Eating as I Go

July 24, 2006
In quiet tones, Friedensohn, a professor emerita of women's studies at New Jersey City University, describes meals eaten and friendships formed over the years, both in the United States and abroad. The more engaging chapters in this first-person narrative, "Eat (Ethnic)! Eat (American)!" and "Kimchi Pride" center, respectively, on places such as the Phil-Am, a Filipino store and cafeteria-style restaurant in Jersey City, and on Korean cooking in New Jersey, Vermont and Korea. Friedensohn notes her own eating habits, as well as others', clearly and sensuously: "She points an arthritic forefinger first to pancit (Filipino noodles), then to a chocolately brown pork adobo (pork belly marinated in vinegar, garlic and soy sauce), then to a sculptural wedge of chicherones (pork cracklings)." Especially rewarding is part four, "Cooking for a Change," which recalls Friedensohn's experiences in the Food Service Training Academy, a free 14-week job-training program sponsored by the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which teaches "life skills as well as knife skills." Here, Friedensohn focuses on "links (among) eating, poverty, and social policy," topics not generally addressed in food-centric memoirs. Dispatches from countries such as Senegal, Tunisia and Austria prove less intriguing, but are minor let-downs in this otherwise enjoyable volume. 25 photos.

July 1, 2006
In an engaging series of memoir essays, Friedensohn (emeritus, women -s studies/American studies, New Jersey City Univ.) shares with us her lifelong quest for new cultures, foods, and tastes. The cornucopia of the world -s foods has excited and challenged her for the last 50 years. Her emphasis here is on ethnic foods, food markets, and entire neighborhoods where -American food - is foreign food. Today, many of us can travel to taste the world -s foods without leaving town, but Friedensohn is not content to limit her essays to the United States; she also includes her food experiences in Tunisia, Austria, Mozambique, the Republic of Georgia, Nepal, and Mexico, to name just a few of the countries where she discovered the pleasures of strange foods and how they could bring people from different cultures together. Luckily, Friedensohn -s sharp insights avoid academic pretension. Instead, her collection reveals the soul of an insightful and sympathetic woman, examining the relationship between culture and food. Recommended for American culture, travel, and food collections in large public and academic libraries." -Olga B. Wise, Austin, TX"

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