The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

by Jim Harrison

Book Overview

Jim Harrison is one of this country's most beloved writers, a muscular, brilliantly economic stylist with a salty wisdom. For more than twenty years, he has also been writing some of the best essays on food around, now collected in a volume that caused the Santa Fe New Mexican to exclaim: To read this book is to come away convinced that Harrison is a flat-out genius -- one who devours life with intensity, living it roughly and full-scale, then distills...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080213937X
• ISBN13: 9780802139375
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Make the Meatballs!

Well, there certainly is more than enough erudition in all of these reviews. How about just enjoying the food, as Jim Harrison does? My copy is worn out from making the most fabulous meatball recipe on this earth! I have read all of Jim Harrison's books, but totally enjoy his take on life in his non-fiction particularly. Get over the fact that he overdoes the name-dropping. I lived in the U.P. for many years, but never heard of him till I moved to New York and discovered his books and magazine writing. An amateur food writer? I beg to disagree. If measured by how badly he makes you want to frequent the dives (even more than the four star restaurants) to try the meals and experience the ambience he so deliciously describes, then he is the best of food writers. He also solved a mystery my husband and I both suffered from - gout! This book is a steal at any price, and a joy to read for food and wine lovers.

Hilarious

Harrison will make you laugh outloud with his views on our society. He does, however, make some very serious points and not all is in jest. He shows that you can't write about food without touching on all aspects of our lives as human beings.

Full of himself--but great writing

Harrison collects columns written for various publications between the years 1990 and 2000 and presents them in one handy volume. There is no doubting that Harrison loves to indulge himself with great food, great wine and great company. And he can tell a tale. Harrison is at his best when rhapsodizing about memorable meals and contemplating his existence in the universe. Harrison is at his worst when trying to impress the reader that despite living much of the year in the sticks of Upper Peninsula Michigan or borderlands Arizona--he is indeed a jet-set world traveler, who knows everyone (Hollywood, Paris, the Big Apple, Key West) and is quite a witty dinner companion (he kept Winona Ryder in stiches one evening). Ultimately, I found it best to put up with the occasional self ego masaaging boast in order to indulge in some superb food writing.

pure pleasure

I cannot tell a lie. Harrison's poetry leaves me cold, and I find his fiction only marginally interesting at best, sexist at its worst. Having said this, however, the man writes essays like nobody else. Although eating is the ostensible subject here, this collection of previously published magazine articles is really about Harrison's roving intellect and far-ranging appetites. Here he writes about not just food and wine but also parses love, death, sex, hunting, fishing, politics, poetry, and the natural world (sometimes in a single four-page essay). Even if, like Harrison, you're not in the habit of eating grouse, woodcock, and the offal of various hooved and cloven animals, there is still much wit and wisom--soul food, if you will--in these pages.

a chef that is also a harrison fan

i've been a huge fan of jim harrison for years. i first learned of him when i discovered his "the raw and the cooked" column in esquire way back when. i branched out and read all of his books but kept wishing he would do more writing about food and the joy of food (i love to cook). this book is great, it reminds me of why i am a chef and why i can spend hours in the kitchen only to have my creations wolfed down in minutes. it also reminds me of a quote (attributable to harrison?) about how the midwest still considers overeating a virtue. there is nothing better than surf and turf created from fresh venison and crab cakes chased w/an excellent cabernet. jim harrision writes about food w/a passion that any chef would appreciate.