The Salt Exchange

A couple of years after its publication, Charlie has finally gotten around to reading - and loving - David Kamp's The United States of Arugula. If you are not familiar with it, upon the book's publication, Alison Arnett of the Boston Globe described wrote that the book is "a lively assessment of how far we've come as food mavens and who got us here." She goes on to say that it "stands out from a sea of issue-oriented books written in the last few years."

We're lucky to have an interview with Kamp for the blog lined up for next week. In preparation for that, we've dug up some Arugula-related treasures online, which we think you'll find interesting whether or not you have read the book.

Kamp's website is hilarious, as it features blog entries entitled A Borscht Stain on the World Wide Web and A Valediction on the Passing of "Law & Order." On the latter subject, he writes (in the style of Auden):

It was my North, my South, my East and West,
My DVR mainstay and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that L&O would last forever: I was wrong.

(We feel your pain, David)

• The New York Times Book podcast interviews David Kamp here.
• You can here more audio of Kamp here, this time on NPR's On Point, on which he discusses his book in the context of Thanksgiving. 
• The New York Times' A.O. Scott reviews Kamp's "lively, smart, horrendously titled new book," explaining, "The cover depicts Lady Liberty clutching a bunch of greens in place of her torch, proving that Kamp’s publishers have turned a deaf ear to the wisdom of a leading American gourmand, Homer Simpson, who once observed that you don’t win friends with salad."
• Joe Meyers, of Connecticut News, wrote of Arugula: Clearly, we were long overdue for a book explaining how this all came to pass in a country where TV dinners and Howard Johnson galvanzied the populace only 50 years ago." He goes on: “The United States of Arugula” is so well written that you don’t really have to be a foodie to enjoy it: Kamp makes a strong case that the story he tells is as important as the rest of the cultural history of the past half-century.
• Powell's features this talk with Kamp, in which he reflects on the book, being lucky enough to interview Don DeLillo, and author A. J. Liebling, who Kamp claims "ate food the way Charlie Parker played sax."
• And finally, David Kamp shares with New York Magazine his favorite NY food books.