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Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture
New Yorker writer Dana Goodyear combines the style of Mary Roach with the on-the-ground food savvy of Anthony Bourdain in a rollicking narrative look at the shocking extremes of the contemporary American food world.
A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental Is that food?
Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves , is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table. Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.
A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental Is that food?
Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves , is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table. Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 14, 2013
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2,908 people want to read
About the author
Dana Goodyear
8books20followersDana Goodyear is the author of 'Honey and Junk: Poems.'
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 181 reviews
February 7, 2017
Update Since the discussion has become about eating live animals, I thought this link might add to the review.
This book has the nastiest last line of any book I have ever read. I hope I never, ever, ever have to read anything so nasty again. Because of that I gave the author an extra star :-) as it will definitely help me stick to my diet today.
It's quite a good book and mostly very well-written about alternative food. Some of it is very conventional like organic dairy farms producing unpasteurised milk. Other parts are truly unacceptable like a much-prized Japanese dish where slices of a living animal are served in front of it. More parts deal with the unacceptably cruel as in force-feeding geese until they get diseased fatty livers called 'foie gras' when they are eaten. When California bans it, there is the consequent hypocrisy of chefs who go on about 'respecting the animal' but not when it comes to loses high-profit food products. Then there are the further fringes, like teenage girls in a pop Korean cafe having a delicious sweet made with many things including fragrant frogs' fallopian tubes.....
But as I said it gets nastier and to be truthful, I feel a bit ill.
This is why, do not read if you are a) eating, b) a vegan or c) likely to read the book.
_____________
Written on reading the book 2.
Written on reading the book 1.
This book has the nastiest last line of any book I have ever read. I hope I never, ever, ever have to read anything so nasty again. Because of that I gave the author an extra star :-) as it will definitely help me stick to my diet today.
It's quite a good book and mostly very well-written about alternative food. Some of it is very conventional like organic dairy farms producing unpasteurised milk. Other parts are truly unacceptable like a much-prized Japanese dish where slices of a living animal are served in front of it. More parts deal with the unacceptably cruel as in force-feeding geese until they get diseased fatty livers called 'foie gras' when they are eaten. When California bans it, there is the consequent hypocrisy of chefs who go on about 'respecting the animal' but not when it comes to loses high-profit food products. Then there are the further fringes, like teenage girls in a pop Korean cafe having a delicious sweet made with many things including fragrant frogs' fallopian tubes.....
But as I said it gets nastier and to be truthful, I feel a bit ill.
This is why, do not read if you are a) eating, b) a vegan or c) likely to read the book.
_____________
Written on reading the book 2.
Written on reading the book 1.
February 5, 2020
fulfilling my 2020 goal to read (at least) one book each month that was given to me as a present that i haven't yet gotten around to reading because i am an ungrateful dick.
AND
fulfilling book riot's 2020 read harder challenge task #13: Read a food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before.
review to come!
AND
fulfilling book riot's 2020 read harder challenge task #13: Read a food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before.
review to come!
November 16, 2017
”Anything that moves: using that phrase about another culture’s eating habits used to be an insult. Now it is a foodie-to-foodie brag, used to celebrate unchecked appetite.�
Synopsis: Good luck ever putting anything in your mouth ever again after reading this sucker.
Biblio-Babble
I Thought I Wasn’t a Picky Eater�: Then I read this book. And I discovered that yes, I am quite the picky eater. I have never read about so many disgusting things that people are willing to put in their mouths and digest in my entire life. I thought it would be morbidly fascinating, and in that regard, this book did the job. I was morbidly fascinated about all the different types of things people want to experience while they’re eating, such as consuming raw dairy and eating testicles of pretty much every time of animal known to man.
Snooze-fest, Schoozefest: If only the writing weren’t so damn dry. The writing was so boring that A) I pretty much did everything in my power to avoid reading this book, B) Skimmed through most of it while reading about all the disgusting dishes, and C) Managed to put me in the biggest reading slump of the year. I’m literally interested in nothing right now. But most importantly, it kind of defeated itself in its message. When discussing a weird book like this, you kind of want to get down to the ‘why�. In this case, I wanted to know why the hell we’re eating so weird, and why our ancestors occasionally ate seriously depraved dishes (more on that later). And my question never got answered. Between that and the boring writing, I felt like I was wasting my time.
And since that’s all I really have to say about this book, it was that bad of a read, I give you the most depraved dishes I read about!
Chocolate Makes Everything Better� Except This:
He Cooked a Zoo:
Man’s Best Friend Eats What??!!:
I Vote Neigh:
Fava Beans and a Nice Chainti:
****
A very disappointing insight into a potentially interesting topic. One of my newest hobbies is to recreate a recipe mentioned in a book. But I can rest assure you that there is no way in everloving hell I will be recreating any of these dishes, thank you very much!
Synopsis: Good luck ever putting anything in your mouth ever again after reading this sucker.
Biblio-Babble
I Thought I Wasn’t a Picky Eater�: Then I read this book. And I discovered that yes, I am quite the picky eater. I have never read about so many disgusting things that people are willing to put in their mouths and digest in my entire life. I thought it would be morbidly fascinating, and in that regard, this book did the job. I was morbidly fascinated about all the different types of things people want to experience while they’re eating, such as consuming raw dairy and eating testicles of pretty much every time of animal known to man.
Snooze-fest, Schoozefest: If only the writing weren’t so damn dry. The writing was so boring that A) I pretty much did everything in my power to avoid reading this book, B) Skimmed through most of it while reading about all the disgusting dishes, and C) Managed to put me in the biggest reading slump of the year. I’m literally interested in nothing right now. But most importantly, it kind of defeated itself in its message. When discussing a weird book like this, you kind of want to get down to the ‘why�. In this case, I wanted to know why the hell we’re eating so weird, and why our ancestors occasionally ate seriously depraved dishes (more on that later). And my question never got answered. Between that and the boring writing, I felt like I was wasting my time.
And since that’s all I really have to say about this book, it was that bad of a read, I give you the most depraved dishes I read about!
Chocolate Makes Everything Better� Except This:
”In Dicke’s opinion, simply changing the language surrounding food insects could go a long way toward solving the problem Westeners have with them. Another option, Dicke said, is to cover the bugs in chocolate, because people will eat anything covered in chocolate.�
He Cooked a Zoo:
”Reese sold tinned lion, tiger, elephant, and whale; pickeled rooster combs, espresso, Lindt chocolate, Canadian muskrat, reindeer steaks from Lapland, and diamondback from Ross Allen, a snake-wrestling celebrity herpetologist with a ranch in Florida. ‘Zoos would furnish lists of animals they had to dispose of and would buy the carcass at a high price and give it, frozen, to a cannery for processing.’�
Man’s Best Friend Eats What??!!:
”’There’s no way to get pig bladder in this country- they’re all ground up for dog food.’�
I Vote Neigh:
”In The Curiosities of Good, published in 1859, Peter Lund Simmonds, a British journalist who fashioned himself as a Victorian-era Herodotus, reported, ‘Horse-flesh pie, too, eaten cold, is a dainty now at Berlin and Toulouse, and boiled horse, rechauffe, has
usurped the place of ragouts and secondary dishes!’�
Fava Beans and a Nice Chainti:
”Rome became the giant stomach of the world, devouring everything during its five hundred years of imperial rule. The rich considered birds� brains a delicacy and relished moray eels, which they kept in swimming pools at home. (Vedius Pollio, a friend of Augustus, preferred his eels fattened on human flesh.) �
****
A very disappointing insight into a potentially interesting topic. One of my newest hobbies is to recreate a recipe mentioned in a book. But I can rest assure you that there is no way in everloving hell I will be recreating any of these dishes, thank you very much!
