Feeding a Yen: Savoring Local Specialties, from Kansas City to Cuzco

Calvin Trillin has never been a champion of the “continental cuisine” palaces he used to refer to as La Maison de la Casa House. What he treasures is the superb local specialty. And he will go anywhere to find one. As it happens, some of his favorite dishes can be found only in their place of origin. Join Trillin on his charming, funny culinary adventures as he samples fried marlin in Barbados and the barbecue of his boyhood in Kansas City. Travel alongside as he hunts for the authentic fish taco, and participates in a “boudin blitzkrieg” in the part of Louisiana where people are accustomed to buying these spicy sausages and polishing them off in the parking lot. (“Cajun boudin not only doesn’t get outside the state, it usually doesn’t even get home.”) In New York, Trillin even tries to use a glorious local specialty, the bagel, to lure his daughters back from California. Feeding a Yen is a delightful reminder of why New York magazine called Calvin Trillin “our funniest food writer.”

CALVIN TRILLIN has been called “perhaps the finest reporter in America,” and “a classic American humorist.”

A onetime writer for Time, The New Yorker and a current contributor to The Nation, he is the author of several collections of essays and three comic novels, including the national bestseller Tepper Isn’t Going Out. He has also written three previous books on eating, American Fried, Alice, Let's Eat and Third Helpings, and the acclaimed memoirs, Messages from My Father, a New York Times best seller, and Family Man. His next book will be "Obliviously On He Sails," a collection of satirical verse about the George W, Bush presidency.