.") So he's got pretty unique access to a pretty complex tale. He did a lot of work to try to tell all sides of the story, but some of it becomes a little transparently trying-too-hard. I mean, you can tell exactly who he thinks is right (his poor disinherited mother) and who he thinks is evil or insane (just about everyone else). And he clearly expects you to agree with him, but instead of ever coming out and saying it, he presents all the evidence piece by piece by piece, detail after incriminating detail, with a sweeping show of bravado, as if to say, "How could you possibly not come to the same conclusions I have?" He attempts to disguise his very strong bias by working really hard to appear unbiased, but it never works. It's always totally obvious what he's leading you to.
That said, I can't say that I'd have done anything different. He's the one writing the story, after all, the one screwed out of his share of a multi-million-dollar family business, so no one could expect him to actually be impartial. And he does a very good job of interspersing the crazy family drama with a lot of history and cultural context. He goes down a bunch of different rabbit holes, from the chemical makeup of artificial sweetener to the ins & outs of fraud litigation, from the slave trade vis-á-vis sugar to the intricacies of industrial packing machines.
It's a very very full book, written by a veteran journalist with a keen eye for pacing and detail, who also has a great sense of how to structure a pretty complex saga. I liked it a whole lot.
That loop, in case you care about Brooklyn geography, goes from East Williamsburg to Greenpoint, then along the coast of Brooklyn down through Williamsburg, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and around into Dumbo, ending at Brooklyn Bridge Park, which happens to be the most beautiful spot in Brooklyn, and therefore the most beautiful spot in the world, right in between two huge bridges, the East River in front of you reflecting the whole sick slick glittering city, Dumbo and its upscale lofts at your back. It's so gorgeous, in fact, that you can't sit in the park for five minutes without a wedding party traipsing by like a bevy of tricked-out birds, fluffing their plumage as their harried photographer, laden with props, stumbles along behind.
ANYWAY. The middle of this ride, as I said, is the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a massive sprawling little secret port town that is mostly locked up to the public because it's being used for important things like making warships and unloading massive shipments of cargo and who even knows what all else. Much of it is wild and abandoned and overgrown, but I think parts of it have been continually active since white people came here and started fucking shit up—or probably long before that, I guess, but the visitor's museum doesn't trace the Yard's history back before the Revolutionary War. There's all sorts of industry that needs to be by the water, obvs, and the Navy Yard is home to some iconic Old Brooklyn factories still.
Like the Sweet and Low plant. (You never thought any this was going to be relevant to the book, did you?)
Sweet and Low was invented in Brooklyn three generations ago, and is still made & packaged & shipped in the same factory in the Navy Yard that it's been in for decades. The building has the Sweet and Low logo painted three stories high on its side, and after biking past it a few hundred times, I finally registered both that that's what it was and also that I had this book sitting on my shelf from god knows when I ever thought to pick it up.
It's a pretty fascinating story—components include Old Brooklyn immigrant grit, the mafia, embezzlement, tax fraud, family drama worthy of the most melodramatic soap opera (including a shut-in cripple who ties her drug-addled octogenarian mother to a chair), a contested will, disinheritance, and probably more that I forgot. It's a long book.
Our narrator is the grandson of the inventor of Sweet and Low, whose mother was the one disinherited. (On the back of the book it says, "To be disinherited is to be set free.") So he's got pretty unique access to a pretty complex tale. He did a lot of work to try to tell all sides of the story, but some of it becomes a little transparently trying-too-hard. I mean, you can tell exactly who he thinks is right (his poor disinherited mother) and who he thinks is evil or insane (just about everyone else). And he clearly expects you to agree with him, but instead of ever coming out and saying it, he presents all the evidence piece by piece by piece, detail after incriminating detail, with a sweeping show of bravado, as if to say, "How could you possibly not come to the same conclusions I have?" He attempts to disguise his very strong bias by working really hard to appear unbiased, but it never works. It's always totally obvious what he's leading you to.
That said, I can't say that I'd have done anything different. He's the one writing the story, after all, the one screwed out of his share of a multi-million-dollar family business, so no one could expect him to actually be impartial. And he does a very good job of interspersing the crazy family drama with a lot of history and cultural context. He goes down a bunch of different rabbit holes, from the chemical makeup of artificial sweetener to the ins & outs of fraud litigation, from the slave trade vis-á-vis sugar to the intricacies of industrial packing machines.
