Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar: Stories of Food During Wartime by the World's Leading Correspondents Volume 31 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520268678)

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 during the past twenty years. 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."

Author: Matt McAllester
ISBN-10: 0520268679
ISBN-13: 9780520268678
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 10/20/2011
Pages: 232
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.10h x 6.00w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Shelf Awareness 10/28/2011
Foreword 11/18/2011