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Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany
From the author of the international bestseller Schott's Original Miscellany , the new collection of vital irrelevance and uncommon knowledge from the worlds of food and drink.
The eponymous foods, famous last meals, and perfect martini proportions revealed in the bestselling Schott's Original Miscellany were only the tip of the Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany is a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles from the culinary world. From food history to cooking terms, cocktail recipes to dining etiquette, grace before meals to after-dinner toasts-this olla podrida offers everything for the wine drinker, gastronome, and glutton. And Ben Schott's brilliant juxtaposition of delectable tidbits makes this new miscellany so hard to put down, it may even make you late for dinner.
Ben Schott is a photographer, designer, and Miscellanist. He lives in Highgate, London.
Also Schott's Original Miscellany hc 1-58234-349-7 $14.95
Praise for Schott's Original Miscellany : "It's the ultimate book for browsing...as hilarious as it is addictive."- Newsweek "Ben Schott's utterly indispensable Schott's Original Miscellany is...scarily habit-forming, so caveat emptor!"- Vanity Fair "It is so pleasant just to have this book near."- Los Angeles Times "If nothing else, bathroom reading just got a lot smarter."- Daily Candy "Somehow Mr. Schott turns a collection of trivia into a window on the world that is hilarious, puzzling, and inspiring."- Wall Street Journal "An irresistible, irreplaceable, inexhaustible delight."- Baltimore Sun "Schott's Original Miscellany is a charmingly addictive curiosity cabinet...the first really great bathroom book of the 21st century."- Entertainment Weekly
The eponymous foods, famous last meals, and perfect martini proportions revealed in the bestselling Schott's Original Miscellany were only the tip of the Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany is a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles from the culinary world. From food history to cooking terms, cocktail recipes to dining etiquette, grace before meals to after-dinner toasts-this olla podrida offers everything for the wine drinker, gastronome, and glutton. And Ben Schott's brilliant juxtaposition of delectable tidbits makes this new miscellany so hard to put down, it may even make you late for dinner.
Ben Schott is a photographer, designer, and Miscellanist. He lives in Highgate, London.
Also Schott's Original Miscellany hc 1-58234-349-7 $14.95
Praise for Schott's Original Miscellany : "It's the ultimate book for browsing...as hilarious as it is addictive."- Newsweek "Ben Schott's utterly indispensable Schott's Original Miscellany is...scarily habit-forming, so caveat emptor!"- Vanity Fair "It is so pleasant just to have this book near."- Los Angeles Times "If nothing else, bathroom reading just got a lot smarter."- Daily Candy "Somehow Mr. Schott turns a collection of trivia into a window on the world that is hilarious, puzzling, and inspiring."- Wall Street Journal "An irresistible, irreplaceable, inexhaustible delight."- Baltimore Sun "Schott's Original Miscellany is a charmingly addictive curiosity cabinet...the first really great bathroom book of the 21st century."- Entertainment Weekly
159 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
August 9, 2022
An excellent book full of facts that you never wanted to know, once you start to read this you will not out it down.
July 2, 2009
The second book of Miscellany (after Schott's Original Miscellany), this one focuses on food and drink (obviously), throughout the ages and across the world. Includes everything from cocktail mixes to gout, the history of popcorn and breakfast quotations. Hilarious, informative and fascinating.
December 30, 2008
Slim volume on all sorts of food esoterica. Was especially intrigued reading about the "Bristol Stool Form Chart."
For hard core foodies only.
For hard core foodies only.
December 11, 2019
If you like cooking and have a sense of curiosity, this is the book for you. On the first page, we find short write-ups on equine savouries, saffron, formal meal times, and smoke-rings. On the second, there’s popcorn, gourmands and indigestion, and Melba toast. And here are also drinking cheers from Afrikaans to Welsh, “brimmers, bumpers, buzzes, back-handers, & bishops”, tea grading nomenclature, films featuring cannibalism, breakfast quotations, diagrams for measuring spaghetti servings, a list of things Homer Simpson has drooled “Mmm...”over and many other curious, useful, and diverting facts. Delightfully entertaining.
