Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers on Food (At Table)

Peggy Wolff’s anthology, Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie––Midwestern Writers on Food, is not a book just about food. It’s about food writing as art and a larger message about humanity, life, and place. Food is the jumping-off point.Some pretty impressive writing chops show up in this book. Contributing authors include Bonnie Jo Campbell, a Pushcart Prize-winning author; Stuart Dybek, born a south-side Chicago boy, now a professor at Northwestern University and recipient of many awards, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship; NPR host, Peter Sagal, of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me; New York Times Food Writer, Molly O’Neil, and too many more to enumerate here.Ms. Wolff herself is an impressive writer. She’s contributed to the Food Section of the Chicago Tribune with articles ranging from Farmers’ Market Arugula to her foray into Utah fly-fishing, capturing the beauty of trout from stream to table. Her essay in this collection on the Wisconsin Fish Boil will send you right into the heart of that oft-maligned Midwest ritual. Peggy turns this ostensible tourist trap into a spectacle worthy of a movie script, placing the reader right in the scene, senses fully engaged, around a cauldron of fish and potatoes in bubbling broth.Wolff has divided the essays into sections: Midwestern Staples; Distant Cultures; Holidays, Fairs, and Events; A Full Belly; and The Midwestern Sweet Tooth. There’s something sweet to savor in each niche.You’ll be privy to the process of food production in Bonnie Jo Campbell’s rhapsodized remembrance of milking cows and creating home-made fudge.Gale Gand, Executive Chef of TRU, a Chicago treasure, writes a paean to her favorite goat cheese, and how healing and devotion are interwoven into a three-ingredient product.Best-selling author, Harry Petrakis, writes of buying a small cafe that eventually fails, but the lessons he learned about life and people remains a balm worth more than if his business venture had been a success.Being a Chicago girl, I was especially fond of Stuart Dybek’s school field trip to the Chicago Stock Yards, a visit that combines pre-adolescent longings and bravado with the gruesome reality (and a good dose of dark irony) of cows taken to slaughter.Dip into this lovely confection of a book, where you’ll find an abundance of humor, poignancy, nostalgia, and just enough recipes to whet your appetite.

It is a very interesting book - have not quite finished it yet - but love the short story idea.

Great stories and recipes, but would have preferred additional stories from more recent/nonwhite Midwesterners, who also have had important contributions to the region's story and cuisine. In addition, there was only passing references to walleye - I would have expected at least one story be about the delicious fish given the book's title.

I usually read insanely long (e.g., 700 page) books. But every now and then I enjoy a short story. These are fun reads. I grew up in the Midwest and taught courses on the Sociology of Food so many of these stories are ones I can identify with and are about family and the social nature of food. For disclosure, one story is by a cousin (Mary Kay Shanley).

More stories than recipes but the recipe I used was good. Purchased as a gift for a transplanted midwesterner. ok.

Great book for food lovers and also great stories about those like us foodies! My husband is a chef and we recommend this book!

As an Ohioan myself, I launched into Peggy's new essay collection expecting the best and I found it. Great read

OK