Break out the TV dinners! From the author who gave us Cod, Salt, and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.
Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of many books, including The Food of a Younger Land, Cod- A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, Salt- A World History, 1968- The Year That Rocked the World, and The Big Oyster- History on the Half Shell. He lives in New York City.
“Less a biography than a glimpse into an exuberantly inventive time
in America. . . . In Kurlansky’s hands, the arc of Birdseye’s life
. . . is a history of the American imagination.”—The Washington
Post
“[An] intriguing book that . . . coaxes readers to re-examine
everyday miracles like frozen food, and to imagine where places
with no indigenous produce would be without them.” —The New York
Times
“Kurlansky’s skilled narration ensures that each detail is salient
to the central story of Birdseye and his inventions. . . . [and]
reinvigorates the spirit of this most American of entrepreneurs.”
—The Boston Globe
“A lively . . . biography about one of America’s most unusual
innovators.” —Newsday
“A delight. . . . Fabulous factoids abound.” —The New York Times
Book Review
“The master of the food monograph . . . Kurlansky typically begins
with a single natural resource and studies its broad impact on
humankind. This book flips that model on its head by studying one
extraordinary man and the effect of his innovations on a host of
commodities. . . . Birdseye was, in his tastes, surprisingly in
sync with today’s ethos of locavorism and nose-to-tail eating.”
—Businessweek
“A key ingredient in the success of Kurlansky’s biography is the
mixture of Birdseye the modern man and Birdseye the throwback, who
could not understand so much of contemporary society.” —The Houston
Chronicle
“Having just read Mark Kurlansky’s new biography of Clarence
Birdseye, I now see the humble fish fillet in a whole new light.
For as Kurlansky tells it, when Clarence Birdseye figured out how
to pack and freeze haddock . . . he essentially changed the way we
produce, preserve and distribute food forever.” —Alison Richards,
The Salt, NPR
“Kurlansky brings Birdseye to life. . . . Covering the science
behind Birdseye’s . . . inventions along with intimate details of
his family life, [he] skillfully weaves a fluid narrative of facts
on products, packaging, and marketing into this rags-to-riches
portrait of the man whose ingenuity brought revolutionary changes
to 20th-century life.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)
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