It's a very very full book, written by a veteran journalist with a keen eye for pacing and detail, who also has a great sense of how to structure a pretty complex saga. I liked it a whole lot.
November 8, 2008
Memoir of estrangement from a dysfunctional family + history of sugar and sugar substitutes + history of New York corruption = surprisingly compelling read. I actually laughed out loud a couple of times.
"There was an ancient form of primogeniture at play in the family; as the son of the oldest son, Cousin Jeffrey was golden. One week, Grandma Betty decided that a grandchild would, for no particular reason, have a party thrown in his or her honor, complete with cake and gifts. While standing in my aunt's room, Betty wrote the names on a slip of paper and dropped the slips in a hat. A winner was drawn: Jeffrey. Since Jeffrey seemed to win many such contests, my brother grew suspicious. When he picked up the hat, Betty said, 'Don't look!' Unfolding the slips, he had the great shock of his early life. Every ballot was marked 'Jeffrey.'"
About Grandma Esther, from the non-disinheriting side of the family: "She took an afternoon to tell a story that could be told in five minutes, then wound it up by saying, 'That's it in a nutshell.' . . . I once heard her ask a woman in her condo complex, 'Why do you hate me, fatso?' I once heard her say to a Holocaust survivor, 'You are one that Hitler should not have let get away.' When she took me and my sister to see Yentl, she asked for three tickets, one senior, two children. My sister was thirty, I was twenty-two. The three of us saw Yentl for four dollars."
"'It wasn't enough for them to leave her nothing,' my sister explained. 'They also wanted her to say that it was okay that they had left her nothing.'"
"We are what we eat, and we don't know what that is."
"To be disinherited is to be set free."
I did not realize that we have canned food and condensed milk because Gail Borden was so horrified to read accounts of the cannibalistic Donner Party.
One thing the author does not make clear is why, if his grandfather was such a clever lawyer, he did not apply for a patent for the sugar-packet machine.
The author is the son of the Herb Cohen, author of the excellent nonfiction book "Negotiate This!" I wonder if he would agree that some things are not negotiable.
"There was an ancient form of primogeniture at play in the family; as the son of the oldest son, Cousin Jeffrey was golden. One week, Grandma Betty decided that a grandchild would, for no particular reason, have a party thrown in his or her honor, complete with cake and gifts. While standing in my aunt's room, Betty wrote the names on a slip of paper and dropped the slips in a hat. A winner was drawn: Jeffrey. Since Jeffrey seemed to win many such contests, my brother grew suspicious. When he picked up the hat, Betty said, 'Don't look!' Unfolding the slips, he had the great shock of his early life. Every ballot was marked 'Jeffrey.'"
About Grandma Esther, from the non-disinheriting side of the family: "She took an afternoon to tell a story that could be told in five minutes, then wound it up by saying, 'That's it in a nutshell.' . . . I once heard her ask a woman in her condo complex, 'Why do you hate me, fatso?' I once heard her say to a Holocaust survivor, 'You are one that Hitler should not have let get away.' When she took me and my sister to see Yentl, she asked for three tickets, one senior, two children. My sister was thirty, I was twenty-two. The three of us saw Yentl for four dollars."
"'It wasn't enough for them to leave her nothing,' my sister explained. 'They also wanted her to say that it was okay that they had left her nothing.'"
"We are what we eat, and we don't know what that is."
"To be disinherited is to be set free."
I did not realize that we have canned food and condensed milk because Gail Borden was so horrified to read accounts of the cannibalistic Donner Party.
One thing the author does not make clear is why, if his grandfather was such a clever lawyer, he did not apply for a patent for the sugar-packet machine.
The author is the son of the Herb Cohen, author of the excellent nonfiction book "Negotiate This!" I wonder if he would agree that some things are not negotiable.
April 28, 2024
This was an interesting read. Not only is this about the history of Sweet & Low, it also includes some history of New York City, family drama, and crooked employees that may be connected to the mob all the while incoporating some humor.
November 8, 2007
I had high hopes for this book buoyed by favorable reviews on Amazon. I invested time in what I thought was a pretty good method of potential book research, but this time it hit a snag. I had to make a new bookshelf for this book - unfinished by choice books. That probably says it all for me.
