Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys

by Lucinda Scala Quinn

Recipes and strategies for bringing back the family meal

When first published in 2009, Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry met with critical acclaim, but it wasn't just the media that fell hard for this book--it was mothers everywhere, who embraced her message to bring back the family meal and loved the ease, simplicity, and robust goodness of her recipes. The book went on to launch a TV series (Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn) and now, with over 65,000 copies sold, it is available in a paperback edition that will reach a yet wider audience.
In Mad Hungry, Scala Quinn shares winning strategies for how to sate the seemingly insatiable, trade food for talk, and get men to manage in the kitchen. She provides recipes for single-skillet meals, dinners that yield fabulous leftovers, and dishes that are a cinch to stretch for extra guests. Her grab-and-run breakfasts will help kids start the day right, and her healthful drinks make it easier for guys to say no to soda. Along with her techniques that help make homemade meals second nature, nourishing both diner and cook, Scala Quinn offers empowering advice on how to feed one's family's spirits as well as fill their bellies.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference, Parenting, Family

267 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2009

Reviews

[Aniesa]

The recipes in this book are good, and the boys loved them, so much so that I bought a copy (I checked it out at the library first). True, the idea that it is for men and boys is kind of gimmicky, but I have boys, it was tasty, so whatever. However, last night as I paged through the last sections I came across the recipe for "Fat Girl Red Rice," named so because he author couldn't stop eating it. Now, many times through this book the author says to have lots of extra rice, pasta, etc to fill hungry boy tummies, but god forbid a woman eat them, and with relish (!), because that would make her a "Fat Girl." I was saddened that this recipe made it through the editing process and into a book as if it were something funny to be giggled at, when it fact it is a reflection of the deeply flawed ways in which our society treats our boys and girls differently when it comes to food and eating with pleasure. So I will tear this disappointing recipe out of my copy when it arrives and continue to teach the people in my life to cook with joy and eat with gusto, both boys and girls, men and women alike.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this was a good comfort-food cookbook. The recipes vary in difficulty and require various techniques, but there's a pretty solid range in here. The cooking times are accurate, though there's no nutritional information.

The thing that grated on me after a while was the framing device - that this was how men and boys wanted to eat. After a while it got kind of tired, and I almost found it sexist - who says men don't like fancy granola? Or always eat big breakfasts? Or that women don't like to eat like that? What about men who are vegans?

If it had been presented as a comfort food book, I wouldn't have many complaints. Most of these recipes aren't new to me and I'm happy with the versions I have, but this would make a great first apartment gift - as long as you don't mind the sexist tone.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my new year's resolutions is to cook (not bake) more for my boys - things that they will actually eat. So far so good! Plenty of good & fairly easy recipes including plenty of quick & easy recipes that can be made from ingredients already stocked in your pantry.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The whole feeding men and boys part is stupid since I eat more than the man and boy in my house, but the recipes are great.

[oohlalabooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great tips and recipes!

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The recipes were hit or miss, but the sexism 🙄

I was surprised this wasn’t written in the 60s or 70s.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great cookbook no matter what gender you are cooking for. I love Lucinda Scala Quinn and her @madhungry blog, Instagram feed and stories, all-pie Thanksgiving ethos, infomercial products (including her spurtles, which Kristy surprised me with!!!), etc.

I don’t buy into all of her philosophizing here about what men and boys like to eat because generalizations are dumb, but I get that she’s drawing from her own life – growing up with all brothers and then marrying a man and having three sons. I do think this offers a lot of helpful information and tips for feeding families with lots of hungry mouths.

For my life, I appreciate that it offers recipes from a variety of cuisines and for basics like cream cheese pastry, vinaigrette, pancakes, pie dough, etc. She definitely specializes in Italian food, though, and her pasta dishes were my faves of all the recipes I tried. Especially the carbonara. 🤤 And the Italian vinegar-glossed chicken with rosemary. 👌 I’ll return to this in the fall, because she has a lot of braises and dishes with long oven cooks.

[Mrs. · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was hard to rate this book, but in the end, all ratings come from the reviewer's perspective. If you don't have many cookbooks, or you haven't been cooking a long time, this book might be 3 or 4 stars for you. If, like me, you have over 1000 cookbooks and have been cooking since dirt was invented, there really is not much new or interesting here, except the premise.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being filled with a lot of gender-binary nonsense (not unexpectedly) and "natural medicine" asides (very unexpectedly), there were plenty of good tips and tricks in here for cooking for groups or large families. I marked a few recipes to try, so it wasn't all bad!

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dear brothers bought this slightly pointed gift for me two years ago. To my surprise, the practical and unique assortment of recipes are all keepers. So thank you, self serving brothers who appreciate good food.
4.5 stars

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

308:2022
While the 'feeding your men' premise is meh, that's a good handful of recipes in here I'm curious enough to try. IDK if I'll be buying my own copy yet, but I'll keep this library loan around for awhile.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this cookbook! Healthy, natural meals with easy to follow instructions to provide meals for your family.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s my verdict for Mad Hungry: Feeding Men & Boys by Lucinda Scala Quinn.

To Read: Yes. There are definitely some helpful hints for feeding always hungry boys, which is something I struggle with. She also tells some nice stories about cooking with her sons. What she doesn’t talk about a lot in the book is how to feed men and boys on a budget, and I think many of us struggle with feeding our kids lots of healthy food without breaking the bank. I do have one suggestion for that–lots of eggs!

To Look At: Not particularly. The photography in the book is just OK, and there aren’t photos for every recipe. Also, black and white photos in a cookbook are not my favorite!

To Cook From: Yes. Lucinda Scala Quinn was a contributor to the magazine Everyday Food and host of the PBS show of the same name. That was a great magazine, full of quick, family-friendly recipes. This cookbook has similar recipes. In addition to the Italian Pressed Sandwiches, I have made Stir-Fried Chinese Chicken & Peanuts and Busy-Day Chocolate Cake.

Overall, I would say this cookbook has some good basic recipes, but it’s not essential. I like the concept of the book, because it can be really hard to keep growing children (boys or girls) fed without going crazy and broke. But you can find way more on the Internet about feeding families on a budget. I do think if you have sons you will relate to her stories, and you will definitely pick up a few tips and tricks.

[JC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this thinking it would be a humorous look at feeding guys, and while there were a few funny moments, I was mistaken as to what it was. In reality this is a cookbook, mainly a cookbook that gives first time cooking mothers the instructions and recipes to feed their family. Decent.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alot of recipes and little tid bits of information on food like toritialls and its many uses. Simple reminders to preplan food, teach your children in pieces about food so they are self sufficiant and enjoy the food.

Feed them fast and make them full!

[JoAnn Yerem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read whether you have menfolk to feed or not.

[Caleb Moran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good recipes

[Douglas Lord · Rating 5 out of 5]

his really seems to be a cook book—something that dudes who cook will actually pick up and want to read. Quinn is an Italian mom who knows the emotional connection between food and men (her husband and three boys)—that it’s one step from breastfeeding in terms of comfort, succor, love. The bond is as strong as blood, as Red Sox Nation, as the good kind of family. And show me the man who doesn’t love being cooked for and I’ll show you the president of the local chapter of Psychopaths for a Stronger America. The recipes are great, but really you’ll just want to go over to her house to eat. From steak pizzaiola to chicken and dumplings to cream cheese pastry to German apple cake, there is simple and complicated, fussy and peasant/plebian, tasty and…tastier. Her kids are lucky, maybe even blessed. If you grew up like I did—thinking Spaghetti-O sandwiches were boss—this will be a revelation. At heart this is a book about being a caring maternal/paternal type who really enjoys all of the rewards that come from putting good food into the people they love. The people on the other end of these recipes get nourished. VERDICT This is more a book about nurturing than about cooking. It shows that it’s good for your soul to nurture others, and Quinn is a woman who is filled with love. Or with great chicken parm, there really isn’t any difference. Try it. Change your life. Or hell, cook for your local Hungry Dude and change his life.
Find this review and others at Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal here. Copyright Library Journal.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing cover and pictures :] I loved seeing the pictures of her family; her husband and her three boys. It was like a personal family cookbook. The recipes are good and easy to make. The instructions were clear and the results were usually successful. Yet, most of the recipes had too many ingredients so I wouldn't recommend this book if your looking for recipes with low costs :/

One of my favorite recipe in the book is the Velvety Chocolate Pudding. My sister and brother loves it! They ask me to make it for them again and again ! One recipe that really disappointed me was the Flaky Butter Biscuits. My first batch tasted HORRIBLE. I remade it again thinking that I did something wrong, but nope.

Another reason I liked this book was the variety of different kind of foods she put into it. Mexican, Italian, southern, and even Korean!

I gave this cookbook a three star because the book was not inspirational to me. It was just a cookbook with a recipes in it. Books like Sherry yard's "Desserts by the Yard" and Elizabeth Faulker's "Dessert Demolition" have something that you can LEARN from it. Something that changed your view on the making of food or something like that.

[Poiema · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure how I came across this cookbook, but I found it at a time I was setting personal goals for improving my kitchen skills. I wanted to hone my ability to CONSISTENTLY turn out a great pot roast, a perfect fried egg, succulent ribs, etc. I wanted a repertoire of dishes to play by memory. This book not only provided the know how, but also great inspiration. Here's an example:
"Create a legacy. Serve old-fashioned--meaning simple-- meals, the kind moms everywhere have always made. . . Anyone who grew up with someone cooking regular meals remembers those dishes as if they were eaten yesterday."