March 2, 2015
Everyone can use a good laugh, so I start with two bits from this book that made me laugh out loud. Both occur in the chapter where some bleeding-edge California chefs are experimenting with marijuana-based cuisine, which obviously entails breaking the law, even in California.
1) “The potential legal entanglements of the night ahead nagged at him. Nguyen, he said, had become nervous enough to get a medical marijuana card the day before, from 'Doc 420', a pot doctor with her own bikini calendar.�
b) “He opened a jar of vodka, which he had infused with marijuana using a PolyScience Smoking Gun and then mixed with a marijuana-vanilla tinture. He called the drink a Medicated Gibson. To me it smelled exactly like Dorm Room Couch.�
Admittedly, at the time of reading, I was under the influence of a frozen blueberry daiquiri on a hot summer afternoon, but even sober they bring a smile to my tragically daiquiri-free lips.
There is also the following fun, insect-poop-related facts (this one well-documented enough on the Internet to make me believe it is not only fun, but also very possibly true):
“The manna eaten by Moses on his way out of Egypt is widely believed to have been honeydew, the sweet excrement of scale insects.�
(Digression: If the world's Christian denominations are seriously interested in capturing the imaginations of the young, they could well start by the demonstrations of the consumption of scale insect excrement during religious instruction.)
However, the book also has the annoying habit of referring to people, places, and things without explanation. The implication is: if you were one of the cool kids, you would, for example, already know lower La Breau Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles and the cultural signal it sends out when you mention them. You would also know that TUK is a type of shoe, Lumix a type of camera, and Ludo Lefebvre a celebrity chef, and understand the cultural baggage that rides with each. You would know what a strategic account manager does. When someone is called “the Thom Yorke of food writing�, you'd know what that means. (I now know that Thom Yorke is most famously of the band Radiohead, and seems in possession of bad manners, which is probably what she's talking about here.) When a restaurant is described as an “izakaya-style place�, you'd have some clue other than it must have some connection to Japan. And you'd know have an idea of what cordyceps, ombrina, coulis, ganache, and camote somewhat more specific than “type of food�.
As may be obvious, I didn't know any of these, and don't feel that I am particularly to blame. It's a crowded world and there are a lot of things to pay attention to. If you are a writer, and your reader has to go off to Google to find out what you're writing about, then you have failed, because chances are good that the reader will be distracted by something else while there, and will not return to your writing � at least not quickly. Don't write journalism for your cool friends � write journalism for people who want to know but don't.
But still, I enjoyed reading this book. I just wish there had been more than one tantalizing reference to squirrel sushi.
1) “The potential legal entanglements of the night ahead nagged at him. Nguyen, he said, had become nervous enough to get a medical marijuana card the day before, from 'Doc 420', a pot doctor with her own bikini calendar.�
b) “He opened a jar of vodka, which he had infused with marijuana using a PolyScience Smoking Gun and then mixed with a marijuana-vanilla tinture. He called the drink a Medicated Gibson. To me it smelled exactly like Dorm Room Couch.�
Admittedly, at the time of reading, I was under the influence of a frozen blueberry daiquiri on a hot summer afternoon, but even sober they bring a smile to my tragically daiquiri-free lips.
There is also the following fun, insect-poop-related facts (this one well-documented enough on the Internet to make me believe it is not only fun, but also very possibly true):
“The manna eaten by Moses on his way out of Egypt is widely believed to have been honeydew, the sweet excrement of scale insects.�
(Digression: If the world's Christian denominations are seriously interested in capturing the imaginations of the young, they could well start by the demonstrations of the consumption of scale insect excrement during religious instruction.)
However, the book also has the annoying habit of referring to people, places, and things without explanation. The implication is: if you were one of the cool kids, you would, for example, already know lower La Breau Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles and the cultural signal it sends out when you mention them. You would also know that TUK is a type of shoe, Lumix a type of camera, and Ludo Lefebvre a celebrity chef, and understand the cultural baggage that rides with each. You would know what a strategic account manager does. When someone is called “the Thom Yorke of food writing�, you'd know what that means. (I now know that Thom Yorke is most famously of the band Radiohead, and seems in possession of bad manners, which is probably what she's talking about here.) When a restaurant is described as an “izakaya-style place�, you'd have some clue other than it must have some connection to Japan. And you'd know have an idea of what cordyceps, ombrina, coulis, ganache, and camote somewhat more specific than “type of food�.
As may be obvious, I didn't know any of these, and don't feel that I am particularly to blame. It's a crowded world and there are a lot of things to pay attention to. If you are a writer, and your reader has to go off to Google to find out what you're writing about, then you have failed, because chances are good that the reader will be distracted by something else while there, and will not return to your writing � at least not quickly. Don't write journalism for your cool friends � write journalism for people who want to know but don't.
But still, I enjoyed reading this book. I just wish there had been more than one tantalizing reference to squirrel sushi.
August 5, 2016
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?
Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves, is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table.
Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.
My Review: I will try almost anything once. Almost anything, stuff like eyeballs and mountain oysters and (unknowingly) dog. Mountain oysters are tasty, eyeballs are gross, and I vomited for an hour after being told the greasy, slick, icky meat was dog.
There is stuff that these damnfool eejits are *paying*money*for* that there is not a single, solitary, remote, fat, or slim chance that I would consent to sit at a table with, still less eat.
Actually, I could stop there and the review would be complete. But there's a bit more I'd like to say. Dana Goodyear writes for The New Yorker, and it shows. Her phrases are often quite euphonious, but in the end more snacklike than mealtimey:
I stopped subscribing to The New Yorker for that reason. Okay, back in the Shawn era we had them memorable 10,000 words on zinc, its extraction, refinement, and many uses. But now we have ephemeral, mildly interesting stuff like...
...like...
...and there you have it. The chapters in this book could have been entitled "Notes from LA" and I would've skipped gaily past them, being largely uninterested in when not actively hostile to LA. And I would've been not one smidgin less well-rounded a person.
Goodyear's entertaining moments describing the feuds and rivalres among these freaky-deaky foodies are pleasant enough. Her description of eating some of the offal these folks consume made me mildly queasy, and never...not once...made me curious enough to try some of the disgusting crap the effete of palate and overloaded of wallet gourmands herein profiled savored.
