The Tummy Trilogy: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; Third Helpings

The Tummy Trilogy #1-3

by Calvin Trillin

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 are now available in what Trillin calls The Tummy Trilogy.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Food Writing, Essays, Humor, Travel, Memoir

386 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Calvin (Bud) Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, and novelist. He is best known for his humorous writings about food and eating, but he has also written much serious journalism, comic verse, and several books of fiction.

Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and became a member of Scroll and Key before graduating in 1957; he later served as a trustee of the university. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he worked as a reporter for Time magazine before joining the staff of The New Yorker in 1963. His reporting for The New Yorker on the racial integration of the University of Georgia was published in his first book, An Education in Georgia. He wrote the magazine's "U.S. Journal" series from 1967 to 1982, covering local events both serious and quirky throughout the United States.

Reviews

[Benjamin Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes me wish for so many things.

First, I wish I could live Trillin's life, travelling around the country in search of every region's specialty, and then being paid a large sum of money to do so.

Secondly, it makes me wish I could have experienced food in Kansas City as he did. Many of the landmark restaurants he opines about have long been shuttered, but his words make them feel as though they are still alive and flourishing.

Third, same as the first. Every article makes me hungry, regardless of the contents of my stomach.

[Mark NP · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is plain to see now with a little hindsight just how ahead of the curve Trillin was when writing about American cuisine in the 1970s and 80s. At the time, Trillin lamented how regional food was seen as something shameful. However, he relished in it. No one was doing what he did. Traversing the country, he would find out where the locals ate, what the local specialty was, and who cooked it best. From hamburgers to barbecue to pan fried chicken, Trillin laid the groundwork for a generation of food and travel writers who search for the best local meals they can find and share it with their loyal followers. Guy Fieri and Anthony Bourdain can thank this guy for their careers!

Many of the restaurants he describes are still around. Ironically, Trillin wishes in the book for a computer that can rank and sort his favorite restaurants and pull them up with the push of a button. This was at a time when the term personal computer was an oxymoron because of their cost and size. Talk about foresight! You can check out the list of still standing Tummy Spots I made while reading this book -- https://foursquare.com/monkeypanky/li.... I guess dreams do come true, eh, Calvin?

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. You would think a 386 pages memoir composed of small tales of gastronomic history would take less time than the three months it took me to forcibly finish it, moving back and forth between other novels to avoid the doldrums reading this. Trillin writes well, no doubt. And he is funny, case in point with this quip that seems appropriate in this day and age as it did in 1977 in 'To Market, To Market': “But in England, where concern for dumb animals is so acute that there may well be people willing to picket beekeepers for keeping their bees in crowded conditions….”and as someone well rehearsed in Slavic cooking this made me laugh and nod in agreement: "In Atchinson, you nail the carp to a board and lean it up against the fire until the board starts to get kind of black, " he said. "Then you turn it over and nail it to the other side of the board and lean that next to the fire until that side of the board gets kind of black. Then you eat the board." Funny right? The problem is that Trillin doesn't write solely on food, describing it, he writes about places and locations that are deeply set in time period that a woman in her twenties living Down Under cannot relate to. And such specifics as well. Look, the beginning and end was fine, it was the rich, specific middle courses I really couldn't stomach.

[Rennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I once ordered something called Scalone — despite the fact that it sounded more like the water commissioner of Hoboken then something to eat”

“The English style of Continental cuisine was planted, I’ve always thought, by some anglophobic Frenchman who managed to persuade dozens of perspective restaurant proprietors and country–hotel keepers that the way to prepare sophisticated food was to stuff something with something – almost anything — else, and then to obscure the scene of the crime with a heavy, lava-like sauce.”

If these mesh with your sense of food-related humor, you’ll love this. It was quite the trip. Maybe some of it is a bit outdated, and due to being three little books mushed together there’s definitely some repetition in themes and specific topics (Chinese food obsession, scheming to get the wall menus of Chinatown restaurants translated, a former fat man’s New York pizza restaurant and eating trips to Kansas City, etc.) but it’s very entertaining nonetheless and just fun to read. He has a really clever way with words too, so that sometimes you’d get to the end of a pretty meandering or complex sentence and realize what a hilarious joke it was. Definitely one of the best books looking at what’s special and often overlooked in regional American cuisines.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

396 pages. Donated 2010 May.

Throughout the 1970s, as he wrote the "American Journal" feature for the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin crossed and recrossed the continent. Braver than most transients, he dined in every manner of restaurant, sampling all kinds of native cuisine. He tirelessly sniffed out plain but great joints where the local people loved to eat. "[Don't take me to the:] place you took your parents on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, [but:] the place you went the night you came home after fourteen months in Korea." As a result of such hard-nosed pursuit of good food, this "Walt Whitman of American eats" produced three delightful books chronicling his gastronomic journey, and they have now been collected into The Tummy Trilogy. Trillin is a marvelous writer, affable and witty under any circumstances. He's also an extremely enthusiastic eater, so the books are filled with gourmet brio. Here's a sample from the first book, American Fried:

ME: Anybody who served a milkshake like this in Kansas City would be put in jail.
ALICE: You promised not to indulge in any of that hometown nostalgia while I'm eating. You know it gives me indigestion.

ME: What nostalgia? Facts are facts. The kind of milkshake that I personally consumed six hundred gallons of at the Country Club Daily is an historical fact in three flavors. Your indigestion is not from listening to my fair-minded remarks on the food of a particular American city. It's from drinking that gray skim milk this bandit is trying to pass off as a milkshake.

This book is almost as fun as tucking into a big, delicious meal (but no substitute, of course). Trillin's family, long-suffering in the face of a father's obsessions, is as winning as always. If you're a dedicated fan--or just dipping into the writing of this good-natured maestro--The Tummy Trilogy is a wonderful book. --Michael Gerber

All I can say is yum yum, and then collapse laughing.

[Aleeda]

Written in the 1970s, Calvin Trillin's book is a little dated, but foodies will still enjoy his food adventures. The book is a series of self-contained essays, reminiscent of Jeffrey Steingarten. Mr. Trillin is obsessive about food the way many people are about a favorite sport. I have read some of Trillin's pieces in the New Yorker, but his food writing is another side, just discovered by me. His unbridled passion for food, and people who love food is like witnessing a kid in a candy store. One favorite story I can relate to is his bringing a feast on board the airline, which I did frequently before the TSA started confiscating stuff willy-nilly. Being a New Yorker, I have eaten in several of the places he mentions, (Goldberg's Pizza, Balducci's, The Box Tree, Lutece) though years later and like the insight/retrospective he offers about what these eateries might have been like many years ago. I will seek out the book that lists 1,000 Chinese restaurants, though I am sure many of them are gone. What also shines through, even though he is seemingly having fun at her expense, is his love of friends and especially his wife, Alice.

What



Wh

[Mary-Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Food and humour are a great combination! The second of the three books in this compilation was the best because it included stories of his family and less description. It was very down-to-earth.

Description:
This is a collection of humourous essays on American food, told by a self-styled expert described by his daughters as someone who "pigs out." Trillin leaves no stone unturned in his search for great American food and has developed a series of hilarious theories and justifications to use in his often rushed but serious endeavour to find the best meals. His first person style and the family and friends he introduces along the way are delightful. Reading all three books in a row may be a bit of overdose, and if you're going for just one, try "Alice, Let's Eat"! Don't expect sophisticated food reviews. Everyone Trillin describes is basically a glutton. His reviews are just based on personal taste!

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trillin is manic in his pursuit of food and glorious in his elevation of everyday dining. I can see how these columns would have horrified, amused and informed readers in the 70s and 80s, who were at the time, embracing haute cuisine. Trillin's life seems an impossible sequence of eating experiences, and an impossible amount of food for one person. He'd traveled all over the country seeking the best of that locale, returning as often as possible to Kansas City for barbeque. His wife, Alice, must be a saint.

In retrospect, I think The Tummy Trilogy was a little much to read at one sitting. Just like a good meal, I'd rathered to have enjoyed it leisurely, a chapter at a time, appreciating how uniquely each food custom, region and restaurant resonated. I would have liked an geographic and restaurant index to the trilogy.

[Kate Woods Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing throughout and laugh-out-loud funny in selected spots, The Tummy Trilogy, a compilation of three Calvin Trillin collections, is not a book to be enjoyed in one big helping. The similar rhythms and familiar jokes found in these essays and magazine articles tend to blend into a soupy bog after a time, but taken as separate spoonfuls, they are just fine.

I read this book as part of a discussion group; otherwise, I probably wouldn't have made it all the way through.

Some of the dated references provided extra amusement. (Imagine! someone compiled information about over 400 restaurants and put it into a database on a computer with a modem. But the more serious themes (local food, authentic regional cooking, animal cruelty) still resonate.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are by now a bit older than a lot of contemporary food writing (I'm thinking of people like Ruth Reichl, who mingles memoir and food). Trillin doesn't have quite the same capacity for describing the flavors, aromas, and textures of the food (although I wonder if he would say that he's mainly interested in celebrating "street food," and that an obsession with the sensory perceptions is a feature of elite food writing). In any case, these were fun to read, although reading all 3 in the same volume got a little monotonous by the end of it.

