Thank you for purchasing Comfort Me with Offal: Ruth Bourdain’s Guide to Gastronomy, the most important contribution to food writing since Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste. Now that you have acquired this book, you may go ahead and throw away your copy of that other one (or, to be “green,” you may recycle it in a special bin now available at your local Whole Foods Market). But don’t get rid of all your food reference books: You will still need to hold on to your mammoth copy of Larousse Gastronomique (it comes in very handy for step aerobics).
Thirty-five years ago, over a memorable dinner in Chinatown, the legendary James Beard told me, “Ruth, you must write this book.” Now, he did have his mouth full of chicken feet at the time, and his speech was slurred from smoking way too much tarragon, so there is a good possibility he might have actually said, “Ruth, you must try this jook,” referring to the rice porridge he was eating (it was amazing). Nevertheless, I’m still pretty sure he encouraged me to put pen to paper and at long last share my deep knowledge of gastronomy with the entire universe.
While Comfort Me with Offal may be more than three decades in the making, it represents the first and only comprehensive guide to our current state of gastronomy. And there couldn’t be a better time for an instruction manual for the world of food. Let’s face it: The culinary world has gotten a little confusing as of late. Is bagged salad clean and safe to eat? What the fuck is “air-chilled chicken,” anyway? And what’s up with Padma Lakshmi? Is she stoned on Top Chef? Unfortunately, this book does not contain the answers to any of those questions, but it will equip you with the basic knowledge of gastronomy so that you can search for the answers on your own.
We start in Chapter 1, “A Brief History of Gastronomy,” with a look back at the history of food and its eaters and how we evolved from the most ancient culinarians to the modern-day Yelper.
Chapter 2 provides a “Field Guide to the Modern Foodie,” an essential guide to the diverse and eclectic types of food obsessives—from carniwhores to gastrosexuals—who comprise the contemporary food world.
Chapter 3, “Navigating the Edible Industrial Complex,” explores the current state of gastronomy, including the rise of the celebrity chef, the importance of celebrity chef hair (or lack thereof), and lucrative new frontiers in pharmaceutical endorsements for top chefs; food trends; how to read a restaurant review; and etiquette points for eating with others. In this day and age, it’s critical to think about food choices, so we’ll also explore some tips and techniques for managing portion size and preparing for the eventuality of a vegan apocalypse.
In Chapter 4, “The Gastronomical Me,” we’ll turn to the eater as animal, studying its basic anatomy and the steps humans can take to hone their gustatory abilities. You’ll learn about the joy of cooking (culinary sex!) and the art of getting gastrostoned.
Finally, in Chapter 5, “Matters of Taste,” we get to the food (that is, meat, cheese, coffee, and chocolate). You’ve probably never tasted any of those things, so this will be a vital resource, which pairs nicely with Chapter 6, “The World of Wine and Spirits,” where we might get a little bit drunk (please appoint a designated driver while reading this important chapter).
At the end of the book, I’ve included a quiz—What’s Your Gastronomical Quotient (GQ)?—a standardized tool for assessing your knowledge of food and aptitude for all things culinary.
Throughout this volume, I’ve collected some memorable stories from my own personal history in the world of food and wine, along with my rules (“Ruth’s Rules”) for eating, which Michael Pollan shamelessly ripped off in his Food Rules book. “So You Want to Be a...” questionnaires will assess your aptitude for culinary careers as a celebrity chef, restaurant critic, sommelier, and more.
I hope that this guide will become as cherished as your well-worn copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I think Julia Child would have wanted it that way.
Bon Appétit!