I received this copy from the publisher via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. That made this review possible for me to write without resorting to invective, vituperation, and contumely. Had I spent $27.95 on it, I''d be so moltenly angry even yet that it would be unwise to approach me without something normal and wholesome like a double cheesburger with bacon, mayo, and onions plus an extra-large fries prominently displayed as a token of goodwill.
Make that burger a triple.
This work is licensed under a .
The Publisher Says: A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?
Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves, is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table.
Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.
My Review: I will try almost anything once. Almost anything, stuff like eyeballs and mountain oysters and (unknowingly) dog. Mountain oysters are tasty, eyeballs are gross, and I vomited for an hour after being told the greasy, slick, icky meat was dog.
There is stuff that these damnfool eejits are *paying*money*for* that there is not a single, solitary, remote, fat, or slim chance that I would consent to sit at a table with, still less eat.
Actually, I could stop there and the review would be complete. But there's a bit more I'd like to say. Dana Goodyear writes for The New Yorker, and it shows. Her phrases are often quite euphonious, but in the end more snacklike than mealtimey:
Appetites are hard to legislate, and people usually end up doing what they want to do. The year {Upton} Sinclair wrote The Jungle, he got his first summer cold. It was the beginning of the score of ailments that led him to John Henry Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium (sic), which promoted vegetarianism, and to the writings of Horace Fletcher, "The Great Masticator," who prescribed chewing your food extra-thoroughly.
I stopped subscribing to The New Yorker for that reason. Okay, back in the Shawn era we had them memorable 10,000 words on zinc, its extraction, refinement, and many uses. But now we have ephemeral, mildly interesting stuff like...
...like...
...and there you have it. The chapters in this book could have been entitled "Notes from LA" and I would've skipped gaily past them, being largely uninterested in when not actively hostile to LA. And I would've been not one smidgin less well-rounded a person.
Goodyear's entertaining moments describing the feuds and rivalres among these freaky-deaky foodies are pleasant enough. Her description of eating some of the offal these folks consume made me mildly queasy, and never...not once...made me curious enough to try some of the disgusting crap the effete of palate and overloaded of wallet gourmands herein profiled savored.
I received this copy from the publisher via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. That made this review possible for me to write without resorting to invective, vituperation, and contumely. Had I spent $27.95 on it, I''d be so moltenly angry even yet that it would be unwise to approach me without something normal and wholesome like a double cheesburger with bacon, mayo, and onions plus an extra-large fries prominently displayed as a token of goodwill.
Make that burger a triple.
This work is licensed under a .
December 13, 2013
Occasionally, I like to take a peek to see how those at the other end of the diet spectrum live. Anything That Moves provides just such a glimpse: it is a catalogue of extreme eaters, of fearless foodies: people who embrace eating the weird, the disgusting, and even the still living (live octopus and live shrimp--gross!!!).
As a vegan, I found something to wince at, be disgusted at, or be ethically outraged at on almost every page: chefs and self-appointed gourmets seeking out, preparing, and eating foie gras (a horribly cruelly produced food, now illegal in California), whale meat, lion meat, and even unhatched baby birds still in the egg.
What amazed me, above and beyond the disgustingness of so much of the food described in this book, was the absolute callousness and indifference of the chefs and eaters to animal suffering: these people care only about their palates; the fact that animals suffered terribly so that they could have a bizarre and (to them, anyway) delectable dining experience had no effect on these people whatsoever.
This book is a handbook of nastiness and unethical eating. It was, I will admit, fascinating in many ways, but fascinating in the same manner that we are fascinated by criminals and serial killers.
As a vegan, I found something to wince at, be disgusted at, or be ethically outraged at on almost every page: chefs and self-appointed gourmets seeking out, preparing, and eating foie gras (a horribly cruelly produced food, now illegal in California), whale meat, lion meat, and even unhatched baby birds still in the egg.
What amazed me, above and beyond the disgustingness of so much of the food described in this book, was the absolute callousness and indifference of the chefs and eaters to animal suffering: these people care only about their palates; the fact that animals suffered terribly so that they could have a bizarre and (to them, anyway) delectable dining experience had no effect on these people whatsoever.
This book is a handbook of nastiness and unethical eating. It was, I will admit, fascinating in many ways, but fascinating in the same manner that we are fascinated by criminals and serial killers.
August 29, 2018
After hating the first chapter and threatening to quit the book entirely, I persevered and ended up enjoying quite a bit of it.
The first chapter focuses on Jonathan Gold, an obnoxious food writer who loves seeking out LA restaurants with “C� health ratings, giving himself food poisoning by eating “the real stuff,� and inspiring a legion of hipster worshippers. If you can get past Gold and his infuriating worldview, the book does improve slowly.
“Grub,� the second chapter/essay, focuses on the human aversion to eating insects. I’m now open to trying crickets but remain skeptical that ants, termites, and mealworms will become cheap, staple protein sources.
Dana Goodyear is funny in that she tries to remain impartial some of the time. I say funny because her writing is significantly better when she takes a firm position. For example, she hates the raw milk movement and lacerates those who follow it. But she’s ok with whale meat and does a nice job showing how whales were somewhat arbitrarily singled out as an unthinkable food source starting in the 1970s. She also does a good job promoting the consumption of the meat tanks otherwise known as horses (would definitely not be above trying horse, either). But often she’s hesitant to dismiss ridiculous trends and ridiculous restaurants, and I imagine that it’s tough to really be critical of the people who give you access to the food. Without that access, Goodyear has nothing to write about.
This is sold as a book but really it’s a collection of poorly intertwined essays. It lacks structure and direction a lot of the time and comes across as the work of a distracted author. I imagine that Goodyear’s standalone essays that capture a single subject do so very well. For example, “Backdoor Men,� about the seedy characters who supply ingredients to the top restaurants in Las Vegas, is highly entertaining and unbelievable. Her attempt to make eating marijuana seem cool and daring and edgy—chapter “Haute Cuisine”—doesn’t work as well.
But the best part of the book comes at the very end. Goodyear admires the macabre and the “whole animal concept,� and is downright inspiring in her portrayal of two chefs: the foul mouthed and hilarious Chris Cosentino, and thoughtful and erratic “Wolvesmouth� dinner host Craig Thornton. Her strength is in character portrayals, not history recaps.
I’ll end with a quote from the Cosentino section, page 184: “For a while, Cosentino eliminated butter and made his pastry chef use suet for pork-fat cookies and lard caramels. He imitated a pastry chef, whining, ‘I don’t want to make suet pudding. That sounds nasty.� Then, playing himself, he barked: ‘Shut up! Make fucking suet pudding.’�
The first chapter focuses on Jonathan Gold, an obnoxious food writer who loves seeking out LA restaurants with “C� health ratings, giving himself food poisoning by eating “the real stuff,� and inspiring a legion of hipster worshippers. If you can get past Gold and his infuriating worldview, the book does improve slowly.
“Grub,� the second chapter/essay, focuses on the human aversion to eating insects. I’m now open to trying crickets but remain skeptical that ants, termites, and mealworms will become cheap, staple protein sources.
Dana Goodyear is funny in that she tries to remain impartial some of the time. I say funny because her writing is significantly better when she takes a firm position. For example, she hates the raw milk movement and lacerates those who follow it. But she’s ok with whale meat and does a nice job showing how whales were somewhat arbitrarily singled out as an unthinkable food source starting in the 1970s. She also does a good job promoting the consumption of the meat tanks otherwise known as horses (would definitely not be above trying horse, either). But often she’s hesitant to dismiss ridiculous trends and ridiculous restaurants, and I imagine that it’s tough to really be critical of the people who give you access to the food. Without that access, Goodyear has nothing to write about.
This is sold as a book but really it’s a collection of poorly intertwined essays. It lacks structure and direction a lot of the time and comes across as the work of a distracted author. I imagine that Goodyear’s standalone essays that capture a single subject do so very well. For example, “Backdoor Men,� about the seedy characters who supply ingredients to the top restaurants in Las Vegas, is highly entertaining and unbelievable. Her attempt to make eating marijuana seem cool and daring and edgy—chapter “Haute Cuisine”—doesn’t work as well.
But the best part of the book comes at the very end. Goodyear admires the macabre and the “whole animal concept,� and is downright inspiring in her portrayal of two chefs: the foul mouthed and hilarious Chris Cosentino, and thoughtful and erratic “Wolvesmouth� dinner host Craig Thornton. Her strength is in character portrayals, not history recaps.
I’ll end with a quote from the Cosentino section, page 184: “For a while, Cosentino eliminated butter and made his pastry chef use suet for pork-fat cookies and lard caramels. He imitated a pastry chef, whining, ‘I don’t want to make suet pudding. That sounds nasty.� Then, playing himself, he barked: ‘Shut up! Make fucking suet pudding.’�
October 18, 2018
Just a few thoughts and places I marked.
First of all, "foodie" means something way different to me. I thought it was someone who likes high-end food. This book showcases people who eat bugs, intestines, alternative meats like horse, and peppers so hot they'll scorch your brain. Gross is not the same as interesting, and you can be innovative without tripping the disgust-o-meter, can't you?
Rawsome, a raw foods co-op, requires its members to sign off on terms stating they prefer their foods with e. coli. Ok, raw milk might be ok but ... no. One customer said he'd received rancid pork - but it was ok because his gut flora was so strong from eating raw that it could handle it. It could handle rancid pork. Ok.
I find the idea of "invitation-only restaurants" kind of strange and maybe a little more pretentious than an underground supper club though I guess they're essentially the same.
Speaking of pretentious, the part about the restaurant called Next, where the author was served a terrarium containing two mushrooms and some other stuff, and admonished to "only eat the mushrooms" had my eyes rolling so hard I think I saw my brain.
"...to be upset only about about the animals we identify with leads us, helpless, toward hypocrisy." True, but doesn't make me more inclined to eat cats or horses.
And the author has some kind of hero worship thing for Jonathan Gold, a critic and seeker of the types of food in the first paragraph.
First of all, "foodie" means something way different to me. I thought it was someone who likes high-end food. This book showcases people who eat bugs, intestines, alternative meats like horse, and peppers so hot they'll scorch your brain. Gross is not the same as interesting, and you can be innovative without tripping the disgust-o-meter, can't you?
Rawsome, a raw foods co-op, requires its members to sign off on terms stating they prefer their foods with e. coli. Ok, raw milk might be ok but ... no. One customer said he'd received rancid pork - but it was ok because his gut flora was so strong from eating raw that it could handle it. It could handle rancid pork. Ok.
I find the idea of "invitation-only restaurants" kind of strange and maybe a little more pretentious than an underground supper club though I guess they're essentially the same.
Speaking of pretentious, the part about the restaurant called Next, where the author was served a terrarium containing two mushrooms and some other stuff, and admonished to "only eat the mushrooms" had my eyes rolling so hard I think I saw my brain.
"...to be upset only about about the animals we identify with leads us, helpless, toward hypocrisy." True, but doesn't make me more inclined to eat cats or horses.
And the author has some kind of hero worship thing for Jonathan Gold, a critic and seeker of the types of food in the first paragraph.
January 4, 2014
My gag reflex was working over time while reading “Anything that Moves �. Goodyear takes us on a tour of some unusual dining mostly on the West Coast and in Vegas and she does it at a run. In one chapter you’ll be learning how to process, cook and, God help me, eat insects. Soon you’ll be virtually eating raw meats, organs, testicles, penis, live octopus and shrimp, unpasteurized dairy products, etc. There was one day in particular when I combined the chapter entitled ‘Guts�, which is about eating ALL of a creature, with a real time meal of highly spiced chana masala. Big mistake. I seriously wondered if I needed to throw up. To be fair I’m not a big meat eater because of its taste and the bloody fleshiness of it. I also found the information about the cruelty involved in making shark’s tale soup and foie gras not to mention the consumption of endangered species and animals such as whales and big cats and elephants.
I don’t think Goodyear is purposely going for a choking response but be aware that she looks head on (I know, bad pun) at how the foodie movement is pushing chefs and eaters to ever more exotic fare. She also explores the political and governmental oversight involved in the food industry as well as how specialist food marketers are driving the market closer and closer to the edge of traditional American taste buds. Of course I understand that all of these foods are eaten and rightly so in various cultures. If it’s a question of eat what’s available or die the choice is clear. Choosing to eat unusual foods for excitement and bragging rights feels uncomfortable to me and downright wrong when it involves the torture or killing of endangered or more sentient animals. “Anything that Moves� was an education for me.
This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher.
(Disclaimer included as required by the FTC.)
I don’t think Goodyear is purposely going for a choking response but be aware that she looks head on (I know, bad pun) at how the foodie movement is pushing chefs and eaters to ever more exotic fare. She also explores the political and governmental oversight involved in the food industry as well as how specialist food marketers are driving the market closer and closer to the edge of traditional American taste buds. Of course I understand that all of these foods are eaten and rightly so in various cultures. If it’s a question of eat what’s available or die the choice is clear. Choosing to eat unusual foods for excitement and bragging rights feels uncomfortable to me and downright wrong when it involves the torture or killing of endangered or more sentient animals. “Anything that Moves� was an education for me.
This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher.
(Disclaimer included as required by the FTC.)
November 26, 2013
Very interesting look at the reasons for different branches of extreme foodie culture. Also a good look at moral/ethical issues in eating. Goodyear also explores her own limits in adventuresome eating (cf the last paragraph of the book)
Put your cast-iron stomach on when you read it (if you're an eater like me) or make a list (if you're more like Anthony Bourdain).
Put your cast-iron stomach on when you read it (if you're an eater like me) or make a list (if you're more like Anthony Bourdain).
September 11, 2014
not well written at all. Author spends too much time, effort and words on unremarkable characters and foodies. Not worth a glance.
