Thursday, October 23, 2008

In Praise of Fat


I was checking Salon.com a few days ago to see if they had posted any new food related articles and found one on Jennifer McLagan on her new book Fat: Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes. The article in the Q&A style, though not paricularly in depth, sparked my curiosity. Jennifer is a food stylist (one of those brilliant people who arranges food for the glossy photos in cookbooks and magazines), and from the looks of it a very good one, and the author of a previous book Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore.

It would seem from her bio and blog that her adoration for these foods lying somewhere between meat and offal comes from her love of French cooking enhanced by her frequent trips to Paris where she keeps a flat. Lest you think that Jennifer's love of fat is in any way personified in her physique here's her picture.

I ordered Fat and after a mouthwatering perusal of the recipes and pictures I can't wait to try out a recipe or two this weekend.

What's your opinion of fat? In looking for a witty quote to start this post, it was quite clear that fat hasn't been a word with a positive connotation for at least the last two hundred years.

2 comments:

Easy and Elegant Life said...

Mrs.E. and I recently caught up with a friend who had been ailing for several years. She has switched to a high fat diet and looks fabulous. She says that every one of her symptoms has disappeared.

Who knows? But I contend that a little fat in the diet does a world of good. If only to remind our bodies how to deal with it.

Athenaeus said...

Easy and Elegant Life, I couldn't agree more. I'm glad your friend has found nourishment and better health in a bit of fat.