Buttermilk Graffiti
A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine
by Edward Lee
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Pub Date Apr 17 2018 | Archive Date Apr 21 2018
Artisan Books | Artisan
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Description
Finalist, 2019 IACP Award, Literary Food Writing
Named a Best Food Book of the Year by the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, BookRiot, and more
Semifinalist, Goodreads Choice Awards
“Thoughtful, well researched, and truly moving. Shines a light on what it means to cook and eat American food, in all its infinitely nuanced and ever-evolving glory.”
—Anthony Bourdain
American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavors. But for Edward Lee, who, like Anthony Bourdain or Gabrielle Hamilton, is as much a writer as he is a chef, that first surprising bite is just the beginning. What about the people behind the food? What about the traditions, the innovations, the memories?
A natural-born storyteller, Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country. There’s a Cambodian couple in Lowell, Massachusetts, and their efforts to re-create the flavors of their lost country. A Uyghur café in New York’s Brighton Beach serves a noodle soup that seems so very familiar and yet so very exotic—one unexpected ingredient opens a window onto an entirely unique culture. A beignet from Café du Monde in New Orleans, as potent as Proust’s madeleine, inspires a narrative that tunnels through time, back to the first Creole cooks, then forward to a Korean rice-flour hoedduck and a beignet dusted with matcha.
Sixteen adventures, sixteen vibrant new chapters in the great evolving story of American cuisine. And forty recipes, created by Lee, that bring these new dishes into our own kitchens.
Advance Praise
Named one of Publishers Weekly’s
Top 10 Food Books for Spring 2018
“Excellent. . . . Lee celebrates unexpected confluences of cuisines
while refusing to be limited by definitions of ‘authenticity.’”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An acclaimed chef and restaurateur travels across the country to explore the
cultural history behind the evolving American cuisine. Lee . . . points out the
essential role that both immigrants and longtime settlers play in the food we
eat. . . . A heartfelt and forward-thinking book.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Part adventure tale, part food treatise, part memoir, Buttermilk
Graffiti is all Edward Lee: wide-eyed, profane, hungry for life, ever
soulful, and poetic. In prose that’s as gorgeous and honest as his cooking, Lee
takes us on an irresistible journey into the amazing diversity of flavors and
traditions that truly makes this country great. An essential American story.”
—Chang-rae Lee, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and Pulitzer Prize
finalist
“Restlessly curious, unafraid, and empathetic, Edward Lee reports and writes
like a narrative journalist with a side interest in squash schnitzel and pickle
juice gravy. You won’t read a smarter book about American food culture this
year.”
—John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the
Modern South
“With the release of Buttermilk Graffiti, Edward Lee proves himself
to be one of our country’s great chroniclers of culture. Going all the way back
to de Tocqueville, the most informative and impactful writing has examined
class, society, culture, assimilation, and food. Lee now joins that long list
of food/culture warriors, deciphering our modern world through what we can
learn from its food and inspiring us to look at what we eat, where it comes
from, who is cooking it, and why. In today’s political and social
climate, this book is as timely as it is important.”
—Andrew Zimmern, chef, teacher, author, and host of Bizarre Foods
with Andrew Zimmern
“Buttermilk Graffiti is a masterfully narrated passion tour of some of
this country’s most revelatory places to eat and the people behind them,
written in Edward Lee’s socially conscious style. It left me enlightened and
hungry.”
—Toni Tipton-Martin, author of The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African
American Cookbooks
Marketing Plan
20-city author tour
20-city author tour
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781579657383 |
| PRICE | $27.50 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
Featured Reviews
Joseph J, Librarian
This is not your typical cookbook. Not even close. There are recipes at the end of each chapter but they are just a fraction of what I got out of this book. Instead Chef Edward Lee gave me a glimpse of different cultures that came to this country and the foods that define them and how they have adapted them. Wait, even that is only part of the story. I may never get to taste Chef Lee's food but I am thankful I am able to read his writing! He brings alive the idea of food being a central part of so many culture's lives in a way that makes you want to immediately start cooking his recipes for family and friends and discuss what you just read.
Kate T, Reviewer
I very much enjoyed this book as it shows that food as not just being something to eat but it connects us to the culture and people preparing it. Very readable story and excellent recipes.
Media/Journalist 220505
Chef, writer, and Emmy Award-nominee Edward Lee has provided a fresh commentary on the idea of the USA as cultural melting pot as seen through the lens of food and the people who cook it, punctuated with delicious recipes inspired by the food he eats en route. It's perceptively written; Lee is particularly good at writing about women and his account of a road trip with the fabulous Appalachia-based food writer Ronni Lundy helps debunk some of the stereotypes about this part of the States. He addresses the gnarly issue of the politics of food, diversity and cultural appropriation, asking who gets to represent a culture's food? There's no easy answer to this, but what Lee does is provide a platform for people to speak about the food that is important to them, and the space it inhabits. It's an on-going conversation about people and the communities most of us are unaware of. As he says about Clarksville in Mississippi (although it could apply to any of the locations), “This is America. Maybe not the white picket fence version we are used to seeing, but the one that exists in every town just beneath the surface, embodied by the diversity in the labour economy."
This review was published in the print edition of the Bury Free Press and other Iliffe Media titles.
Christine C, Reviewer
I first knew and loved Edward Lee from Top Chef, and then from his cookbook Smoke & Pickles and his season of The Mind of a Chef TV show. In all cases, he seemed like a brilliant chef and a kind, thoughtful person. This EXCELLENT book confirms that, and then some. I loved his journey through unique (often immigrant) U.S. culinary traditions (including a trip to my homeland of Wisconsin/five-point thesis about why German food is underappreciated!). One of the best of the many food books I’ve read in recent years,, and one I’ll be recommending widely and enthusiastically.
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