Poet and novelist Harrison's food writing was previously collected in The Raw and the Cooked (2001), and most of the nearly 50 pieces gathered in this new collection, published on the one-year anniversary of the author's death, were written since then. First appearing in Brick, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, and other publications, the mostly short essays share a stream-of-consciousness, unedited, uncensored approach and touch on travel, politics, literature, art, sex, writing, and the author's health nearly as much as they do food. And on all of the above, his playful quotability is boundless: tofu is a gustatory self-laceration, drinking is the writer's black lung disease, and if you shared a bottle of Cayron before the usual obnoxious meeting you wouldn't hate anyone. Battling painful illness, he writes, Of course we are loaned this life, then suddenly one day it's overdue. With an introduction from Harrison's longtime friend Mario Batali, this makes a great addition to popular food and wine collections and will be a savory treat for Harrison fans.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist

The late poet and novelist Harrison (Legends of the Fall), known for sagas of frontier existentialists, was also a devotee of fine and not-so-fine dining, and his gusto sparkles throughout this collection of magazine essays on food. Harrison writes of a vast range of meals and foodstuffs in disparate settings: fresh-caught rattlesnakes; a dinner of "artisanal salamis, lamb and duck prosciutto" flown in for a fishing trip; innumerable sojourns through France eating at bistros and ogling women; the title feast, an 11-hour, 37-course, 19-wine lunch featuring three centuries of French delicacies including poached eel with chicken wing tips and testicles in a pool of tarragon butter. Woven around the food descriptions (complete with a recipe for bear-meat cubes) are the author's rambling ruminations and poems on just about everything, including the similarities of wine criticism and literary criticism, Wall Street's odiousness, Buddhist moral lacunae, and death and dying. As his aging body succumbs to diabetes, shingles, kidney stones, and other afflictions, food becomes a last redoubt of sensual pleasure amid waning physicality. Harrison treats all these subjects with his usual earthy wit and delighted curiosity; the result is a tasty nosh for foodies with a literary bent. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.