Popcorn! by Frances Towner Giedt

This is my last Culinary reading of 2023, It's a short read of less than 110 pages. I got this book as part of the 'Take a Book, Leave a Book' program of the Bald Head Island Library earlier this summer. My students are always asking to make popcorn and I support them wanting to explore their culinary interests. I just would like for them to season things up a bit if I did let them make popcorn. Hopefully this book might help. Plus, with the numerous fun facts, you really learn about this history of this food stuff!

This 1995 book contains several dozen popcorn recipes divided into the categories of Sweet, Savory and Skinny. You'd think that every recipe would be the same just telling the prepper to pop the corn, then add seasonings, toss and eat. However, author Frances Towner Giedt utilizes pots, stoves, sauce pans and even the oven for making these popcorn snacks. There are several recipes that sound really good like the Rocky Road Popcorn Balls and the Taco flavor. There's even a few trail mix style recipes that incorporate nuts, fruit and chocolate into the popcorn. A few other recipes might not be so easy to create as posted. For a nearly 30 year old book, there are some ingredients called for that I don't think manufacture anymore, such as the powdered spaghetti sauce mix called for to craft the pizza popcorn dish. But if I can find out a substitute, I really want to make this stuff.

I also share a bit of concern with the skinny recipes. Not that I don't think that they could be tasty or anything like that. I think some of the nutritional values and dietary suggestions might be a tad outdated. The author has written or co-authored several healthy eating cookbooks sponsored by the Joslin Diabetes Center, a reputable medical institution. So I suspect Frances Towner Giedt's facts are accurate and sound. However, there's been tons of research that has changed dietary recommendations and requirements almost a dozen times in the last 4 decades. Plus, I think some of the butter and sugar substitutes called for are now considered carcinogenic. My advice: if you 21st century aspiring popcorn chefs out there ever use this cookbook, do your research on any of the name-brand items called for in the healthy recipe section.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes: The Collected Comic Strip & Italian Holiday Cookbook

A delightful comic strip turned graphic novel about an Italian family from West Virginia and the hours leading up to their 1983 Christmas Eve dinner. The event is called the Feast of the Seven Fishes and I only just learned of this tradition earlier this year when I saw that the Impractical Jokers were celebrating it virtually on their 'Dinner Party' series. Along with the story, this book is also part cook book with around a dozen seafood recipes and couple of Italian desserts. It's also a history book with a multi-page background of the EZ Street author Robert Tinnell's life in that region of the U.S.

My wife got this for me for Christmas this year and it was a perfect gift. I love graphic novels. I'm a professional chef. I love history, being originally a history major in college. And I love the Steelers and the area of West Virginia in which this story takes place is Steeler Nation Territory! The only thing I hated about this book was the ending!

There's a romance that brews in this story. And personally, I am not a fan of how this tale ends. Robert Tinnell wants to make a pair of sequels that take place in 1993 and 2003. So many the story completes nicely. But for right now, it's been about 15 or 16 years since this story originally was published online. So unless we've got a holiday miracle in the works, I doubt it. A live-action movie was made of this story- maybe it's got a happier ending...

The artwork was fantastic. The first half of the story was illustrated by the ever wonderful Ed Piskor (Hip Hop Family Tree). A tightening schedule made Piskor unable to complete the story. So DC/Marvel journeyman Alex Saviuk took over the reigns and despite the fact that Pittsburgh's Piskor is my guy, I thought that Saviuk's artwork was even more amazing. Sorry Ed...

The Feast of the Seven Fishes was a nearly perfect book. But that ending did leave me bummed. To make up for it, maybe I'll cook up a fisherman's buffet because those recipes look delicious! 

This really was a great book. Don't let the conclusion turn you away. If you love Christmas, food, Italians and the Pittsburgh Steelers- you will love this book!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Fuds: A Complete Encyclofoodia from Tickling Shrimp to Not Dying in a Restaurant by the Mizretti Brothers

   Imagine a restaurant so awful, so insane, and possibly a little on the dangerous side and you've got Fuds: a trendy restaurant in Brooklyn that has taken the hipster foodie crowd by storm. With it's famous offerings of 'Dead Dog co-plated with Yam Clippings and a Leafy Lage Dumping' and ' Roundeye Flank Stringers with a Yankee-Poisoned Marinara and Fuzzy Rice Curds' this is any culinary instructors worst nightmare.

   Thankfully, Fuds is the brainchild of Kelly Hudson, Dan Klein, and Arthur Meyer (the later two are currently Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon writers.) Originally started as a gag menu for a made up restaurant, Fuds really did take the Brooklyn scene and spin it on its ear. Going viral in 2012, people actually thought Fuds was real and tried to visit it to try these oddities while some tried to get the Health Department to close it down.

   Building from the success of the joke, Hudson, Klein, and Meyer created this book as a tutorial from the fictious restaurant's owners the Mizretti Brothers. Along with some of their most famous recipes, the Brothers included helpful tips on how to audition a new garbage man, knife safety (or lack thereof), how to save someone from choking (so they can pay for their meal) and explore the history of Fud. 

   This book was very funny and as a professional chef, I loved how it didn't take itself serious at all. I've seen so many jokers act like their going to be the next Charlie Trotter and end up figuring out that being in the restaurant business is really hard work and they drop out. So, it was funny to see a couple of goofballs half-ass it in the culinary industry for a change (even if it was all made up.)

   This book is a little vulgar. Lots of F-bombs and other four letter words are peppered throughout. But what surprised me more was the number of sex toys used in making some of the recipes in this book. I strongly advise anyone 18 and older to not try any of these recipes EVER! Especially the one that calls for 24 kilos of uncut cocaine. I'm pretty sure that one would kill you. 

   I found out about this book thanks to a plug from Jimmy Fallon on his show. Otherwise, I would have completely overlooked this book at the library. It's a fun read and it should be taken as such. Again, this is a parody- please don't make any of the recipes in this book! They will make you very sick at the very least.

    Lastly, if any of this book's real writers ever stumble across this review, I just would like you to know you spelled the title of your book wrong. It's a joke in my wife's family to spell Food F-U-D. But you forgot to put those two tiny dots over the U in Fuds. If you ever make a 2nd printing or a sequel, I hope you guys will put the correct accent mark over the U! Otherwise, you just look silly...

   Worth Consuming!

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.