If you really like a lot of history with your books, you will likely love this book. The author included a purposefully dated Xerox copy of an obituary that encapsulated Sweet and Low's founder and the company's progress through the years. I liked the novel, promising start. Then book began by describing the writer's history - directly related to the company's founders but cut out of any inheritance. Despite a diagram included at the beginning to help you when you get confused (and you will)with the large network of family members, I still had a hard time keeping everyone straight.
The history lessons started out germane to the story, but I wished the book concentrated more on developing the characters. I stopped about half way through because I just couldn't get into it anymore. A person with a voracious appetite for history will probably devour this book with its extra history. Just not my favorite kind of reading.
If you really like a lot of history with your books, you will likely love this book. The author included a purposefully dated Xerox copy of an obituary that encapsulated Sweet and Low's founder and the company's progress through the years. I liked the novel, promising start. Then book began by describing the writer's history - directly related to the company's founders but cut out of any inheritance. Despite a diagram included at the beginning to help you when you get confused (and you will)with the large network of family members, I still had a hard time keeping everyone straight.
The history lessons started out germane to the story, but I wished the book concentrated more on developing the characters. I stopped about half way through because I just couldn't get into it anymore. A person with a voracious appetite for history will probably devour this book with its extra history. Just not my favorite kind of reading.
January 24, 2019
This is an uneven but oddly interesting book, or rather a book with several sub-books, written by a disinherited heir of the man who created the little pink packets of artificial sweetener. Book one is the story of grandpa, Ben Eisenstadt and grandma, Betty Gellman, the story of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and the Brooklyn they lived in. This book I found fascinating. Book two is a brief history of what humans have used to sweeten their food, both natural and artificial. Grandpa Ben’s role in this history was 1) to modify a tea bag filling machine to make the first individual sugar packets, and 2) to participate in creating the formula for Sweet N’low and the iconic pink packaging, thereby cashing in on the dieting craze that began in the 1950s. This, too, is interesting reading. Sub-books three and four were less so. The decline and fall of Sweet N’low due to the twin blows of Uncle Marvin’s (un?)knowing association with some swindling mobsters and the rise of other non-saccharin-based sweetners did not hold my interest so well. Nor did book four, “how-grandpa-shafted-my-mom.” My suggestion is to read what interests you and skim the rest. That’s what I did.
February 3, 2008
I found this book fascinating, in multiple ways. Since moving to Brooklyn, I love walking the streets of Carroll Gardens with the impressions stories of Brooklyn have given me. This is true for both of Jonathan Lethem novels, and now I'm happy to add to that with this wonderful story of small pink packet, and how it impacted the rise and fall of a truly Brooklyn family.
Most of us are divided either by our love of sweet, or savory. It's as strong as politics or religion. You have to side, and you have to decide. Sweet and Low forces you to assess which side of sweet or savory you are on, whether or not you are a purist or not, and whether or not you believe Rich Cohen's side of the family or not. But as demanding as this is, it's presented with enough charm for you to laugh your way to your decision. I loved this book to the end. Through the chemistry of a product and the chemistry of a family. For me, I can't wait to walk the waterfront and see the Cumberland Packing Company, hopefully hear the rumble of machines, and maybe even catch a 'walk and talk'.
This is why I love Brooklyn.
Most of us are divided either by our love of sweet, or savory. It's as strong as politics or religion. You have to side, and you have to decide. Sweet and Low forces you to assess which side of sweet or savory you are on, whether or not you are a purist or not, and whether or not you believe Rich Cohen's side of the family or not. But as demanding as this is, it's presented with enough charm for you to laugh your way to your decision. I loved this book to the end. Through the chemistry of a product and the chemistry of a family. For me, I can't wait to walk the waterfront and see the Cumberland Packing Company, hopefully hear the rumble of machines, and maybe even catch a 'walk and talk'.
This is why I love Brooklyn.
July 19, 2020
I found the first half of this book incredibly interesting as both a history of my former neighborhood (having lived down the block from the old Sweet & Low Factory) and unofficial history of dieting in America.
The second half of the book, I honestly couldn't get through because the narrative style completely changed. Suddenly we had gone from immersive family history to an incredibly slow-paced story. It felt like Cohen took three whole pages just to describe two dudes driving up a street looking for a particular house. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I truly could not care less and put the book down. Maybe I will finish it one day when I'm more patient.
