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Lang's Compendium of Culinary Nonsense & Trivia
An entertaining collection of fascinating facts, anecdotes, definitions, and other whimsical information on the delectable world of food ranges from folk medicines and aphrodisiac foods to the origin of culinary expressions and stories about renowned gourmets.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 13, 2015
A good book for a wet Sunday afternoon when one doesn’t quite know what one really wants to read. After all, a girl never knows when those dormouse-stuffing and caterpillar-grilling skills are going to come in useful; even if Lang does fail to give essential nutritional information such as the protein content of caterpillars.
I find that I inserted bookmarks mainly in the second half of this book; which may suggest that it took me a while to really latch into what I was reading here. Lang applaudes Vincent Holt’s 1885 book, Why Not Eat Insects? as ‘fascinating’ So, ignoring the Amazon ads, I turned to Scientific American at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/c... – pretty self-explanatory! Personally, when present-hunting for the person who has everything, I’d recommend chocolate-covered scorpions. That and other, um, more unusual ideas can be found at http://edible-shop.com/shop/insectivo... and maybe from other retailers too? Not, I hasten to say, that I’ve ever tried eating insects myself: so please don’t rely on my recommendation; I’m merely following Lang’s example.
His ‘Culinary Compendium’ veered from the interesting, to the curious, yet also too often to the plain boring (as if it had been published in 1880, instead of 1980). George Lang writes with the heart and sole (ha!) of fish baked in cabbage. It’s a real bowl of oddball meatballs of a collection. It was new to me that Parisian artichoke sellers promoted their vegetables as being efficacious aphrodisiacs (I confirmed this at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddri...) !!!
There’s rarely a dull page, what with beer-can aircraft carriers, a swimming pool full of a record-breaking salad, and such surely inessential knowledge to everyday life that the marrow of the leg bones of an elephant, when eaten raw, will make any woman fertile. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Stop and ask yourself, who was it that asked permission of the elephant?
Think of this book as a handy stock of conversation stopper. In the meantime, I’m now off to make extremely conventional nothing-harmed-in-the-making-of pizza dough.
I find that I inserted bookmarks mainly in the second half of this book; which may suggest that it took me a while to really latch into what I was reading here. Lang applaudes Vincent Holt’s 1885 book, Why Not Eat Insects? as ‘fascinating’ So, ignoring the Amazon ads, I turned to Scientific American at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/c... – pretty self-explanatory! Personally, when present-hunting for the person who has everything, I’d recommend chocolate-covered scorpions. That and other, um, more unusual ideas can be found at http://edible-shop.com/shop/insectivo... and maybe from other retailers too? Not, I hasten to say, that I’ve ever tried eating insects myself: so please don’t rely on my recommendation; I’m merely following Lang’s example.
His ‘Culinary Compendium’ veered from the interesting, to the curious, yet also too often to the plain boring (as if it had been published in 1880, instead of 1980). George Lang writes with the heart and sole (ha!) of fish baked in cabbage. It’s a real bowl of oddball meatballs of a collection. It was new to me that Parisian artichoke sellers promoted their vegetables as being efficacious aphrodisiacs (I confirmed this at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddri...) !!!
There’s rarely a dull page, what with beer-can aircraft carriers, a swimming pool full of a record-breaking salad, and such surely inessential knowledge to everyday life that the marrow of the leg bones of an elephant, when eaten raw, will make any woman fertile. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Stop and ask yourself, who was it that asked permission of the elephant?
Think of this book as a handy stock of conversation stopper. In the meantime, I’m now off to make extremely conventional nothing-harmed-in-the-making-of pizza dough.
January 9, 2023
Loses a star for boring me with endless synonyms for "drunk".
June 21, 2024
Not as good as I had hoped.
June 6, 2025
Like a Cliff Notes version of everything Max Miller ever read.
January 18, 2010
Mostly tedious with a few mildly amusing trivia.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews