Saturday, August 29, 2009

Benjamin Franklin on the Art of Eating edited by Gilbert Chinard

I was in Philadelphia for work back in March and on a day off went to an exhibition of some of Charles Darwin's personal papers at the American Philosophical Society. On my way out, I picked this book up on a whim because it sounded interesting and because it was only available directly from the APS.

The first 40 pages were written by Gilbert Chinard, who I guess works
(or worked) for the APS. Some of Franklin's writings about food and a few of his recipes make up the rest of the book. Well...as far a I could tell anyway. At various points it was confusing as to who was doing the writing. I was hoping for commentary and footnotes on each of the recipes, or at least on some of them. I thought I would get some interesting analysis. I didn't. This book was a big let down.

No comments: