David Kamp's The United States of Arugula

Year of Publication: 2006

Recipes? No.

Grade: B+

Let's start with David Kamp's The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation.

Kamp is a writer for GQ and Vanity Fair, and this book is basically a gossipy overview of the 20^th century American food world that reads like a really long magazine article. In fact, I first came across this book when an excerpt on Chez Panisse and Alice Waters was published in Vanity Fair. The Waters chapter bisects the book—the first half concerns “the big three” of American cooking: James Beard, Julia Child, and Craig Claiborne. This section establishes the old guard, what Waters and company were rebelling against. (I guess hippies come in all flavors.) The second half deals with how the current culinary climate in America developed: lots of Wolfgang Puck, lots of Dean and Deluca, lots of bourgeois nonsense.

The first half is interesting if only because I haven't come across a lot of the early 20^th century information before, and the stuff on the French invasion of the New York restaurant scene is especially welcome. Kamp lags when he attempts to intertwine the lives of Beard, Child and Claibourne, if only because books and articles on these three are so readily available that these chapters read like a harried review of facts. Arugula has been lauded for the quantity of gossip Kamp collected, and needless to say the longer folks have been dead, the fewer people there are to dish on them. Kamp's rushing through to get to the good stuff.

The section on Waters is interesting—it spawned a several-week-long indulgence at my house in which my roommates and I tested recipes for “our restaurant” and I attempted to make square crepes. (It didn't work.) I have a tendency to get really jealous of people who accomplish a lot when they're young, and then I get really defensive and start making grandiose plans to achieve something myself. Sigh. Anyway, Kamp effectively captures a moment in time that I'm sure was quite tumultuous, and I was relieved to see his positive portrayal of Jeremiah Tower, as many writers fail to credit Tower his due in the shadow of Saint Alice.

The second half is, you know, dishy, and few if any fail to escape the rumor mill. (Jacques Pepin is a notable exception—can the man do no wrong?) It's all very well and good, but the actual historical information seems to be lacking here. Maybe I just don't give a rat's ass about the Los Angeles food scene. In any case, what surprised me was the space given to grocery stores' role in the gourmet-ization of America—the amount of thought and energy that goes into orchestrating food trends such as kiwi or pomegranate will make your head spin the next time you hit up your local HEB.

The gossip and the grocery store factoids reach a glorious climax with this anecdote from Giorgio DeLuca: “'I used to give the blue-haired ladies a taste of the fresh chévre from France...I remember putting olive oil on it and fresh thyme, then giving 'em a taste. Then I'd have some, too, and say “Boy, that—that's like angel cum!” Just to freak 'em out”'” (202). Ha. The food world needs more humor. Takes itself too damn seriously.

I'm giving Kamp's book a B+; the plus only because he includes an extensive, mouth-watering bibliography. This just shows that I'd rather go to the source, I guess. An entertaining read, but in the end, not indispensable.