A Really Big Lunch - by Jim Harrison (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A Really Big Lunch showcases Harrison's enthusiastic, funny, and uncompromising views on how to eat, drink, and live well . . . His writing is bodily, bawdy, sharp. The more we have of his voice, the better."--Boston Globe

A national bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of the Month in the Cookbook/Food & Wine category, now in paperback, A Really Big Lunch collects many of New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison's essays on food for the first time--and taps into his larger-than-life appetite with wit and verve. In these pieces, Harrison muses on the relationship between hunter and prey, interrogates the obscure language of wine reviews, and delivers a manifesto against the bland, mass-produced food of our time, proposing instead what he calls the Vivid Diet. He delights in food from the most outré indulgence (a French lunch that went to thirty-seven courses) to a simple bowl of menudo. Harrison's food writing is a program for living, and A Really Big Lunch is shot through with his pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines the pieces give glimpses of Harrison's life over the last fifteen years. Lovingly introduced by master chef Mario Batali, A Really Big Lunch is a literary delight that will satisfy every appetite.

"The collection is chockablock with . . . zingers as well as plenty of half-baked, hilarious theories you can ponder while planning your first summer barbecue."--The Paris Review

Review Quotes

Praise for A Really Big Lunch:

"A Really Big Lunch showcases Harrison's enthusiastic, funny, and uncompromising views on how to eat, drink, and live well. His tone is conversational, generous, the sort of person with whom you'd want to share a 37-course lunch that lasts 11 hours . . . His writing is bodily, bawdy, sharp. The more we have of his voice, the better."--Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe

"Dry wit and mordant insight are on glorious display in this new collection of essays . . . Nearly every piece . . . has a saying wise enough to carry in your wallet. Some will flat out break your heart."--Ann Levin, Associated Press

"Jim Harrison lived as he wrote, vividly . . . A Really Big Lunch, whose publication marks the first anniversary of Harrison's death, brings him roaring to the page again in all his unapologetic immoderacy, with spicy bon mots and salty language . . . His language is punch-drunk lively . . . Snacking on classic Harrisonisms . . . is deliciously filling."--Heller McAlpin, NPR

"This collection of essays on food and drink showcases [Harrison's] irascible wit and lust for life."--Tom Beer, Newsday

"Sage and succulent essays . . . Simply to call Harrison salty is to ignore the myriad flavors of Harrison's searing wit and capacious heart. He was a consummate poet with an appetite to match, and his food writing is among his best and most fun . . . In this collection, Harrison's wisdom shines throughout . . . We can add Harrison's writing to this list of life's pleasures."-- Katie Weed, Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"If anyone could pull off eating in the afterlife, it would probably be Harrison, well known for all kinds of appetites here on Earth . . . Harrison saw a clear subterranean connection between mortality, language, the good meals he'd eaten along the way, and those to come . . . A new collection, A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand, offers one last look at what he ate, felt, reveled in, and raged about in the last of his swashbuckling years."--Melanie Rehak, Bookforum

"It's a pleasure to dive headlong into his vivid recounting of these appetites . . . It's a pity Harrison never had a documentary show à la Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations . . . Funny, pithy essays . . . What an omnivore--and what a writer."--Molly Boyle, Santa Fe New Mexican

"A celebration of eating well and drinking even better as a recipe for the good life . . . The author waxes wickedly funny over matters of art, politics, spirituality, sex, and the commingling of all of them. His advice: 'Your meals in life are numbered and the number is diminishing. Get at it.' If this is the last we get from Harrison, it serves as a fitting memorial."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"One of America's greatest writers . . . The intimacy and enthusiasm of Harrison's food correspondent style makes reading A Really Big Lunch feel like sitting at a table during a really big lunch with the best, and smartest, and most entertaining of friends."--David Masciotra, Salon

"Transcendent . . . Devour this book one course (or chapter) at a time. It's like a rich meal, best savored so that no word goes unappreciated . . . In a life too short for all the adventures, drinks, lunches, loves and books we desire to consume, Jim Harrison reminds us not to waste another day. Wake up. Go too far. Dig in."--Melissa Stephenson, Missoula Independent

"[Harrison's] gusto sparkles throughout this collection . . . 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."--Publishers Weekly

"Impure, unadulterated Jim Harrison . . . A Really Big Lunch is such a gem . . . Let's hope there are more collections of the work of this unique and uniquely American writer to come."--John Greenya, The Washington Times

"[Harrison's] playful quotability is boundless . . . With an introduction from Harrison's longtime friend Mario Batali, this is for Harrison fans as well as a great addition to popular food and wine collections."--Annie Bostrom, Booklist

"There's much more to the book than its author's enormous appetite--just as there was more to Harrison than his appetite, and more to his appetite than mere indulgence."--Peter Nowogrodzki, Literary Hub

"Get this. That's my earnest advice. If you merely have a passing interest in the revolution in food writing of the past 50 years, you need to know about the most macho food writer of them all . . . He is the best cure for nouvelle cuisine prose ever."--Jeff Simon, Buffalo News (Editor's Choice)

"The world lost one of its most unique and gifted food writers when Jim Harrison passed away last March . . . A must buy for any Harrison fans."--Noah Rothbaum, Daily Beast

"One final homage to the pleasures of living."--Kristen Inbody, Great Falls Tribune

"Harrison realized new possibilities for food writing, convincing me that food writing could touch on so many vectors and subjects while remaining vivid, insightful, and wryly funny."--Mayukh Sen, Food52

"That food can bring together history and geography, not to mention love and desire, is the purpose of A Really Big Lunch . . . Longtime readers who appreciate his coda to 'eat vividly, ' will savor this new collection. Good Reading."--Petoskey News

About the Author

Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was the New York Times-bestselling author of thirty-nine previous books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, his work was published in twenty-seven languages.