William Grimes (1)

How could I resist this amusing little read on the take shelf, especially when the Chicken in question apparently appeared in the author's backyard in my own neighborhood? I know of two live poultry sellers in walking distance, though I've only ever seen white-feathered chickens at them.

Anyway, the book:

William Grimes, a restaurant reviewer for The New York Times, more familiar with eating the birds than seeing them, has an inexplicable chicken show up for a share of the cat food that he and his wife leave out for neighborhood strays. The Chicken, as they dub it (should you be allowed to write for The New York Times if you can't come up with a clever name for a randomly appearing animal?), inspires affection and a little research, with a fresh egg here and there, in exchange for its share of cat food and, later, chicken feed.

Just as a chicken may fluff out its feathers for warmth in the winter, Grimes fluffs out his cute little story with some facts about chickens. Of my favorites:
> Chickens only lay eggs if they get about 14 hours of sunlight, which means eggs have not been ubiquitous in human history.
> Chickens were long valued more for their feathers than their meat.
> When the first chicken broke the record of laying more than 300 eggs a year (1914), she got a victory parade and a private train car into New York City to visit the mayor, "who presented her with a diamond-studded gold leg band" (p. 56). Sheesh!


The Chicken of Astoria thus joins the ranks of Benjamin Jones (RIP), the Vicious Chicken of Bristol, Rosalinda, and Gallus Rostromegalus as one of my favorite chickens. Huh. Not a sentence that I thought would need a serial comma...

Edit, 10/8: I can't believe this, but I thought of two more fictional chickens! Josefina from [b:The Josefina Story Quilt|1095697|The Josefina Story Quilt|Eleanor Coerr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344750300l/1095697._SY75_.jpg|1082532] and Billina from [b:Ozma of Oz|60177|Ozma of Oz (Oz, #3)|L. Frank Baum|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170538598l/60177._SY75_.jpg|891152] (whose name I could have sworn was Billerica, like the city, but oh well...).… (mais)

I was expecting a lot more out of this book. In particular, more "why" and "to what end" and "with what consequences." Instead, Grimes' treatment of the history of NYC restaurants is, for the most part, a series of descriptions of a relatively small number of institutions. The beginning of the book starts well, talking about how the first modern restaurants start to appear, serving chops and oysters, and how French restaurant culture permeates the growing city. But then follows a tedious chronological review of the major high-end restaurants, ending with a rather self-serving description of food culture in the 1990s and 2000s, from the point of view of a NY Times restaurant reviewer. I would have much rather have seen a differently-structured book, perhaps with separate chapters each taking the entire 200+ years of history from different points of view. What happened to French restaurants over that 200 years? What happened to seafood? What happened to Chinese restaurants, or locally-grown produce (I happen to know that in the early 1900s, Chinese farmers in Queens used to grow vegetables for Chinatown!), or low-end New York food like pizza and hot dogs? That's the book I wanted to read.… (mais)