The second half of the book, I honestly couldn't get through because the narrative style completely changed. Suddenly we had gone from immersive family history to an incredibly slow-paced story. It felt like Cohen took three whole pages just to describe two dudes driving up a street looking for a particular house. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I truly could not care less and put the book down. Maybe I will finish it one day when I'm more patient.
May 22, 2011
Not a huge fan - this was supposed to be an interesting look at the invention of Sweet 'N Low, how it created a family fortune, and the legal/mafia troubles that befell the company as told by a disinherited grandson. What it actually was, was a rambling history of Brooklyn, family squabbles, complaints about being disinherited (though the author makes it perfectly clear that of course his family didn't need the money, what with the chartered flights, player pianos, and Concorde jet rides he and his family is accustomed to.
There was a little info about how Sweet 'N Low came to be: Ben Eisenstadt gets frustrated with crusted over sugar dispensers and unsanitary open sugar dishes that everyone dips into with their own spoon and turns his factory in Brooklyn that used to package tea bags into one that manufactures and packages sugar packets. The name is from a Tennyson poem cum 1863 song by Sir Joseph Barnby. Coen touches on the struggles artificial sweeteners have had to endure - various bans and health concerns that have arisen over the years. He also briefly (like one line per product) tells how various sugar substitues were invented - all except for sucralose (Splenda) were discovered when a scientist, carelessly fiddling around in his lab, somehows ends up with his fingers (or cigarette, in one case) in his mouth and realizes they taste sweet. Weird.
Overall, I found Coen's tone irritating - he does a lot of jumping around in time and acribes motives to other family members seemingly at random. He whines about his mother's side of the family being cut out of the inheritance but the writing is just weird. It didn't flow. I came away with the distinct impression that Coen was hoping writing this book would make someone feel A) sorry for him about he whole being disinherited thing and B) that he's a really talented writer. Hopefully this someone has connections in the publishing world and can atone for all the wrongs committed against Coen. Not a fan of this one. The whole thing was just random and disjointed.
There was a little info about how Sweet 'N Low came to be: Ben Eisenstadt gets frustrated with crusted over sugar dispensers and unsanitary open sugar dishes that everyone dips into with their own spoon and turns his factory in Brooklyn that used to package tea bags into one that manufactures and packages sugar packets. The name is from a Tennyson poem cum 1863 song by Sir Joseph Barnby. Coen touches on the struggles artificial sweeteners have had to endure - various bans and health concerns that have arisen over the years. He also briefly (like one line per product) tells how various sugar substitues were invented - all except for sucralose (Splenda) were discovered when a scientist, carelessly fiddling around in his lab, somehows ends up with his fingers (or cigarette, in one case) in his mouth and realizes they taste sweet. Weird.
Overall, I found Coen's tone irritating - he does a lot of jumping around in time and acribes motives to other family members seemingly at random. He whines about his mother's side of the family being cut out of the inheritance but the writing is just weird. It didn't flow. I came away with the distinct impression that Coen was hoping writing this book would make someone feel A) sorry for him about he whole being disinherited thing and B) that he's a really talented writer. Hopefully this someone has connections in the publishing world and can atone for all the wrongs committed against Coen. Not a fan of this one. The whole thing was just random and disjointed.
August 13, 2008
"IN THE WEEK AFTER THE SACCHARIN BAN, CONGRESS RECEIVED MORE THAN A HUNDRED THOUSAND LETTERS, MORE THAN RECEIVED IN ANY COMPARABLE PERIOD DURING THE VIETNAM WAR."
I have officially lost all of my faith in mankind, except for Rich Cohen. Cohen manages to fit all of fake sugar's (saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame, sucralose) history into a few pages--although I was constantly wondering why scientists kept discovering these chemical compounds by licking their fingers . . didn't we learn in 5th grade that that's a huge no-no when it comes to working in the lab?!
But seriously, his commentary on the history of fake sugar (and real sugar!) is totally fascinating and written with a detailed yet tongue-in-cheek tone. It's great social commentary on human greed, slavery, and the modern diet. But when he starts talking about his family it turns into a whiny, weepy mess. He got screwed out of a will - boo hoo - he is not the only person this has ever happened to.
I have officially lost all of my faith in mankind, except for Rich Cohen. Cohen manages to fit all of fake sugar's (saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame, sucralose) history into a few pages--although I was constantly wondering why scientists kept discovering these chemical compounds by licking their fingers . . didn't we learn in 5th grade that that's a huge no-no when it comes to working in the lab?!
But seriously, his commentary on the history of fake sugar (and real sugar!) is totally fascinating and written with a detailed yet tongue-in-cheek tone. It's great social commentary on human greed, slavery, and the modern diet. But when he starts talking about his family it turns into a whiny, weepy mess. He got screwed out of a will - boo hoo - he is not the only person this has ever happened to.
August 29, 2012
This could be subtitled "Jewish Families Behaving Badly". Starting off with a diner in Brooklyn, the family business of packing teabags, then sugar, then saccherine grew into a multimillion dollar enterprise. The author delves into the history of sugar from prehistoric times as well as the history of the Cumberland enterprise, makers of Sweet and Low, in the ubiquitous pink packets. The book also traces the history of Mr. Cohen's family from its immigration to New York City to the final fracturing and disenfranchisement of his mother and her offspring from the family fortune. It's an amusing tale, witty, and quite sad when blood relatives become enemies.
May 7, 2008
Couldn't make it to the end. This memoir about the family who brought us Sweet and Low was funny in parts, but way too heavy on history lessons for my taste. Along with the story of this family, which I think is pretty interesting, you also get pages and pages about how New York neighborhoods evolved and all kinds of background about inventions that have only a tangential connection to the story at hand. My suspicion is that the writer promised a book of a certain length and did the college-kid scrabble to fill space with anything he could.
May 5, 2012
What drama, what intrigue, what pathology! I always say that someone needs to tap my family for disertation material, but after reading this book I realize we are practically the Brady clan. The interpersonal drama is fascinating and sad and funny, but it is really only the tip of the iceberg. This book is a wonderful historical document of a certain kind of immigrant experience. It is also a blast to read. After finishing I immediately ordered another Cohen book, "Tough Jews." I can't wait to learn about the other side of this man's family.
August 24, 2008
I wanted to love this book, being a Brooklyn resident and appreciating the historical aspects of the family's history here.
However, as much as I laughed at Cohen's telling of family tales, his repetitiveness became not only annoying but confusing. I struggled to keep track of all the family members and which generation they belonged to, and ultimately could care less what happened to them.
I have too many other books waiting to be read to continue plodding on with this one.
However, as much as I laughed at Cohen's telling of family tales, his repetitiveness became not only annoying but confusing. I struggled to keep track of all the family members and which generation they belonged to, and ultimately could care less what happened to them.
I have too many other books waiting to be read to continue plodding on with this one.
February 13, 2010
The writing was not particularly interesting or good but the historical fiction element was enjoyable and I suppose the family dynamics were somewhat interesting, but there didn't seem to be too many likable characters to be rooting for and they seemed a little flat. It's definitely a story and setting driven book.
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March 6, 2009I thought this book sucked. I basically skimmed it in an attempt to find all this "family drama" that I never actually found. Hell, my family had more drama than this last week. And that was a light week for us.
Thank God I only paid a dollar for this at a library book sale. Although I still feel like I overpaid.
Thank God I only paid a dollar for this at a library book sale. Although I still feel like I overpaid.
December 26, 2007
It's hard to imagine that this book would have been published if it hadn't been about a family connected to Sweet N Low. Moderately interesting, though the inter-family problems are either not clearly written or just not that serious. A light, entertaining read.
December 28, 2007
This is the story of the Sweet and Low company, as written by the extremely bitter, disinherited heir. Almost impossible to get through due to HORRENDOUS writing, despite seemingly fascinating subject matter and fabulous cover design. A huge disappointment!
July 18, 2008
This book, about how the fortune of the family owned business Sweet 'N Low fractures the members into haves and have nots, had great potential but in the end, I just didn't like the way it was written. It didn't engage me at all and I had to force myself to finish.
