Full Description
These sometimes harrowing, frequently funny, and always riveting stories about food and eating under extreme conditions feature the diverse voices of journalists who have reported from dangerous conflict zones around the world. A profile of the former chef to Kim Jong Il of North Korea describes Kim's exacting standards for gourmet fare, which he gorges himself on while his country starves. A journalist becomes part of the inner circle of an IRA cell thanks to his drinking buddies. And a young, inexperienced female journalist shares mud crab in a foxhole with an equally young Hamid Karzai. Along with tales of deprivation and repression are stories of generosity and pleasure, sometimes overlapping. This memorable collection, introduced and edited by Matt McAllester, is seasoned by tragedy and violence, spiced with humor and good will, and fortified, in McAllester's words, with "a little more humanity than we can usually slip into our newspapers and magazine stories."
Contents
Introduction: The Name of the Third Chicken: Kosovo
Matt McAllester
Part One: Survival Rations
Night Light: El Salvador and Haiti
Lee Hockstader
A Diet for Dictators: North Korea
Barbara Demick
Siege Food: Bosnia
Janine di Giovanni
Miraculous Harvests: China
Isabel Hilton
Part Two: Insistent Hosts
How Harry Lost His Ear: Northern Ireland
Scott Anderson
Weighed down by a Good Meal: Gaza and Israel
Joshua Hammer
The Price of Oranges: Pakistan
Jason Burke
Jeweled Rice: Iran
Farnaz Fassihi
The Oversize Helmsman of an Undersize Country: Israel
Matt Rees
Part Three: Food under Fire
Same-Day Cow: Afghanistan
Tim Hetherington
Eau de Cadavre: Somalia and Rwanda
Sam Kiley
Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar: Afghanistan
Christina Lamb
Munther Cannot Cook Your Turkey: Iraq
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Part Four: Breaking Bread
The Best Man I Ever Knew: Georgia
Wendell Steavenson
Dinner with a Jester: Afghanistan
Jon Lee Anderson
Sugarland: Haiti
Amy Wilentz
My Life in Pagans: Ossetia
James Meek
The House of Bread: Bethlehem
Charles M. Sennott
Biographies
Acknowledgments
Index
