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Feeding a Yen: Savoring Local Specialties, from Kansas City to Cuzco
Calvin Trillin has never been a champion of the “continental cuisine” palaces he used to refer to as La Maison de la Casa House. What he treasures is the superb local specialty. And he will go anywhere to find one. As it happens, some of his favorite dishes can be found only in their place of origin. Join Trillin on his charming, funny culinary adventures as he samples fried marlin in Barbados and the barbecue of his boyhood in Kansas City. Travel alongside as he hunts for the authentic fish taco, and participates in a “boudin blitzkrieg” in the part of Louisiana where people are accustomed to buying these spicy sausages and polishing them off in the parking lot. (“Cajun boudin not only doesn’t get outside the state, it usually doesn’t even get home.”) In New York, Trillin even tries to use a glorious local specialty, the bagel, to lure his daughters back from California. Feeding a Yen is a delightful reminder of why New York magazine called Calvin Trillin “our funniest food writer.”
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
33 people are currently reading
533 people want to read
About the author
Calvin Trillin
87 books278 followersCalvin (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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
May 3, 2009
There are a few things I’ve learned about Calvin Trillin. Foremost, he is a very good reporter; he works for New Yorker magazine, and his descriptions here are detailed yet succinct. Obviously, he is also a person supremely obsessed with food, as Feeding a Yen has him trotting the globe in a mad search for the local rarities he loves. He sometimes reveals a congenial, slightly dry sense of humor. Finally—and I only got this by sensing what was conspicuously missing from Feeding a Yen–he doesn’t have a lot of trouble or conflict in his life, or he doesn’t like to talk about it.
There is nothing wrong with that last aspect. Like I said, his writing is very descriptive, and his humor is light and pleasant. And while I was reading the book, I enjoyed it like I would, say, a nice walk or a good nap or a friendly dog; it was congenial but not deeply affecting. So, here’s where I have to admit, when I read about food (and gustatory reading is a minor hobby of mine), I like to also experience the conflicts or conundrums around the food. I like to know the human stories behind what we’re putting in our mouths.
Example: In Julie and Julia, a young woman obsessed with Julia Child decides to take up a whacky hobby and cook all 500+ recipes in Childs’ The Art of French Cooking. The young woman does this to cover up the facts that her marriage hits rough spots, she hates her job, and she and her husband aren’t sure they want kids. That conflict is interesting, and it adds to the writings about Childs’ recipes.
Another example: in Alice Waters & Chez Panisse, the famous restaurant struggles through for decades, accidentally finding its niche amidst constant bed-hopping, ego stroking and grandiose shopping that ignores that the establishment is constantly teetering near bankruptcy. Alice Waters is a sometimes shy, sometimes powerful enigma who gets a lot of international credit for work that many, many other people help her with. These paradoxes are fascinating; they kept me reading.
Trillin misses a daughter who lives on the opposite coast but not so much that he spends times writing about it. Why did she move so far from her family? How did that make him feel? Is he resigned? Do he and his wife feel differently about their daughter’s move? We don’t know.
Trillin ends up with high cholesterol. How does this affect him as a food writer, a person obsessed with this stuff? How does he manage? Does his family have a history of this, that combined with Trillin’s love of food, seems like a particularly cruel trick of Fate? We never find out.
Trillin goes to Ecuador and Italy and France and New Orleans and the Caribbean, among other places, in search of his fixations. Each of these places has interesting food (which Trillin writes about lovingly), but there is also a human struggle behind the food, which we never explore. We don’t know how poverty affects the cuisine in poorer countries. We don’t know how these foreign chefs came to cook their famous faire. We meet the people who prep the feasts, but we only touch the surface of their stories.
Again, Trillin is a very capable writer, and maybe he is simply aiming for just a pleasant, engaging read about his strange food yens based on his globetrotting. So Feeding a Yen was a nice and brief snack, but it just wasn’t a complex or completely satisfying meal. Trillin is talented enough, I wanted more.
There is nothing wrong with that last aspect. Like I said, his writing is very descriptive, and his humor is light and pleasant. And while I was reading the book, I enjoyed it like I would, say, a nice walk or a good nap or a friendly dog; it was congenial but not deeply affecting. So, here’s where I have to admit, when I read about food (and gustatory reading is a minor hobby of mine), I like to also experience the conflicts or conundrums around the food. I like to know the human stories behind what we’re putting in our mouths.