October 27, 2013
Anything That Moves was a delightfully yucky book to read, jammed to capacity with people putting the most disgusting things in their mouths, in some cases chewing them, other times swallowing whole, all in the effort to be ahead of the latest food trends. Appalled at being labeled “Foodies�, these nouveau-gastronomes pillage the countryside, jaws hanging slack in anticipation of whatever thing falls in their paths. Like bi-pedal whales devouring what ever muck happens to be sucked into their maws, these foodies ingest everything from Octopus tentacles (Hint: you have to mash them up or they tend to suction onto your throat and kill you) through various animal appendages you wouldn’t normally want on your plate, to the latest in brain, spleen, stomach, stuffed entrails and unpasteurized dairy products (which on reflection, seems pretty tame compared to some of the ingredients contained in the book), all of which you can was down with a nice Belgian Brown Beer made with deer sinews and tendons and bird’s nest for that great outdoors tang.
Dana Goodyear, a poet and staffer for the New Yorker Magazine, brings a certain sense of lightness to the subject matter, writing in an almost reluctant manner about the gung-ho nature of the critics, chefs, cooks and consumers of these off-putting meals. As she either tags along on a food safari, looks into the history of food processing and safety standards, reports on the food counter-culture whole say to hell with the rules and bring on the fungus and mold, she keeps a calming tone to her prose. Finally Goodyear lets the reader know that when she eventually tries to eat a balut (a blue-green egg, still warm, with the young duck inside, eyes, beak, feathers and all) without spewing, she is taking a bite for all of us.
This was a ŷ win for me.
Dana Goodyear, a poet and staffer for the New Yorker Magazine, brings a certain sense of lightness to the subject matter, writing in an almost reluctant manner about the gung-ho nature of the critics, chefs, cooks and consumers of these off-putting meals. As she either tags along on a food safari, looks into the history of food processing and safety standards, reports on the food counter-culture whole say to hell with the rules and bring on the fungus and mold, she keeps a calming tone to her prose. Finally Goodyear lets the reader know that when she eventually tries to eat a balut (a blue-green egg, still warm, with the young duck inside, eyes, beak, feathers and all) without spewing, she is taking a bite for all of us.
This was a ŷ win for me.
September 13, 2013
When did eating become a no-holds-barred competition where participants try to one-up each other by eating the most revolting or the most forbidden foods? I'll admit I never found Anthony Bourdain completely believable, with his relentlessly crafted bad boy image. Although his book Kitchen Confidential was disgustingly fascinating, the shtick seems a little dated now. Dana Goodyear's investigation into the current generation of in-your-face food renegades features many people who are obsessed with extreme foods.
I liked Goodyear's journalistic style, and her willingness to try many of the foods that most of us find severely unappetizing (insects, brain). I didn't care for the cavalier attitude of many of those she interviewed. Some thought nothing of serving or eating endangered species such as whale or shark. Some were just in it for the money and delivered whatever would bring in the most cash, regardless of whether it was endangered, illegal, unregulated, unsafe. In some cases it seemed as if people with too much money to throw around just wanted whatever's the rarest, trendiest, most expensive item on the menu.
Goodyear's personal experiences were most interesting to me and I'm glad I stuck with the book if only for her final pages, in which she describes the experience of eating her first balut, a feathery, pungent, slimy duck egg.
Recommended instead (or in addition to) -- The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe.
I liked Goodyear's journalistic style, and her willingness to try many of the foods that most of us find severely unappetizing (insects, brain). I didn't care for the cavalier attitude of many of those she interviewed. Some thought nothing of serving or eating endangered species such as whale or shark. Some were just in it for the money and delivered whatever would bring in the most cash, regardless of whether it was endangered, illegal, unregulated, unsafe. In some cases it seemed as if people with too much money to throw around just wanted whatever's the rarest, trendiest, most expensive item on the menu.
Goodyear's personal experiences were most interesting to me and I'm glad I stuck with the book if only for her final pages, in which she describes the experience of eating her first balut, a feathery, pungent, slimy duck egg.
Recommended instead (or in addition to) -- The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe.
March 17, 2014
This book was a weird combination of boring, fascinating, and disgusting. Rather than one cohesive line of thought, this book is set up more like essays of similar theme. I think the title is a misnomer meant to be both shocking and attention grabbing. The subtitle is much more accurate of the themes and topics in this book. Surprisingly, yes, this book is about 99% about "anything that moves" -- there's very little discussion about vegetarian/vegan foods. Perhaps this is because the EATING of plant-based meals holds little social controversy?
I waffle in giving this book 3 stars. I can't really recommend the book because I found it to be underwhelming (2 stars at best); but at the same time, Goodyear is a compelling writer -- worthy of 4 stars. Part of why I can't give this book more stars is Goodyear's lack of sampling her research. She was pregnant at the time of the majority of her research. I can understand the need to not buck conventional wisdom; but there's only one chapter in the entire book (the very last chapter) that illustrates her trying "anything that moves." There are references throughout the book to her tasting things or her remembered experience of tasting a dish. That alone, nullifies much of her "street cred" for the topic of interest.
I waffle in giving this book 3 stars. I can't really recommend the book because I found it to be underwhelming (2 stars at best); but at the same time, Goodyear is a compelling writer -- worthy of 4 stars. Part of why I can't give this book more stars is Goodyear's lack of sampling her research. She was pregnant at the time of the majority of her research. I can understand the need to not buck conventional wisdom; but there's only one chapter in the entire book (the very last chapter) that illustrates her trying "anything that moves." There are references throughout the book to her tasting things or her remembered experience of tasting a dish. That alone, nullifies much of her "street cred" for the topic of interest.
January 30, 2014
My major disappointment with the book is that the author goes on a grand adventure of eating rare and exotic foods and she never describes what it is like to eat it (until once in the epilogue). Most of the time she didn't eat it (she was pregnant while researching the book and many of the items are unregulated). I'm probably never going to eat half the items in the books and would like to be able to imagine what it would be like. Many of the items that are discussed in the book are illegal and I assume for good reasons but I wouldn't know because she didn't go into the contrasting view point of the chef's she interviewed.
Each chapter reads like a magazine article (not surprising as the author writes for the new yorker) but it does not act as a coherent book. I understand the journalist's instincts to not put herself in the story but a narrative about her journey through the underbelly of the dining industry would have been more interesting then a series of disconnected interviews and stories.
Each chapter reads like a magazine article (not surprising as the author writes for the new yorker) but it does not act as a coherent book. I understand the journalist's instincts to not put herself in the story but a narrative about her journey through the underbelly of the dining industry would have been more interesting then a series of disconnected interviews and stories.
February 13, 2014
This was an interesting albeit grotesque look at the world of extreme eating. Not as in volume, but as in rarity and level of disgust. It left me horrified at the casual cruelty of this group of people who crave nothing more than endangered species, dangerous/poisonous food, and even creatures eaten alive. Really repulsive subset of humans. I can't say anything nice about them. Not ONE nice thing.
March 9, 2014
One of the best ones of this genre I have read - bourdain without the sexism and drugs and a lot more perspective about the role of eating in the world. Sort of a walk through the world of people who think the Jungle is a delicious cookbook and not a reason to be vegan.
July 28, 2020
I have mixed reviews about this book. I was surprised at the time it took me to slog through it. Much of it was so off putting, I could only take so much at a time. The writing itself was good and much of it interesting. The historic info of our food, changing culture, early entrepreneurs of importing, etc., were quite interesting. The modern foodie scene was both entertaining, when referring to the trends like yelp, food writers, food trucks, hole in the wall joints people seek out, etc; and horrifying to the extreme when the book delved into the dark aspect of illegal and dangerous food, and other stuff that was just so gross I wanted to gag just reading about it.
What bothered me was the author’s failure to fully address, head on, the harm that this type of extreme eating behavior does to the planet’s ecosystems. She doesn’t really go into the poaching and extinction of animals all over the globe, illegal smuggling (she lightly touches on), and the barbaric conditions many of these creatures are kept in to satisfy these sicko foodie weirdos, and the genuine health risks much of this underground food has on the population. She doesn’t really delve into the amount of harm these foods cause in deaths and sickness world, or even just nationwide. There seems to be so much hypocrisy in the foodie world about respecting the animal, and yet, they’re all for torturing them - from foie gras to whale hunts, to eating dogs, horses, frog Fallopian tubes, live animals that watch you eat them, etc., it’s some sick shit that is not at all respectful of these creatures.
This counterculture foodie movement to me smacks of a bunch of people who want to pretend to be so very avant-garde, sort of like the yuppies who want to be seen as so cool and original, when in fact, it’s just the opposite. A huge number of animal species are being poached into oblivion, all because a bunch of assholes think it will give them a hard on or cure cancer or some other medical malady. The author kind of pretends to be neutral, but she really appears to be excited by this lifestyle, and wanting to be an ardent supporter of it. There’s also a strong undercurrent of drug (pot and hallucinogenics primarily) use in this world of weirdos. And most troubling to me, is the book’s undercurrent of semi despising and undermining any law enforcement or regulation of our food supply.
While this book was interesting in many ways, I was really turned off by so much about the people involved in this strange little world, their ignorance or uncaring attitude regarding the direct impact they have on the wildlife they’re eating, the anti government undercurrent, and the absolutely vile, horrific things these jackasses are eating. Mostly so they can look or feel important and oh so daring among their weird group of sickos. I’ve always been a huge fan of food driven books, chefs, etc., and this book really made me sad to know so much of this is going on in that world.
What bothered me was the author’s failure to fully address, head on, the harm that this type of extreme eating behavior does to the planet’s ecosystems. She doesn’t really go into the poaching and extinction of animals all over the globe, illegal smuggling (she lightly touches on), and the barbaric conditions many of these creatures are kept in to satisfy these sicko foodie weirdos, and the genuine health risks much of this underground food has on the population. She doesn’t really delve into the amount of harm these foods cause in deaths and sickness world, or even just nationwide. There seems to be so much hypocrisy in the foodie world about respecting the animal, and yet, they’re all for torturing them - from foie gras to whale hunts, to eating dogs, horses, frog Fallopian tubes, live animals that watch you eat them, etc., it’s some sick shit that is not at all respectful of these creatures.
This counterculture foodie movement to me smacks of a bunch of people who want to pretend to be so very avant-garde, sort of like the yuppies who want to be seen as so cool and original, when in fact, it’s just the opposite. A huge number of animal species are being poached into oblivion, all because a bunch of assholes think it will give them a hard on or cure cancer or some other medical malady. The author kind of pretends to be neutral, but she really appears to be excited by this lifestyle, and wanting to be an ardent supporter of it. There’s also a strong undercurrent of drug (pot and hallucinogenics primarily) use in this world of weirdos. And most troubling to me, is the book’s undercurrent of semi despising and undermining any law enforcement or regulation of our food supply.
While this book was interesting in many ways, I was really turned off by so much about the people involved in this strange little world, their ignorance or uncaring attitude regarding the direct impact they have on the wildlife they’re eating, the anti government undercurrent, and the absolutely vile, horrific things these jackasses are eating. Mostly so they can look or feel important and oh so daring among their weird group of sickos. I’ve always been a huge fan of food driven books, chefs, etc., and this book really made me sad to know so much of this is going on in that world.
September 11, 2016
Deep down, I'll always be that chubby 12-year-old grabbing at candy in the supermarket check-out lane. And for the first twenty years of my life, my diet was dominated by everything a blubbery pre-teen might consider ambrosia delivered directly from the gods themselves: Doritos, Cheetos, Pizza Hut, Snickers, McDonalds, Kit Kat, Sara Lee, Little Debbie, Blue Bunny, Little Caesars, and so on. Even now, years after dropping 100 pounds, cutting most fast and processed foods from my diet, and starting my own (relatively small) backyard garden, I can't deny the fact that 90% of the food sold at my local supermarket is both disgustingly inedible and completely delicious.
And that's the point. All of those foods have been tested and manufactured--rather than, say, planted and harvested--to be not only delicious and convenient but addictive. When I think back to how insatiable I was with a bag of anything--potato chips, crackers, candy--I shudder to think what those not-quite-foods were doing to my insides. Yes, there was the fat and sodium and cholesterol, but there were also the chemicals pumped into each bite--tasteless little additions with thick, multi-syllabic names, each transforming a simple list of ingredients into an encyclopedia entry. We've taken food--the thing meant to keep us energized, healthy, and strong, the thing that is supposed to come from nature alone, the thing we need to survive--and turned it into our greatest enemy, a source of obesity and illness and death. And not only that, we've taken this dangerous food--so omniscient, so affordable, so mouth-wateringly tasty--and made it inherently addictive, so the very things that hurt us the most are also the ones we cannot stop eating.
The irony is that I only came to appreciate food--its purpose, its sources, its benefits--at the exact same moment when I could no longer eat as much of it as I wanted. Suddenly my horizon was filled with shelf after shelf of local foods that were actually good for me...and I found myself having to walk away, my hunger tempered by an equally strong obsession with watching calories and not falling off the proverbial food wagon. Thankfully, though, my new eating habits are moderate compared to others around the globe--not the "foodies" we hear so much about on television and in print so much as fringe cooks and fearless eaters, both living along the boundary of what is considered eccentric eating and what is downright dangerous.
Dana Goodyear documents this shaky little tightrope walk with utter seriousness; never once does she find herself questioning the entire premise of her book, which is more than I can say for myself. Not that her subjects aren't fascinating in their own right, or that Goodyear's writing isn't spot-on wonderful--because they are, and because it is--but the idea that thousands, even millions of otherwise sensible Americans would take the most basic cornerstone of life and transform it into something more seems at times utterly incomprehensible, if not downright silly. There are Californians who risk imprisonment and death from unpasteurized milk and shit-covered eggs because they want their food as natural as possible, which means untouched by government regulations; at times their crusade feels more like a revolt being staged against genocidal totalitarians than government's bureaucrats. There are the Japanese whalers who exploit a loophole in international law to hunt sharks for their fins, which are illegal in the United States but find their way into not-so-underground restaurants anyway, and the activists who go undercover to expose this activity...an assignment that, ironically, requires the consuming of said shark fins. And there are the chefs who see marijuana as the next frontier in culinary arts and arrange small, private gatherings at which the much maligned plant is the central feature of each dish.
But perhaps the strangest and most ironic chapter concerns a series of chefs who stand aghast as foie gras--goose liver fattened through forced feeding via a tube--is outlawed. There is something perverse about professional chefs pushing back against the prohibition of intentionally overfed animals because it means they cannot over-feed their own customers, and it is a disconnect in reasoning that is both ticklishly funny and deeply disturbing: these chefs have put so much passion into this one supposedly vital piece of meat that being without it is somehow devastating, even as the world around them suffers from poverty and malnutrition by the billions.*
Which is the greatest disconnect among Goodyear's subjects. For all the ethical nuances and moral debates inherent in the food and its eaters--whether any animal should be up for grabs or only certain ones, the role of government oversight in what we eat, the level of animal cruelty that is acceptable in the preparation of our daily meals--not once do any of Goodyear's subjects realize just how precious these debates are. When a chef prepares a massive, multi-course meal, whether it be in a five-start restaurant or their very own living room, they are doing so simply because they can: there is no food shortage, widespread pestilence, or fascistic government embargo stopping them from pushing a menu to the next level. They are allowed to serve full, gluttonous meals while soapbox-preaching on the unfairness of animal-cruelty laws or the stranglehold of the FDA because food is a luxury to them rather than a necessity, just as it was to that chubby 12-year-old so many years ago.** When someone adopts an approach to food that shuns fast or processed foods, he or she is doing so because they see the detriment to not only their own health but the health of the world around them. They see food for what it is--rich, sustaining, necessary--rather than what it has been, which is a dangerous luxury.
To say, as Goodyear does in her subtitle, that this movement towards "fearless" eating is the beginning of "a new American food culture" is pretty prescient, though not for the reasons Goodyear intends or her readers might assume. Only in America, a country where 40 million of its citizens live with food insecurity while simultaneously one-third of the population is obese, can the glamourization of food be seen as ordinary or interesting rather than brazen and heartless. When Goodyear's subjects elevate food beyond its original purpose--its only purpose--they do so for the benefit of themselves and the similar-minded around them only, and that is a great shame indeed. For them, food is a commodity, a lifestyle, a weapon; to millions of others--the population that does not appear in Goodyear's book or, for that matter, the world of her subjects--it is a necessity, and a scarce one at that.
*In deference to these chefs, I will concede that what happens to geese is nothing compared to what happens to cows, pigs, and chickens by the millions across the United States, and to be offended by one while condoning the others is simply hypocritical. At this point, I should note that I'm a vegetarian, so I'm an observer on this front and have no horse in the game, so to speak. I should also note that much of the "beef" Americans eat is, in fact, horse.
**In deference to Goodyear's subjects, the FDA is pretty idiotic in most instances...just not in this instance.
This review was originally published at .
And that's the point. All of those foods have been tested and manufactured--rather than, say, planted and harvested--to be not only delicious and convenient but addictive. When I think back to how insatiable I was with a bag of anything--potato chips, crackers, candy--I shudder to think what those not-quite-foods were doing to my insides. Yes, there was the fat and sodium and cholesterol, but there were also the chemicals pumped into each bite--tasteless little additions with thick, multi-syllabic names, each transforming a simple list of ingredients into an encyclopedia entry. We've taken food--the thing meant to keep us energized, healthy, and strong, the thing that is supposed to come from nature alone, the thing we need to survive--and turned it into our greatest enemy, a source of obesity and illness and death. And not only that, we've taken this dangerous food--so omniscient, so affordable, so mouth-wateringly tasty--and made it inherently addictive, so the very things that hurt us the most are also the ones we cannot stop eating.
The irony is that I only came to appreciate food--its purpose, its sources, its benefits--at the exact same moment when I could no longer eat as much of it as I wanted. Suddenly my horizon was filled with shelf after shelf of local foods that were actually good for me...and I found myself having to walk away, my hunger tempered by an equally strong obsession with watching calories and not falling off the proverbial food wagon. Thankfully, though, my new eating habits are moderate compared to others around the globe--not the "foodies" we hear so much about on television and in print so much as fringe cooks and fearless eaters, both living along the boundary of what is considered eccentric eating and what is downright dangerous.
Dana Goodyear documents this shaky little tightrope walk with utter seriousness; never once does she find herself questioning the entire premise of her book, which is more than I can say for myself. Not that her subjects aren't fascinating in their own right, or that Goodyear's writing isn't spot-on wonderful--because they are, and because it is--but the idea that thousands, even millions of otherwise sensible Americans would take the most basic cornerstone of life and transform it into something more seems at times utterly incomprehensible, if not downright silly. There are Californians who risk imprisonment and death from unpasteurized milk and shit-covered eggs because they want their food as natural as possible, which means untouched by government regulations; at times their crusade feels more like a revolt being staged against genocidal totalitarians than government's bureaucrats. There are the Japanese whalers who exploit a loophole in international law to hunt sharks for their fins, which are illegal in the United States but find their way into not-so-underground restaurants anyway, and the activists who go undercover to expose this activity...an assignment that, ironically, requires the consuming of said shark fins. And there are the chefs who see marijuana as the next frontier in culinary arts and arrange small, private gatherings at which the much maligned plant is the central feature of each dish.
But perhaps the strangest and most ironic chapter concerns a series of chefs who stand aghast as foie gras--goose liver fattened through forced feeding via a tube--is outlawed. There is something perverse about professional chefs pushing back against the prohibition of intentionally overfed animals because it means they cannot over-feed their own customers, and it is a disconnect in reasoning that is both ticklishly funny and deeply disturbing: these chefs have put so much passion into this one supposedly vital piece of meat that being without it is somehow devastating, even as the world around them suffers from poverty and malnutrition by the billions.*
Which is the greatest disconnect among Goodyear's subjects. For all the ethical nuances and moral debates inherent in the food and its eaters--whether any animal should be up for grabs or only certain ones, the role of government oversight in what we eat, the level of animal cruelty that is acceptable in the preparation of our daily meals--not once do any of Goodyear's subjects realize just how precious these debates are. When a chef prepares a massive, multi-course meal, whether it be in a five-start restaurant or their very own living room, they are doing so simply because they can: there is no food shortage, widespread pestilence, or fascistic government embargo stopping them from pushing a menu to the next level. They are allowed to serve full, gluttonous meals while soapbox-preaching on the unfairness of animal-cruelty laws or the stranglehold of the FDA because food is a luxury to them rather than a necessity, just as it was to that chubby 12-year-old so many years ago.** When someone adopts an approach to food that shuns fast or processed foods, he or she is doing so because they see the detriment to not only their own health but the health of the world around them. They see food for what it is--rich, sustaining, necessary--rather than what it has been, which is a dangerous luxury.
To say, as Goodyear does in her subtitle, that this movement towards "fearless" eating is the beginning of "a new American food culture" is pretty prescient, though not for the reasons Goodyear intends or her readers might assume. Only in America, a country where 40 million of its citizens live with food insecurity while simultaneously one-third of the population is obese, can the glamourization of food be seen as ordinary or interesting rather than brazen and heartless. When Goodyear's subjects elevate food beyond its original purpose--its only purpose--they do so for the benefit of themselves and the similar-minded around them only, and that is a great shame indeed. For them, food is a commodity, a lifestyle, a weapon; to millions of others--the population that does not appear in Goodyear's book or, for that matter, the world of her subjects--it is a necessity, and a scarce one at that.
*In deference to these chefs, I will concede that what happens to geese is nothing compared to what happens to cows, pigs, and chickens by the millions across the United States, and to be offended by one while condoning the others is simply hypocritical. At this point, I should note that I'm a vegetarian, so I'm an observer on this front and have no horse in the game, so to speak. I should also note that much of the "beef" Americans eat is, in fact, horse.
**In deference to Goodyear's subjects, the FDA is pretty idiotic in most instances...just not in this instance.
This review was originally published at .
May 30, 2018
Dana Goodyear is a good writer. She has written for The New Yorker since 1999. She was graduated from Yale and teaches in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. She has published two volumes of poetry and you can tell. “Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture� is a book about the politics and public health implications of unpasteurized milk and raw dairy products, eating whales, Naomi Pomeroy, exotic food sourcing, horsemeat, militant veganism, marijuana-smoked chocolate, entomophagy (people eating insects for food), the Food and Drug Administration, foie gras, how to eat live octopus, Ludo Lafebvre, uninspected restaurants in chefs' apartments and garages, and balut (fertilized, developed, soon-to-be-hatched eggs, boiled and eaten in the Philippines and popular in Southeast Asia). If among those are some things that interest you, you would probably like this book. Goodyear apparently skipped the class at Yale on outlining as this book has no beginning, no ending, and no apparent organization, but it is still pretty darned good.
May 21, 2022
Although I enjoyed parts of this, as some sections seemed more relevant to my own life experience, I generally don't understand this type of food or the discovery of this type of culture. I think it's great to eat a variety of things, care about what you eat, and seek enjoyment in the process, I mostly didn't really connect with the reason behind a lot of the exotic foods shown, and really didn't provoke me to eat anything or be able to understand more about the American Food culture in general. This was an informative book, and it contained all the information about the restaurants, the chef, the type of food, and the recipes but didn't contain the interest that it was shown when described. I rated this book 2 stars because there's not much to it besides them requesting that people started eating disgusting foods. The people who crave exotic foods like, endangered species, dangerous/poisonous food, and even creatures ate alive. This gave us an insight into how all type of cultures of food is different from the food we are used to eating outside or inside. We can always learn in a way that food doesn't come easy to others, but it shouldn't be recommended or changed the way someone eats for reasons that a book states or agrees with.
July 1, 2019
The title and subtitle tells you exactly what you'll find in this book. As this is not a world I know at all I was very interested to hear what Goodyear found. I found this to be an enlightening look at the world of food adventurers, those who eat it and those who prepare it. The idea of wanting to explore, work with, and eat anything out of the norm. While much of this world delights her she doesn't shy away from the controversial aspects of consuming possibly lethal foods as well as endangered species and the growing conflict between novelty foods and environmental and animal rights groups. She also includes some informative chapters on the history of food regulation in this country and the origins of what we now call foodies. Goodyear is an excellent writer so all of this information goes down smoothly.
May 25, 2017
Meh. I got bogged down during the endless planning of a marijuana-themed dinner and the subsequent chapters about extremely carnivorous foodies didn't bolster my impression of the book, despite (equally extreme) name dropping of chefs, reviewers, and foodies familiar to most food-obsessed folks. It invites comparison to Bourdain, but without the culinary expertise. And who would think researching such a book when pregnant would be a good idea? I was disappointed not to have more firsthand descriptions of the exotic foods - only to be glad in retrospect when the author pessimistically tackles balut in the coda.
September 5, 2019
Do not read if you are a picky eater or have a weak stomach. Neither apply to me but Goodyear still elicited a few audible gags from me while reading this. That being said, I found this dive into crazy American food communities so fascinating. Goodyear manages to tell full stories these extreme ingredients, chefs, and eaters while not letting her own viewpoint get lost. She found ways to bring those moments when I thought, “ok Dana, you cray� back to reality. Foodies (but probably not vegetarians or vegans) will enjoy.
May 24, 2024
I would have given this 3.5 stars if I could. It's ok... but lacks any kind of deep engagement. In the final chapter the author mentions that her dad died in a hunting accident and then mentions going to tasting menu focused on game. In another chapter, she spends a paragraph or so on the implications of raw milk, a dinner using Chinese herbs and pot, and her pregnancy. Where there could have been nuanced cultural revelations about the policing of women's bodies and food and connections between family and food, she just breezes by preferring to highlight gross out moments. oh well.
July 23, 2024
This collection of articles was fast paced and keeps you coming back for more. Whether you are a foodie or just interested in what happens behind the scenes at restaurants, markets, and eating clubs this is a great read. I feel like there is something for everyone in here. Sometimes gross, sometimes exquisite, but always kept me curious about what I am missing. I enjoyed this so much, I purposely took my time with it. I'd give my mind sometime to think about each article before I moved on. I'm glad I did.
December 21, 2021
Although I enjoyed parts of this, as some sections seemed more relevant to my own life experience, I generally don't understand this type of foodie/food writer/discoverer type of culture. I think it's great to eat a variety of things, care about what you eat, and seek enjoyment in the process, I mostly didn't really connect with the why behind a lot of the more extreme efforts routinely made by the writers, bloggers, chefs, owners and even eaters here.
February 11, 2021
Fascinating subject matter, but the author's stream-of-consciousness style of writing lacks any coherence or in-depth exploration beyond "Look at the crazy things people will eat!" I wanted to know more about why eating bugs or exotic animals holds such appeal for foodies as well as the history and the future implications of adventurous eating.
September 17, 2021
This book didn't pull me in, as a novel would. It was a little unnerving to read about some of the shadiness in the food business that wasn't all that long ago. It did finally pick up for me toward the end. Overall, it was an informative, if not all that appetizing, look into exactly what the subtitle says.
February 24, 2025
It’s hard to rate this book because I kept falling into and out of it, reading other things in between. Sometimes, on picking it up again, I wondered why I had discontinued. But overall, I think long sections were actually a bit boring at times, in spite of the eye opening revelations they contained!
I’ll never think of myself as an adventurous eater after this!
I’ll never think of myself as an adventurous eater after this!
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