Birth of a Cook; a gastronomical autobiography, by Ernest Mundt. Illustrated by the author.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mundt, Ernest, 1905-1993.

Contributor:

Chef Fritz Blank Culinary Archive and Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Culinary Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mundt, Ernest, 1905-1993.

Mundt, Ernest.

Gastronomy.

gastronomy.

Penn Provenance:

Blank, Fritz (bookplate) (donor)

Physical Description:

[2], x, 243, [1] pages illustrations 22 cm

Edition:

First Edition

Place of Publication:

New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.

Contents:

Chapter 1 discusses some of the reasons why I became so interested in palatal matters

Chapter 2 considers my first lessons in the art of eating as offered by Russians, Turks, and one Hungarian.

Chapter 3 presents the systems in which I ordered what I was learning in seventeen other schools, but is mainly given to some critical remarks concerning international hotel fare. It also makes a fleeting reference to astrology.

Chapter 4 contains my first experience as a cook; and a diatribe against flour.

Chapter 5 describes the culinary resources of my establishment in New York, reveals a piece of villainy, and states my quaternary theory of composing a diet.

Chapter 6 lectures on the archaeology of my mother's cooking, and on some basic verities illustrated by means of the potato.

Chapter 7 reports on a piece of detective work in reference to spaghetti sauce.

Chapter 8 confides a dream, and speaks of love and salads.

Chapter 9 investigates today's kitchen of tomorrow, a supermarket, and the preparation of rice.

Chapter 10 goes off on an alcoholic tangent and lectures on drinking and the relations between food, drink and smoke.

Chapter 11 introduces, after an excursion into monosodium glutamate, the culinary assets of San Francisco.

Chapter 12 mentions a few dishes that, while utterly satisfactory to the palate, take but little time to prepare. It also offers an apology.

Chapter 13 finds a missing link between sandwiches and sandwiches, and thereby retrieves some childhood memories that add symbolic overtones to the basic tune of nourishment.

Chapter 14 broaches the subject of charcoal broiling, waxes poetic about a good soup, and limns a variation on the Pygmalion theme.

Chapter 15 observations, musings, and aperçus relating to the body of the text

Appendix: recipes.

Notes:

This is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Local Notes:

Kislak Center Chef Fritz Blank Culinary Archive and Library copy presented to the Penn Libraries by Fritz Blank in 2008.

Kislak copy has bookplate of Chef Fritz Blank.

Kislak copy has dust jacket with transparent protective cover retained.

Other Format:

Online version: Mundt, Ernest, 1905-1993. Birth of a cook.

OCLC:

1476141