"If a baker, at home or in commerce, cannot make better pastry than Maury's, he or she should simply follow Maury's recipe or throw in the towel and find other work. As a leftover sixties liberal, I believe that the long arm and beady eyes of the government have no place in our bedrooms, our kitchens, or the backseats of our parked cars. But I also feel that the immediate appointment of a Special Pastry Prosecutor would do much more good than harm. We know the free market has totally failed when 89 percent of all the tart pastry, chocolate-chip cookies, and tuiles in America are far less delicious than they would be if bakers simply followed a few readily available recipes. What we need is a system of graduated fines and perhaps short jail sentences to discourage the production of totally depressing baked goods. Maybe a period of unpleasant and tedious community service could be substituted for jail time. Of course, the government would first have to post the ideal recipes and give everybody a week to learn them. Starting now."
--Jeffrey Steingarten, It Must Have Been Something I Ate
Loved loved loved this food-obsessed collection of essays. What I would give to travel to Paris to judge the best baguettes in the city, or fill my kitchen with espresso machines or tarts to decide which is the best one...
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