July 23, 2015
- wildly eclectic collection of miscellaneous cooking information/history: how to cook a swan (and why it's illegal), how Hemingway liked his Martinis, why asparagus makes your urine smell funny, how to read tea leaves and blow smoke rings, how to raise a toast in Romanian, napkin folding techniques, pasta shapes, death row convicts' last meal menus
- the five tastes: Salt, Sour, Bitter, Sweet, and Umami (globally recognized in only the last ten years or so, as the 'savoury' or 'meaty' taste sensations - stimulated by condiments like soy sauce or foods with glutamate - like M.S.G.
- quite entertaining
- the five tastes: Salt, Sour, Bitter, Sweet, and Umami (globally recognized in only the last ten years or so, as the 'savoury' or 'meaty' taste sensations - stimulated by condiments like soy sauce or foods with glutamate - like M.S.G.
- quite entertaining
October 20, 2012
Read this in a tent cabin in yosemite and now every time someone tells me a random fact I get a sense memory of pine tree smells. Also, it was so interesting and good.
January 7, 2018
perfect bogside reading matter, full of interesting facts.
September 17, 2022
I’m admiring of Mr Schott’s page design and his conception of a book that can be consumed one randomly selected page at a time, but the amount of typographical hiccups is maddening, the amount of obvious misinformation dismaying. I appreciate that he was working in 2003 (i.e., with somewhat less capable layout software and without the font of knowledge that is Wikipedia), but searching for and automatically removing accidental double spaces was as doable then as it is now, and anyone with even moderate cooking knowledge should have questioned the veracity of a table in which the given smokepoint of sunflower oil is lower than that of olive oil, so my sympathy is limited.
August 27, 2021
A droll compendium of whatever Ben Schott felt was interesting or amusing about food and drink. I question the need to know the Thai words for food measurements, or the entire dopey jingle of Burns's haggis poem, but it is easy to skip over entries that are too twee.
Read as bedtime reading, for which it was excellent. Short entries, some amusing and others worth knowing, sort of.
I will remember to keep it on hand to look up stuff that might come up in conversations.
Read as bedtime reading, for which it was excellent. Short entries, some amusing and others worth knowing, sort of.
I will remember to keep it on hand to look up stuff that might come up in conversations.
August 24, 2022
Un recueil assez incroyable de petites informations autour de la gastronomie, souvent drôles, souvent parfaitement inutiles, mais tout autant indispensables.
Je n'ai même pas encore lu les miscellanées non culinaires du même Mr Schott, mais ce deuxième opus me donne envie de m'y attaquer, car ça se lit avec délice et un petit sourire aux coins des lèvres.
Je n'ai même pas encore lu les miscellanées non culinaires du même Mr Schott, mais ce deuxième opus me donne envie de m'y attaquer, car ça se lit avec délice et un petit sourire aux coins des lèvres.
August 19, 2017
This was a fun collection of trivia, with lots of historical anecdotes. I agree with one of the other reviewers that it is perfect for "bathroom" reading. Great to digest a page at a time.
September 11, 2017
Just like the "first" book, this one is so great!! The reader learns so many things!
Warning: I felt disgust reading some articles like on horse meat or things like that.
Warning: I felt disgust reading some articles like on horse meat or things like that.
March 4, 2018
Ben Schott does it again. Bizarre, fascinating, eclectic - everything a miscellany should be. Amish seating conventions, Mr Burns' breakfast, the fate of the poor orlotan, it's all here..
March 10, 2021
A fun little book stuffed full of all sorts of random food and drink based facts and figures.
January 30, 2022
Perfect amount of random knowledge on food.
September 8, 2023
A lovely little book full of useful/less information about anything and everything to do with food and drink.
December 27, 2023
Very charming, great trivia.
March 12, 2017
audio-some of the voices annoyed me, especially since they were from main characters, Jake and Suzanne.
October 4, 2009
This book explicitly claims not to be practical (In case you didn't get that implication from the title.)
It's a charming little gift book. I got mine from my friend Elyse, who happens to be particularly good at picking out gift books. But why would one want a book filled with random facts about and quotes regarding food and its history?