Example: In Julie and Julia, a young woman obsessed with Julia Child decides to take up a whacky hobby and cook all 500+ recipes in Childs’ The Art of French Cooking. The young woman does this to cover up the facts that her marriage hits rough spots, she hates her job, and she and her husband aren’t sure they want kids. That conflict is interesting, and it adds to the writings about Childs’ recipes.
Another example: in Alice Waters & Chez Panisse, the famous restaurant struggles through for decades, accidentally finding its niche amidst constant bed-hopping, ego stroking and grandiose shopping that ignores that the establishment is constantly teetering near bankruptcy. Alice Waters is a sometimes shy, sometimes powerful enigma who gets a lot of international credit for work that many, many other people help her with. These paradoxes are fascinating; they kept me reading.
Trillin misses a daughter who lives on the opposite coast but not so much that he spends times writing about it. Why did she move so far from her family? How did that make him feel? Is he resigned? Do he and his wife feel differently about their daughter’s move? We don’t know.
Trillin ends up with high cholesterol. How does this affect him as a food writer, a person obsessed with this stuff? How does he manage? Does his family have a history of this, that combined with Trillin’s love of food, seems like a particularly cruel trick of Fate? We never find out.
Trillin goes to Ecuador and Italy and France and New Orleans and the Caribbean, among other places, in search of his fixations. Each of these places has interesting food (which Trillin writes about lovingly), but there is also a human struggle behind the food, which we never explore. We don’t know how poverty affects the cuisine in poorer countries. We don’t know how these foreign chefs came to cook their famous faire. We meet the people who prep the feasts, but we only touch the surface of their stories.
Again, Trillin is a very capable writer, and maybe he is simply aiming for just a pleasant, engaging read about his strange food yens based on his globetrotting. So Feeding a Yen was a nice and brief snack, but it just wasn’t a complex or completely satisfying meal. Trillin is talented enough, I wanted more.
May 24, 2008
Calvin Trillin's food writing ranks right up there with the late Laurie Colwin, Jane and Michael Stern and Jeffrey Steingarten. It's food as experience, quest, pilgrimage, sacrament, with a lower-case "s." And, it's a salute to Food Done Right (Done Write?). We've all had memorable dishes (muffuletta from the Central Grocery in New Orleans comes to mind, as do J.K.'s baby backribs on the Outer Banks and perfectly cooked beef with fried beet and sweet potato chips from Aujour'dui in 1989 in Boston, where I also found an excellent chocolate-chip croissant at a bakery in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Two summers ago, my son and I feasted on bialys and Cuban sandwiches in New York and made our own pilgrimage, to a hot-dog place favored by Steingarten.) And, that sort of activity and the people who do it are the whole point of Trillin's book. If you'd drive to the Fan in Richmond for some Sally Bell's potato salad and cheese wafers, even if you live miles away, this book is for you. If you remember Jimmy Sneed's silky crabcake or tempura softshell fondly, and followed him from restaurant to restaurant, read this book. And, if you know of any other local specialties, give me a holler. I'm available to ride shotgun.
November 21, 2014
A delightful read, with roughly one laugh-out-loud moment per chapter, and each chapter is one adventure in fine eats. Trillin is a droll man who skates through the world of epicures with a slightly jaundiced eye and a more than a few bon mots. He’s appropriately skeptical, but also very reasonable. What’s good is good, and he cuts through the hype and blather with a sharpened pen. He does have a few things he loves to go on about (boudin, the Cajun sausage, is a repeating theme, as is take-out Chinese food in unexpected places), but mostly, he’s the guy you want on your road trip to far away spots. A fun, light read; perfect for reading on a plane.
January 13, 2017
While I liked his writing style and humor, this is not a book I would search out to read. It is like a series of columns, which I was later told it is. Good reading about food
August 15, 2023
Makes me hungry
December 17, 2021
I've always liked Calvin Trillin's writings in The New Yorker so thought I'd try this. I am the opposite of an adventurous eater, but I like reading about things other people eat that I will never try. I thought it was an interesting read.
July 1, 2013
I enjoy reading Calvin Trillin. When he writes about his now-late wife, Alice, it's some of the most touching prose I've ever read. His descriptions of food and his wonderful willingness to throw himself into a search for the best fish taco is fabulous. But I agree with another reviewer who commented that Trillin seems to withhold too much of himself in these essays. He comments lightly on trying to convince his daughters to return from California to New York, but never really delves more deeply into his feelings or his relationship with them. While it's certainly his right to maintain his privacy and that of his family, it does make the food writing sufficiently less personal and thus ultimately more forgettable.
But as someone who has moved from New York to mid-Missouri (and not even to Kansas City where at least a variety of great BBQ would be available), I miss the food options that Trillin has so readily at his fingertips. I too used to have more delivery options than I currently have restaurant options within an hour's drive. I admit to a bit of envy at the life reflected in Trillin's ability to gather up a few appropriate friends for a jaunt to South America to look for specific foods.
All that said, the book was comforting and entertaining and light. Recommended to foodies who have their own memories of fabulous meals eaten.
But as someone who has moved from New York to mid-Missouri (and not even to Kansas City where at least a variety of great BBQ would be available), I miss the food options that Trillin has so readily at his fingertips. I too used to have more delivery options than I currently have restaurant options within an hour's drive. I admit to a bit of envy at the life reflected in Trillin's ability to gather up a few appropriate friends for a jaunt to South America to look for specific foods.
All that said, the book was comforting and entertaining and light. Recommended to foodies who have their own memories of fabulous meals eaten.
May 1, 2010
There's probably more to Trillin than self-important globe-trotting gluttony. Unfortunately that's what this collection showcases. It's not that he doesn't write authoritatively and respectfully about a whirlwind of food cultures. Everything he says about Ecuadorian cuisine (fanesca!! chifas!!) rings true, for example. It's more his tone, which he thinks is delightfully witty (he's forever quoting himself) but which reeks of entitlement and appropriation. I mean, clearly the people of the world exist just for the honor of feeding him untouched regional cuisine - bonus points if they immigrate and deliver in Manhattan.
Trillin's at his best when he humbles himself to write about someone else's tastebuds and when he takes on the truly local - I loved the chapter on "alternative eaters" in New York like chowhound.com founder Jim Leff.
Trillin's at his best when he humbles himself to write about someone else's tastebuds and when he takes on the truly local - I loved the chapter on "alternative eaters" in New York like chowhound.com founder Jim Leff.
April 5, 2016
I absolutely love food and travel memoirs. I read an excellent review of the book and so I started to read it. First let me say that the book is a collection of previously published essays. Some were brilliant and funny, like the chapter on Northern New Mexico cuisine and the chapter on Shipsins in New York. But the rest were somewhat uneven. There was no attempt to tie the chapters together except for the beginning chapter and the end, where Trillin tries to convince his daughter, now living in San Francisco, to come home to NYC, because the food scene is better. I wish I had liked this more than I did.
October 5, 2007
"Feeding a Yen" is strikingly similar, in many ways, to Jeffrey Steingarten's book "The Man Who Ate Everything." Yet while Trillin shares Steingarten's obsession in food, as well as his humor, he lacks Steingarten's meticulousness and focus. As such, while "The Man Who Ate Everything" provides the reader with a fair amount of practical knowledge, Trillin's book tends to veer of into rambling personal narratives that, ultimately, have very little to do with the foods in question. It's humorous at first, but somewhat wearing by the end.
May 21, 2009
I am a Calvin Trillin fan, particularly of his nonficiton. He sometimes travels the world in search of favorite foods. I think his
The Tummy Trilogy: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat;
and
Third Helpings
are even better. But I was much younger when I read them; they have a very warm place in my heart.
I confess to a fantasy of being married to Trillin. Then I read About Alice , his loving memoir of his wife--who was beautiful, intelligent, and close to perfect. I was forced to accept that even in my own fantasy I could never live up to her.
I confess to a fantasy of being married to Trillin. Then I read About Alice , his loving memoir of his wife--who was beautiful, intelligent, and close to perfect. I was forced to accept that even in my own fantasy I could never live up to her.
February 20, 2010
Calvin Trillin is this as a rail, yet seems to eat a dozen or so meals a day. He must be like one of those hot dog eating champions. This is a little love letter to local cuisines: fish tacos in San Diego, ceviche in Ecuador, BBQ in Kansas City. Trillin also gets in some digs at the online "foodie" community, particularly Chowhound. Nothing Earth shattering here, but fun anecdotes from a guy you'd like to share a meal with.
June 3, 2010
I love to read Calvin Trillin on the supbject of food. He makes me think that I would be willing to taste anything. (Which is a lie, but who cares)
Feeding the Yen is about the foods that never appear outside the local market--they usually don't travel well or the appeal is limited or the production is small. But sometimes the taste lingers in the memory and you have to go back to try it again--and again.
Task 30.5D Virtual Block Party--Food-related nonfiction noncookbook
Feeding the Yen is about the foods that never appear outside the local market--they usually don't travel well or the appeal is limited or the production is small. But sometimes the taste lingers in the memory and you have to go back to try it again--and again.