June 9, 2010
Extended Family Drama... I loved reading about it. :)
November 26, 2023
Sweet and Low is a personal story by the author. It is about his grandfather and his entire dysfunctional family. Rich Cohen’s grandfather, Benjamin Eisenstadt, was an unemployed lawyer working at his father in law’s diner. In those days, table sugar was in glass jars that became crusted and unsanitary over time. Eisenstadt came up with the brilliant idea to make individual sugar packets. One great idea can make you a millionaire. They built their own factory in Brooklyn. He took the idea to Dixie sugar company and they stole his idea. However, he continued with contracts with smaller sugar companies. From there, they rode the diet craze and created Sweet and Low, first with cyclamates and later with saccharine. As everyone knows, all in individual sugar packets. The Eisenstadt family made a fortune. That is when the story gets interesting. Money can be the root of all evil. Like Leona Helmsley, they used the company as their own piggy bank. Money was embezzled by the family and or by mafia contacts who they had hired to smooth the way with government entities. Essentially, the company hired fixers who were or were not mafia members. The government first banned cyclamates due to the risk of cancer, and they tried to ban saccharine. A US senator form NY, Al D’Amato was involved. The fixers lobbied D’Amato and the government to keep saccharine available. Bad blood developed in the family as some of the members were indicted by the government.
Benjamin Eisenstadt develops health problems in his late 80’s. Cohen’s mother recommends a cardiologist who is a relative. Eisenstadt undergoes heart surgery and he does not survive. That branch of the family blames Cohen’s branch for Eisenstadt even though he was elderly and in poor health. They disinherited the Cohen branch of the family from the Eisenstadt fortune. This book is a very readable account of a family ripped apart by money. How much is enough? Cohen tries to put a positive spin on all of this by stating, “To be disinherited is to be set free."
Benjamin Eisenstadt develops health problems in his late 80’s. Cohen’s mother recommends a cardiologist who is a relative. Eisenstadt undergoes heart surgery and he does not survive. That branch of the family blames Cohen’s branch for Eisenstadt even though he was elderly and in poor health. They disinherited the Cohen branch of the family from the Eisenstadt fortune. This book is a very readable account of a family ripped apart by money. How much is enough? Cohen tries to put a positive spin on all of this by stating, “To be disinherited is to be set free."
March 7, 2018
I am really waffling back and forth between 2 and 3 stars here. On the one hand, I was very interested in this book and the outcome. The premise is bananas: the story of the family who invented the single-serve sugar packet and Sweet N'Low, and whose business was infiltrated by the mafia and taken down in a government sting, as told by the grandson who was disinherited. I was most interested in the way he blended his family's innovations into the history of Brooklyn, the history of sugar, and how diet culture became mainstream in this country. But here's the problem. Each of these three stories is told in a discrete section, with not enough bringing it back together. It feels like reading three separate books, none of which is wholly satisfying on its own. I wanted so much more history. I suspect people who came to this book for the mafia story may have felt the same way - that section in particular was rushed, confusing, and in the end, a little generic. And as I dove into the disinheritance story, it became pretty uncomfortable. The ways in which Rich Cohen may not be a reliable narrator are just below the surface and never explicitly acknowledged. I started to wonder if this is just a guy trying to exact revenge on his family by trashing them in this book. I don't know. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. (pun intended!)
October 15, 2019
Two stories in one: the creation story of the world's first sugar substitute and the ruinous story of the family responsible for it.
Cohen is the disinherited grandson of the family who invented Sweet N' Low, a unique position of being IN the family but not OF the family. He's got the gossip and shares it freely -- the struggle to create a business *and* the need for their product was massive, but they did it and changed an industry forever.
"The sugar trade was one of the biggest economic booms in history, one that started in the age of Shakespeare and did not break until after the cancellation of 'The Love Boat'."
But as Cohen reveals, grand institutional shifts aren't the work of one man alone (despite the near-mythical reputation of his grandfather, the inventor). Here, the Sicilian mafia seems to have been the wind at their backs, making sure that workers, scientists, and lawmakers all did their parts to keep the little pink packets flowing.
Add a full-blown family feud to the mix, and you've got yourself quite a yarn. Fun read!
Cohen is the disinherited grandson of the family who invented Sweet N' Low, a unique position of being IN the family but not OF the family. He's got the gossip and shares it freely -- the struggle to create a business *and* the need for their product was massive, but they did it and changed an industry forever.
"The sugar trade was one of the biggest economic booms in history, one that started in the age of Shakespeare and did not break until after the cancellation of 'The Love Boat'."
But as Cohen reveals, grand institutional shifts aren't the work of one man alone (despite the near-mythical reputation of his grandfather, the inventor). Here, the Sicilian mafia seems to have been the wind at their backs, making sure that workers, scientists, and lawmakers all did their parts to keep the little pink packets flowing.
Add a full-blown family feud to the mix, and you've got yourself quite a yarn. Fun read!
