A delightful mix of good humor and scholarship.
French food writer Vie tenders a panoramic profile of the testicle as totem and tasty.
Certainly in the world of one-note food books—salt, cod, milk, eggs, etc.—there is room for this tribute to the testicle, for balls hardly figure at all in cookbooks, which has more to do with fancy than fact: Testicles were among the choicest morsels in the French courts of the 17th and 18th centuries; they were esteemed as hors d’oeuvres in the classic and bourgeois cooking of the 19th century; they were the offal of choice in the American cowboy community; perhaps most importantly, they were the offal of choice among butchers, who know the best and kept it to themselves. The purpose of the book, writes Vie, is to honor and rehabilitate the testicle, and she writes of it (or them) with wit. She proceeds through a short course of testicles in mythology, in the Bible and the Koran and as metaphors, then shifts into an annotated lexicon of the anatomical, culinary and fantastic terms to describe the edible little things. The degree of detail is mesmerizing, and Vie provides a rangy section on preparation: recipes in the Tunisian style and the Moroccan fashion, how to freeze testicles, how to cook them with citrus and much more. MacDonogh delivers a lively translation as well as added valuable marginalia.
A delightful mix of good humor and scholarship.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-903018-83-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Prospect Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