Task 30.5D Virtual Block Party--Food-related nonfiction noncookbook
February 14, 2008
Trillin is a very funny writer--on food, politics, and myriad other subjects. Here he travels the world in search of local deliciousness. Of personal interest to me--his amusing, charming (and failed) attempts to lure his daughter back home to New York by claiming that the food is so much better than her new hometown...San Francisco.
March 19, 2008
This book encapsulates why I travel. Hell, it's why I get up in the morning! From supermarkets shelves in Hong Kong to pastry shops in Queens to guinea pig in Peru (which I indeed did order and eat; it tasted like bad dark meat chicken). Hooray for Calvin Trillin (and his editors) for putting so many of these wander/hungerlust stories together in one book. I want seconds!
February 10, 2009
I wanted to like this book. the food topics were excellent. I just couldn't get into Trillin's style of writing. I enjoy food and reading about food and learning about food and history of food and culture. The food writing was good, but I really wasn't into Trillin's stories about his family. Usually I enjoy reading about such things, but not this style, not this... family.
July 9, 2008
Trillin collects a series of articles/essays in which he discusses local food specialties that he craves and the lengths he will go to get them (traveling to Ecuador for cerviche, for example). Very funny. Laugh out loud funny, in fact, and Trillin is as interested i nthe people involved as he is in the food. Well, almost as interested in the people.
Read
July 15, 2016When Calvin Trillin started writing his essays on vernacular foodways, the big irony was that a hyper-sophisticated New Yorker with access to the best cuisine would instead choose BBQ, bagels, and boudin as his favorite foods. Now, the challenge seems to be that there are fewer baffling but authentic new food experiences to discover.
September 17, 2009
This book contains fourteen of the humorous essays about food that have made Trillin famous. Ranging from the origins of the fish taco to the problems of tracking an elusive pumpernickel bagel, the essays cover local specialties around the world. Trillin also touches on the question of whether, in a blindfold test, experts can really tell red from white wine.
August 18, 2010
I will always love Calvin Trillin unconditionally, but this wasn't his best collection -- a little one-note and blah. It's awesome that he gets so focused on these random individual dishes, but hearing about them one after another after another gets old, and what this book really did is remind me that I'd like to go back and finish his Tummy Trilogy.
April 18, 2011
I always find that the problem with reading a book of essays is that several are good, several are OK and one or two are total clunkers. I loved the piece on New Mexican cuisine and pimientos de padron, but really struggled through the last chapter. A few of the other essays were forgettable. I'd tell you which, but I can't remember them.
May 2, 2007
After reading Feeding a Yen, I finally got around to trying fish tacos. Which I didn't like that much. BUT, it was still great fun to read Trillin's essay about them. He's just a really fun writer.
May 29, 2007
Trillin's witty collection of essays about sampling local food that he can't easily get in Manhattan. He seeks out such culinary delights as fish tacos, posole, macaroni pie, pan bagnat, and barbeque pork sandwiches. Excellent read for any chowhound.
March 31, 2008
I've loved Calvin Trillin's food writing ever since way back when he published "American Fried" -- and I think "Feeding a Yen" is his best yet. His effortless, elegant prose and self-deprecating tone is coupled with fabulous food finds like socca and the green sandwich.
September 24, 2008
This is a wonderful, quick read. More of a food travelogue than a highfalutin' foodie book. Trillin's sardonic narration entertains admirably as he takes the reader around to his favorite restaurants in his favorite city (NYC, of course).
March 16, 2009
Reading Calvin Trillin is a treat, and I was lucky to catch him speaking about this book for the radio show "West Coast Live" at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley in the Spring of 2006. He was charming in person as well, and his writing is witty and warm. Enjoy.
October 7, 2009
Great little essays by a food writer about regional foods and cravings that cannot be fufilled until you revist the area that produces them. This was my introduction to Calvin Trillin's writing, and I'm definitely going back for seconds!
May 26, 2010
The latest in the very funny series of food reviews that began in the 70s with books like Alice Let's Eat and American Fried. This time he travels to numerous cities to find the specialties that can only be found in those cities or villages, like pan bagnat in Nice or posole in Santa Fe.
May 3, 2010
Currently on a re-reading jag--first Edward P. Jones' two short story collections, which are excellent in every regard, now Calvin Trillin. His amazement that he found his wife Alice and that she married him lingers, even nine years after her death. His writing is always a pleasure to read.
Read
August 7, 2011Short essays on food. I always enjoy Trillen's writing. Here he writes about food cravings and foods you can only get in one place, like boudin sausage in South Louisiana or Sopapillas in New Mexico.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews