Mark Kurlansky is one of our most erudite and entertaining food writers: the bestselling author of Salt and Cod, winner of the prestigious James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing. Now in this delightful collection he serves up a true smorgasbord of “choice cuts” by the world's most discerning gourmets and gourmands through the ages—from Plato on the art of cooking to Louis Prima at the pizzeria.

Choice Cuts offers more than two hundred mouth-watering selections, including Brillat-Savarin on chocolate; Waverley Root on truffles; M. F. K. Fish on gingerbread; Pablo Neruda on French fries; Alexandre Dumas on coffee; and a vast variety by Escoffier, Elizabeth David, A. J. Liebling, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Dickens, Balzac, Chekhov, Orwell, and Alice B. Toklas, among others. Filled throughout with recipes, menus, classic photographs, and Kurlansky's own original drawings, Choice Cuts is a must-have for any serious lover of food.