[srk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never knew that I wanted so very badly to go to Kansas City until I read Calvin Trillin's homage to its barbecue. Trillin's love for food--and the people who make, serve and eat it--is infectious (though perhaps that's not the greatest word to use when we're talking about eating). Trillin manages to find not only the best food in the oddest place, but also to throw himself into the task with an enthusiasm that borders on hilarious gluttony.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm bummed, I had read such great things about his writing and I just couldn't get into this at all. I think Ruth Reichl spoiled me as far as food writers go:) This book is actually 3-in-one, and I read the first, American Fried, and half of Alice, Let's Eat, but that's as far as I got. He's supposedly considered one of America's wittiest food writers, but like I said, RR is much, much funnier. He has his moments, but they weren't enough or often enough to keep my interest.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book is entertaining most of the time, it is redundant. Nice book to have to read snippets between something else. All at once is too much talk about fried chicken and BBQ. There are some funny lines, though. For example, he talks about eating standing up at a certain dive restaurant, and says something like, "When I eat standing up anywhere but home, I miss the cool breeze from the refrigerator."

[Carolyn Fitzpatrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the language is dated, which is not surprising since these essays written in the 70s and 80s. If you are a food enthusiast the essays will hold up well, but if restaurants and state fairs don't interest you then this will be a dull read. Many essays focus on cities across the US, but it is rare to find one that doesn't work in a Kansas City reference somewhere. This brought up a lot of memories of Strouds, Zardas, and of course Winsteads.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are three of the most hilarious books I have ever read. They are non-fiction- Trillin's adventures alone, along with Alice (may her memory be for a blessing) and the girls- as he, a Clean Plate Ranger, travels the United States and the world looking for a decent meal, a more-than-decent meal or an indecently decadent meal.

[Ke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book collects several humorous and charming essays that are mostly about hearty food. I loved how Trillin made political and historical references.

Maybe the only thing I didn't like about the book was that the essays are a bit dated. For example, one essay is about Hong Kong even before it "returned" to China.

[Edgar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. The author is self-deprecating and droll, but writes about how much he loves eating and tasting and exploring and just living life. Here's an example of someone who just inhales everything the world has to offer - especially if it was tasty. Trillin is a national literary and gustatory treasure. Highly recommend.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Two of the three books were ones that I had previously read, but they contain two of my favorite essays. One is about why we should have spaghetti carbonara instead of turkey as our traditional Thanksgiving feast. The other is about the island of Santo Prosciutto in the Italian Virgin Islands, Trillin's favorite place for a Caribbean vacation. He has his priorities right.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's supposed to be his 3 books put into 1 big one. there's really nothing all that different from 1 book to the next, and each chapter really doesn't have much to do with the next. it's really just short stories and not edited very well either...

[Happyreader]

I've enjoyed his New Yorker food essays for the past twenty years. He makes you want to fly down to Ecuador to eat fanesca at Easter or jet over to Singapore to chow your way through all the food stalls. So I'm sure I'll love this book of his earlier food essays when I get to it.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit repetitive in its entirety. I prefer Alice Let's Eat standing on its own,I think. But Trillan's love of food, Alice, and adventure is endearing and he still manages to make me laugh on every page.

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book for my dad as a birthday present. As for it being redundant--it's a collection of his columns, and that redundancy keeps it coherent. It's a series of inside jokes between him and us. Great plane reading.

[Tyler McGaughey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calvin Trillin is all about barbecue, the glories of one's hometown restaurants, and giving "health food" a bad name, (plus he writes with a wit comparable to James Thurber) and all of that is just fine with me.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know if I liked the first parts better than the later ones, or whether Trillin's repeated jokes and anecdotes just got old. I enjoyed it at first, but I think perhaps this is not a book you should read all in one go, because I got sick of it pretty quickly.

[Kitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, hilarious, mouth-watering, and tender. I'm in love with Trillin. I spread reading this book out over about four months so as to cherish each bit of it, and now all I have left is "About Alice," which is so short I might only be able to read a page a week.

[L Greyfort · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Alice, Let's Eat" was probably my first foray into food-travelogue, and I was hooked from page one. Trillin's humor, as well as his very amiable depiction of his relationship with his wife Alice, and two daughters, make the 3 books in this combined volume an endless joy.

[Ben Kruskal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and charming writing about food-NOT as a producer/cook (No recipes here) but as an avid consumer. Trillin is interested in humble good food, not the elevated world of fancy French restaurants like La Casa de la Maison House.

[Bayneeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, it must be clear by now that I'm a fan. Especially a fan of these food/travelogue tales. I'll admit to a nostalgic fondness for these, but Mr. Trillin has a wonderful passion for food, and Alice always tries to rein him in.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly fun essays on food passion, in pursuit of pure enjoyment vs. gourmande snobbery. My kind of guy, my kind of enthusiasm. Essays are a perfect length to ensure consistent chuckling on the commute home.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish this book not because it was a hassle but because it was so much fun I didn't want to rush it, and it was so delicious and descriptive that I could only read so much of it at one time.