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The Food Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge

by David Kamp and Marion Rosenfeld

Review
     Publication days are happy ones, particularly when they involve The World's Second Best Accidental Food Writer, David Kamp. (First place goes to Anthony Bourdain, although after four books, two TV shows and a bunch of mystery novels, he's sort of an editor emeritus; it's been years since he's seen the dark side of a restaurant kitchen.)

     In any case, "The Food Snob's Dictionary" ("FSD") is the unholy love child of Kamp's twin obsessions: pop-culture lexicons of "aspirational satire" and the rise of America's food(ie) culture, which he documented brilliantly in "The United States of Arugula" (which, in paperback, has a fabulous new tagline: "The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution").

     Kamp's FSD, like his dictionaries that came before it (Rock Snob's, Film Snob's), is dedicated to celebrating and righteously tweaking the cultural obsessive.
D. L Harris, Los Angeles, CA (Amazon.com)

Book Description
     Food Snob n: reference term for the sort of food obsessive for whom the actual joy of eating and cooking is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about these subjects

     From the author of The United States of Arugula--and coauthor of The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary--a delectable compendium of food facts, terminology, and famous names that gives ordinary folk the wherewithal to take down the Food Snobs--or join their zealous ranks.

     Open a menu and there they are, those confusing references to “grass-fed” beef, “farmstead” blue cheese, and “dry-farmed” fruits. It doesn’t help that your dinner companions have moved on to such heady topics as the future of the organic movement, or the seminal culinary contributions of Elizabeth Drew and Fernand Point. David Kamp, who demystified the worlds of rock and film for grateful readers, explains it all and more, in The Food Snobs Dictionary.

     Both entertaining and authentically informative, The Food Snob’s Dictionary travels through the alphabet explaining the buzz-terms that fuel the food-obsessed, from “Affinage” to “Zest,” with stops along the way for “Cardoons,” “Fennel Pollen,” and “Sous-Vide,” all served up instructive information with a huge and welcome dollop of wit.

About the Author
David Kamp is a writer and editor for Vanity Fair and GQ, and the author of The United States of Arugula, The Film Snob’s Dictionary, and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary. He lives in New York City.
Marion Rosenfeld, a writer and producer, has spent her entire career in media, much of it food related. She lives in New York City. ROSS MacDONALD’s illustrations have appeared in many magazines, from The New Yorker to The Wall Street Journal. He illustrated The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary.

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