Food by Jim Gaffigan

""What are my qualifications to write this book? None really. So why should you read it? Here's why: I'm a little fat. If a thin guy were to write about a love of food and eating I'd highly recommend that you do not read his book." Bacon. McDonalds. Cinnabon. Hot Pockets. Kale. Stand-up comedian and author Jim Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the American diet ("choking on bacon is like getting murdered by your lover") and decrying the worst offenders ("kale is the early morning of foods"). Fans flocked to his New York Times bestselling book Dad is Fat to hear him riff on fatherhood but now, in his second book, he will give them what they really crave--hundreds of pages of his thoughts on all things culinary(ish). Insights such as: why he believes coconut water was invented to get people to stop drinking coconut water, why pretzel bread is #3 on his most important inventions of humankind (behind the wheel and the computer), and the answer to the age-old question "which animal is more delicious: the pig, the cow, or the bacon cheeseburger?""--

Following his book on parenting, Jim Gaffigan offers a book on his true strength: food.

As with Dad is Fat, a lot of this is material I've seen/heard elsewhere, but most of it isn't. I think – I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Gaffigan's material, as much as my children want me to (I wouldn't mind it, either).

On the whole, this is about what foods, dishes, and practices he likes – but he breaks it up with things he can't stomach or understand. Sometimes, like with the chapter on Reuben sandwiches, he handles both.

The chapters on Coffee, Steak, Doughnuts, Breakfast, Hot Dogs and Bacon stand out particularly for me. Although the pair “Nobody Really Likes Fruit” and “Even Fewer People Like Vegetables” really amused me, even beyond the great titles.

Actually, there's really nothing that didn't amuse me.

Naturally, there's an entire chapter devoted to Hot Pockets. That's all I'm going to say about that, it speaks for itself.

Because the book is pretty tightly focused, there are two ways I'd recommend to read this book: in one setting, or broken up into tiny chunks over several days. There's a danger of things getting repetitive, that either of those tacks reduces.

I'm going to limit myself to just a few highlights, there's quotable material on almost every page:

A.1. was always on the table when my dad would grill steaks. It seems everyone I knew had that same thin bottle of A.1. It always felt like it was empty right before it flooded your steak. Ironically, the empty-feeling bottle never seemed to run out. I think most people still have the same bottle of A.1. that they had in 1989. Once I looked at the back of a bottle of A.1. and was not surprised to find that one of the ingredients was “magic.”

Of course I am aware that doughnuts are bad, horrible things to eat, and according to my health-nut wife, they are not appropriate for a trail mix. I've repeatedly tried to explain to Jeannie that I'm on a different trail. Mine leads to the emergency room. Trail mixes have nuts, and my favorite nut is most definitely a doughnut.

Bill Shakespeare himself, another actor who did some writing...

Note:I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review, who are now responsible for me owning the complete works of Jim Gaffigan. Which was generous and cool of them, but didn't impact what I said about the book.