Appetites both culinary and carnal are thoroughly explored in John Birdsall’s definitive, elegantly written biography of James Beard, The Man Who Ate Too Much (W.W. Norton. $20. www.john-birdsall.com), now available in paperback.
Before he became known as the father of farm-to-table cuisine, Beard (1903-1985) was the gay son of a lesbian mother. From an early age, he learned that while some sources of pleasure could be indulged in publicly, others were best repressed in pursuit of success. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Beard eventually attended Reed College there. After being expelled for an “act of oral indecency” with a professor, he made his way to London and New York.
After unsuccessfully trying his hand as a stage actor, he slipped sideways into the gastronomic world, catering private cocktail parties in the homes of New York’s painstakingly discrete gay arts elites, a stepping stone toward his first formal catering company, which was followed by cookbooks and a prestigious culinary school.
By the late 1940s, he was hosting NBC’s I Love To Eat, the world’s first television cooking show. At a time when French cuisine was considered the epitome of fine dining in the U.S., Beard was an early advocate of homegrown American ingredients and unfussy technique. But even in the limelight, Beard hid away his sexuality, playing the jolly, sexless fat man for the mainstream audiences who sought his expertise.
Birdsall, himself a gay man and former chef, writes beautifully and empathetically about Beard, capturing his consummate people-skills and entrepreneurial savvy as well as the undercurrent of repression that both fueled his success and dampened his enjoyment of it.