Because then you can know about Russian doll roasts (think turducken). You could begin preparing one of these dishes by stuffing a clove and a caper into an olive, then stuffing that into a bec-figue, then that into an ortolan . . . and so forth, until you've got fifteen or twenty birds stuffed into a turkey, and then finally, into an enormous bustard.
Or: you could be at a baby shower, and mention the idea of these elaborate Russian doll concoctions, and discover that someone else there is familiar with a particular ritual involved in eating ortolan, those tiny little birds, bones and all. That might call to mind for someone else in the conversation Loren Groff's book "Delicate Edible Birds," and, in the end, you will have had a very interesting conversation. Assuming, of course, that the others at the baby shower have an interest in interesting miscellany.
It's a charming little gift book. I got mine from my friend Elyse, who happens to be particularly good at picking out gift books. But why would one want a book filled with random facts about and quotes regarding food and its history?
Because then you can know about Russian doll roasts (think turducken). You could begin preparing one of these dishes by stuffing a clove and a caper into an olive, then stuffing that into a bec-figue, then that into an ortolan . . . and so forth, until you've got fifteen or twenty birds stuffed into a turkey, and then finally, into an enormous bustard.
Or: you could be at a baby shower, and mention the idea of these elaborate Russian doll concoctions, and discover that someone else there is familiar with a particular ritual involved in eating ortolan, those tiny little birds, bones and all. That might call to mind for someone else in the conversation Loren Groff's book "Delicate Edible Birds," and, in the end, you will have had a very interesting conversation. Assuming, of course, that the others at the baby shower have an interest in interesting miscellany.
January 22, 2010
This is a book where you read only bits and pieces at a time, which makes it the perfect book for the bathroom.
I skipped some entries, but overall it was quite interesting. I'm just not sure how much of it I will remember.
I was really impressed by one recipe, where you put more than 10 different birds (dead but uncooked) into one another (from very small to larger than a turkey) like little russian babushkas and then put it into the oven for a very very long time. I'm also wondering who really wants to eat this.
I skipped some entries, but overall it was quite interesting. I'm just not sure how much of it I will remember.
I was really impressed by one recipe, where you put more than 10 different birds (dead but uncooked) into one another (from very small to larger than a turkey) like little russian babushkas and then put it into the oven for a very very long time. I'm also wondering who really wants to eat this.
December 31, 2013
Si vous avez déjà lu Les Miscellanées de Ben Schott, vous savez à quoi vous attendre ! Certains articles, qui se trouvaient déjà dans le premier volume, ont été enrichis pour que le lecteur n'ait pas le sentiment de relire la même chose. De la couleur des smarties au menu du banquet servi à l'issue de la première cérémonie de remise des prix Nobel, ce recueil regorge d'informations sur la gastronomie du monde entier.
March 31, 2009
Oh what a glorious book! Now I shall finally find out the 10 characteristics a perfect cheese must have (crass American that I am, I was just going by taste), what was eaten on JFK's 45th birthday (May 19, 1962- 42 years ago, next week), and why asparagus leaves that distinctive odor when we- umm...use the loo.
Sent to me by Netstation.
Sent to me by Netstation.
April 25, 2010
A book "of vital irrelavance" dealing with all things ingested. With an attached ribbon it's an easy to mark a page for a moments amusement or to regale friends and family with culinary minutia. A kind of believe it or not for grown ups.
September 6, 2010
Great little book filled with drips and drabs of miscellaneous food related trivia. I enjoyed being able to read this in bits and pieces over the course of six months. A fun collection of both historical and current food related odds and ends.
July 30, 2019
Ihan yhtä hauskoja juttuja sisälläänpitävä kirja kuin ensimmäinenkin Schottin sekalaiset. Kirjan sisältö on samaan aikaan tyhmää ja hauskaa, kiinnostavaa ja ällöttävää, nippelitietoa ja oivalluksia. Kirja, jonka pariin voi palata uudelleen ja lukea pieniä pätkiä kerrallaan.
March 28, 2007
Trivia...about food! It's like he wrote it just for me.
June 18, 2007
random but fun.
July 18, 2007
quite so damn pretty good book to know the other side of what we are facing of everyday... ^^
September 19, 2007
Even better than the 'Original Miscellany', at least for those who tend toward the epicurean.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews