Sheraton - 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lovers Life List

Mimi Sheraton

with Kelly Alexander

Workman Publishing, New York

The joys of the table belong equally to all ages, conditions, countries, and times; they mix with all other pleasures, and remain the last to console us for their loss.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

To my son, Marc Falcone, my daughter-in-law, Caitlin Halligan, and my granddaughter, Anna Falcone, with love and gratitude for their support, companionship, and affection, and for the joys they always bring.

And to the memory of our adored Richard Falcone, the husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather whom we shall always love and miss.

In a work of this size that took so many years to complete, it should be no surprise that there is a very long of list of wonderful people to whom I am indebted for their insights, expertise, willingness to help, and, perhaps most of all, friendship.

During my sixty years as a food writer, I have worked with many fine publishers, but never with one so patient, dedicated, cooperative, and helpful as Workman Publishing. Primary credit for that goes to the companys founder, Peter Workman, who agreed to do this book and who believed in it enough to never even hint at pulling the plug after one deadline gave way to another. His commitment to quality books and the integrity he brought to publishing permeates the company he left behind. I shall always regret that he did not live to see this come to fruition and I hope he would have thought it all worth the wait.

My first entry into Workman came via its affable executive editor, Suzanne Rafer, who continued to guide, cajole, and encourage as work progressed. Similarly, Suzie Bolotin, editorial director, also never nagged or threatened me but always kept an overall eye as material went through, making valuable suggestions that I sometimes even took. Above all, the most noble work was done by Margot Herrera, the saintly editor in charge of this project. With her unerring eye for detail and her insistence on accuracy, she bore the brunt of outbursts and exasperations from one who loathes details and the nitty-gritty. Margot never once lost her temper, even as I so often lost mine.

I am also forever indebted to Heather Schwedel, who was always at the other end of an email to straighten out my confusions in scheduling, organization, and to guide me safely whenever I was lost in cyberspace, which was often.

I know I was spared much embarrassment by the work of Caitlin McEwan and Kelly Rummel, who did diligence as fact checkers, and Savannah Ashour, who line-edited the book.

I am grateful also to Workmans art department. That so many divergent entries appear so attractively and functionally is due to the efforts of many, beginning with the combined talents of Janet Vicario, the art director, and Orlando Adiao, the books designer. Bringing it all to a coherent pass was the meticulous work of the production editor, Kate Karol, assisted by Jessica Rozler, as well as the production manager, Doug Wolff, not to forget the intricacies of the typesetting process overseen by Barbara Peragine.

Entries would not appear so clear and intriguing without the photographs ingeniously unearthed by Anne Kermans expert photo research team, including Bobby Walsh, Melissa Lucier, and Jenna Bascom. I thank Rachael Mt. Pleasant and Caitlin McEwan for their help with the captions.

Also, for getting the word out by publicizing the book, I offer my deepest appreciation to Workmans director of publicity, Selina Meere, and Noreen Herits, executive publicist.

That this work ever was completed at all is due to the dedicated, invaluable help of two friends and colleagues: Kelly Alexander and Megan Peck.

Kelly Alexander of Chapel Hill, NC, is herself an accomplished food writer who, with Cynthia Harris, coauthored Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate. Working with my selections and guidelines, Kelly painstakingly and reliably researched and reported a third of the entries in this book.

Megan Peck is a young New York food professional who, on her blog, meganpeckcooks.com , serves up modern riffs on recipes from the cookbooks of her late, influential grandmother, Paula Peck, a dear friend of mine during the 1960s. That made working with Megan a pleasant, sentimental journey as she searched out reliable recipes for the dishes in the book, as well as for retail and mail order sources of foods, information on food festivals, and other assorted details.

In addition, many friends and colleagues in various parts of the world generously came through with tips, suggestions, and local sources, and checked out details for me as I asked for them. Among them are Michael Bauer and Miriam Morgan of the San Francisco Chronicle, who answered queries on sources in their food-minded city and its surrounding areas. Similarly, Teresa Byrne-Dodge both personally and through her terrific magazine, My Table, offered valuable tips on restaurants in and around Houston. Sara Baer-Sinnott of the Oldways Preservation Trust provided information on the Boston area, and Nathalie Dupree did the same with suggestions for her home city, Charleston, and Atlanta.

My dear friend, the engaging novelist Mary Gordon, was always ready with lists of restaurants she had enjoyed in Rome and Naples while doing research for superb novels and short stories set in those cities. Sarah Humphreys of Real Simple magazine checked out Capetown for me during her visit to South Africa.

My cousin and very reliable food judge, Dr. William Wortman of Pasadena, CA, led me to some of his favorite eating places, especially for hamburgers, in and around Los Angeles. In New Orleans, Thomas Lemann did the same.

Im also grateful to Jenny Glasgow for her information on bicerin in Turin, and to Nell Waldman for her research on shritzlach (as well as for bringing me a sample from her native Toronto).

Dr. Martha Liaoa lapsed geneticist who lives in New York and Beijing when shes not touring with her husband, the opera singer Hao Jiang Tian (and who prepares a Peking duck feast whenever he performs in concert)checked details for me in Beijing. She also provided insights into the preparations for that magical duck, as well as the recipe for glazed pork belly, .

Reliable guidance to Japanese cuisine in Paris and Tokyo came from my dear old friend, Kazuko Masui, herself the author of several stunning food books. From Berlin, food journalist Ursula Heinzelmann, whose recently published Beyond Bratwurst is an invaluable and discerning history of German food, was always ready with up-to-date suggestions from her native land. So was Trine Hahnemann in Copenhagen, a successful caterer and author of several lovely books on Nordic cooking, the newest of which is Scandinavian Baking.

The incomparable food writer Dalia Lamdani offered prized insights into foods and lore of her Israeli homeland. Peter Grnauer, who with his family operates Grnauer restaurant in Kansas City, MO, looked into all sorts of facts whenever he went home to Vienna. Kurt Gutenbrunner of Walls and several other fine New York restaurants also always came through with much Austrian culinary wisdom.