Buttermilk GraffitiButtermilk Graffiti
A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting-Pot Cuisine
Title rated 0 out of 5 stars, based on 0 ratings(0 ratings)
eBook, 2018
Current format, eBook, 2018, , Available.Book
Also offered as Book, Available . Available
Winner, 2019 James Beard Award for Best Book of the Year in Writing
Finalist, 2019 IACP Award, Literary Food Writing
Named a Best Food Book of the Year by the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, BookRiot, and more
Semifinalist, Goodreads Choice Awards
"Thoughtful, well researched, and truly moving. Shines a light on what it means to cook and eat American food, in all its infinitely nuanced and ever-evolving glory."
-Anthony Bourdain
American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavors. But for Edward Lee, who, like Anthony Bourdain or Gabrielle Hamilton, is as much a writer as he is a chef, that first surprising bite is just the beginning. What about the people behind the food? What about the traditions, the innovations, the memories?
A natural-born storyteller, Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country. There's a Cambodian couple in Lowell, Massachusetts, and their efforts to re-create the flavors of their lost country. A Uyghur café in New York's Brighton Beach serves a noodle soup that seems so very familiar and yet so very exotic-one unexpected ingredient opens a window onto an entirely unique culture. A beignet from Café du Monde in New Orleans, as potent as Proust's madeleine, inspires a narrative that tunnels through time, back to the first Creole cooks, then forward to a Korean rice-flour hoedduck and a beignet dusted with matcha.
Sixteen adventures, sixteen vibrant new chapters in the great evolving story of American cuisine. And forty recipes, created by Lee, that bring these new dishes into our own kitchens. Edward Lee is the author of Smoke & Pickles; chef/owner of 610 Magnolia, MilkWood, and Whiskey Dry in Louisville, Kentucky; and culinary director of Succotash in National Harbor, Maryland, and Penn Quarter, Washington, DC. He appears frequently in print and on television, including earning an Emmy nomination for his role in the Emmy Award–winning series The Mind of a Chef. Most recently, he wrote and hosted the feature documentary Fermented. He lives in Louisville and Washington, DC, and you can find him on Instagram and Twitter @chefedwardlee.
"Striking stories. . . . Lee is a master."
-New York Times Book Review
"Beautifully written."
-NPR
"Lee is a gifted storyteller and those first few chapters will grab you and keep you riveted all the way to the end."
-Bon Appétit
"Capture[s] what the nation's melting pot cuisine is today."
-Food Wine, Staff Favorite
"Part adventure tale, part memoir. . . . Don't hit the beach without this remarkable book in your bag."
-Fine Cooking
"Conjure[s] writers as diverse and compelling as Alexis de Tocqueville, M.F.K. Fisher and Anthony Bourdain. . . . Powerful, poignant, and timely."
-Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Lee peels open the layers of what it means to be American today. . . . [Buttermilk Graffiti] contains a level of awareness that's often missing from chef memoirs. . . . Lee is just as well-read and reflective as master of the genre Anthony Bourdain, but he brings a fresh take."
-Eater
"Raw, gritty. . . . Each chapter in Buttermilk Graffiti presents a new adventure."
-Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Lee is consistently willing to dive into unfamiliar places and challenging conversations to get stories that haven't yet been told, and the reader emerges from Buttermilk Graffiti richer for his efforts. . . . Buttermilk Graffiti represents exactly the kind of inquiry that helps create a vibrant national food scene. It's not a flavor-of-the-week Nutella lasagna recipe turned hashtag, and it's not a reality food competition. The book is one hyper-curious chef, on the road, meeting people in places that haven't already been covered to dea
Title availability
Find this title on
ProspectorAbout
Subject and genre
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community