March 25, 2021
This is a book about the Eisenstadt family, and Sweet and Low. The family tree does get a bit overwhelming (the book version has a family tree, which you might need to check many times while reading) but the portion of the book about the history of Sweet and Low is very interesting. The book discusses how it was invented, its trajectory from the only sugar substitute to one of many. It's especially interesting now as some of the current political players come up in the discussion of legality of saccharine or aspartame. Did you know Donald Rumsfeld was instrumental in allowing aspartame to become legal to use? The book was slow going in the beginning but I was really interested in the part of the book that focused on the history of Sweet and Low and it's competitors, not as much the family portion.
November 25, 2018
This is a very sorry story about a dysfunctional immigrant family who made a product that was said to be a carcinogen (the warning on Sweet and Low has since been removed) and got involved with the mafia and fought over money. Although some of the characters are interesting because they are very quirky and well-describer, I wish they had been thought about with some depth by the author. What we saw of the people remained superficial. So one ends up reading a lot and still feeling like one doesn't understand what happened or what people's motivations were. The author doesn't know either I think. I am glad he wrote it at all. But one gets to the end feeling that one has not got any insight into the story. Also there's very little that's fun or delightful here.
May 13, 2022
I read this for the non-fiction discussion group at the library. Parts were interesting, especially the history of how the company was formed and the sugar substitute industry. The family history part of the story could have benefited from some objective editing to get rid of the extraneous descriptions that seemed to reflect the author's jealousy and bitterness. Also, perhaps if a non-family member had done the interviews they may have been able to obtain a more complete version of what truly happened.
The audiobook was read by the author, here too some outside input would have been helpful. Once again the author's bitterness and jealousy show through. Also, you can tell when he reads a metaphor or "zinger" that he is particularly proud of
The audiobook was read by the author, here too some outside input would have been helpful. Once again the author's bitterness and jealousy show through. Also, you can tell when he reads a metaphor or "zinger" that he is particularly proud of
November 1, 2022
I picked this book up in a small used book store in New Orleans and honestly had no expectations going in. I was pleasantly surprised by Cohen’s ability to tell a fascinating store about his own families history and the history of fake sugar in America. Cohen has such a unique perspective on his family being disinherited and you can see how it has affected his relationships whether he believed it did or not.
If you aren’t a fan of historical stories, this may not be for you. He does tend to jump around in time, ramble, and you can sense his frustrations through the pages. It makes the book feel that much more genuine and like someone isn’t just writing this story, but telling it to you.
If you aren’t a fan of historical stories, this may not be for you. He does tend to jump around in time, ramble, and you can sense his frustrations through the pages. It makes the book feel that much more genuine and like someone isn’t just writing this story, but telling it to you.
December 12, 2022
Rich Cohen is one of my favorite authors and this one has been on my list for awhile. The story of the family that invented Sweet and Low didn't sound too interesting, but when I finally started the book I realized it was more than that. First, the family that started Sweet and Low is the author's family (mom's side) and they were cut out of the multi-million dollar empire decades ago. This book is a history of the sweetener, a story of an estranged family, how the mob got involved, and a tale of how money can make everything more complicated. Really liked this one, if you like Cohen's other books you will enjoy this as well.
June 14, 2023
Themes: “Wow! My family really isn’t so bad”, Big Business, The Mafia, Federal Court Trials
Favorite quote: “There will always be a market for the phony and super sweet, as there will always be a market for Cheez Whiz.”
Wow. This is only a 272 page story but it packs a punch. Richard Cohen does a masterful job of telling the history of his family and how it ‘relates’ to the family-owned company Cumberland Packing Corp., the producers of Sweet’N Low. While reading it, I couldn’t help but imagine this as a documentary; it’s crazy and Richard’s family is a full cast of characters proving that truth is stranger than fiction. 1000% recommend 👍
Favorite quote: “There will always be a market for the phony and super sweet, as there will always be a market for Cheez Whiz.”
Wow. This is only a 272 page story but it packs a punch. Richard Cohen does a masterful job of telling the history of his family and how it ‘relates’ to the family-owned company Cumberland Packing Corp., the producers of Sweet’N Low. While reading it, I couldn’t help but imagine this as a documentary; it’s crazy and Richard’s family is a full cast of characters proving that truth is stranger than fiction. 1000% recommend 👍
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