Recipes I've tried and loved include grilled baby back ribs, flat roast chicken, oven fried bacon (life changing!), perfect fried eggs. banana bread, caramelized cauliflower. I know, I know--- sounds so plain! But it is REAL food at its best prepared with the goal of creating wholesome and loving habits. I highly recommend this book.

[Emily Von pfahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find that cookbooks tend to be either a good read or filled with good recipes. This one appears to be both. It certainly was a good read and the recipes sound fantastic. I also love when a cookbook includes colored photographs of the majority of recipes so that you know what you are trying to achieve. She does most things from scratch so this isn't a cookbook for the time crunched or the novice, but none of the recipes require unusual equipment and very few require specialty ingredients. The majority of recipes make a lot of food, but considering my husband can (and does) decimate our food stores on a routine basis, this shouldn't be an issue for our family of two. However, if your family is not composed of voracious craws then you might want to cut some in half.

[Nicholas & Megan Clinch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was handed down from my MIL to my sister to me, and I've used it off & on for family gathering meal prep, esp for winter comfort food & letting older nieces/nephews help with breakfast. When our 6 yr old son pulled it down & began calling out ingredients one Saturday am, his 5 yr old brother immediately began pulling out measuring cups, whisks, bowls & excitedly asking me to let them mix pancakes while I made coffee. They have read aloud the anecdotes about boys in the kitchen, knowing that I struggle to let them "help" cook; but if I don't teach them to care about food prep, they won't know how to be thankful & flexible. "I feed you because I love you" is a theme borrowed from Auntie M.

[Catherine Woodman]

I think i could write this book--and write it better, so I have alot of quibbles with the book, but overall it is a sound approach to feeding boys-to-men, and I think has some good tps on that--lunch and dinner are much superior to the breakfast chapter, and she is a little optimistic about the green vegetables, in my experience, but a good showing all in all. The photography throughout is stunning, and I wish there were more of it-there are a number of recipes that I would have liked to see what they should look like--she has a lot of Asian noodle dishes that in my experience are big hits, and i would like to make more of.

[Fincalian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the recipes in this book, but there is a lot of emphasis on using organic ingredients, something I don't always agree with.

I enjoyed this cookbook. And since Goodreads deleted my review, I will only retype some of it.

Basically, this cookbook is not entirely for beginners. It lacks some basic instructions that people who have been cooking for a long time will know readily. This meant I had some trial and error approaches to cooking these recipes since I am by no means experienced at cooking.

The coffee cake recipe, quick friend chicken, and sweet potato wedges are great.

[Cara Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in love. I'm by no means any of the things that this woman is, but she has filled me with much needed advice and ideas for the future in front of me. I'm in love with the wit and the recipes were all beautiful. As was the book itself--marvelous. I loved the colors. I loved the all together approach that it held. I think I will most definitely be checking out more of her cook books. I quite enjoyed the experience that came with this. I'm no cook, but the way these recipes were presented seemed so easy. I think I could be a culinary wizard. I feel like I could take on an entire army of "mad hungry" men!

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yummy recipes, but what I really loved were the headings under each recipe! Lucinda knows her hungry men and boys- and so do I! I made the creamed spinach (not perfectly- I forgot to stem the spinach first), and I thought it was divine. My boys tried it and the oldest said, "well.... the sauce is good." Ha ha... and then later in the week, "Can you make green eggs? What??? You WASTED all the spinach on that... stuff!" Maybe I'll stick to pureeing the vegetables for now.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent guide to portion sizes, ideas of what to cook for men/boys that will satisfy their hunger needs, getting them interested about cooking and excited about what they eat. I liked that she created the book based off feeding her three sons and husband, and the book included personal quotes/recipes from her family, as well as photos. The food did look delicious, esp dishes like the Pumpkin Flan, Aunt Patty's Coffee Cake and Flat Roasted Chicken, just to name a few.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While boys are normally garbage disposals in my family when it comes to food this book shows you how to jazz up some of your everyday recipes. While I found a number of successful recipes I don't like cookbooks that put stupid recipes in them for example putting scrabbled eggs on a bagel and calling it a recipe. However, this book contained well written easy recipes that I looked forward to trying myself.

[Heidi Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that I haven't made a recipe out of this book – because I'm just too tired to cook much right now. However, I loved reading her anecdotes (although some made me roll my eyes) and I think there are enough good-looking staples and interesting dishes that I'd like to buy this. Pumpkin Flan on pg. 247 looks especially promising. ;)

I picked this up thinking there would be easy, large, filling meals inside. There's some of that, but there's a lot more too.

[April Driver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading this cookbook through like a novel for the second time. I love the style of the book. Quinn offers great recipes with side notes and personal stories. This book will inspire you to cook for your family while at the same time educating and entertaining. I love this fun yet simple guide for cooking basic, healthy food for a family.