Tales from the Tummy Trilogy

By: Calvin Trillin

Narrated by: Calvin Trillin

As a traveling man, Calvin Trillin, longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, has spent a lot of time sniffing the air for the whiff of authentic hickory-wood barbecue and evading invitations to pretentious restaurants he lumps as La Maison de la Casa House, Continental Cuisine. His adventures "trying to find something decent to eat" have been recounted in three hilarious books: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings - more recently issued in one volume as The Tummy Trilogy. Here, in seventeen entertaining selections that range from his efforts to write a definitive history of the Buffalo chicken wing to his attempts to lure his older daughter back from California by finding an irresistible bagel, the man Craig Claiborne called "the Walt Whitman of American eats" proves once again that he is among America's funniest food writers.©2000 Clavin Trillin (P)16 9; 2000 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"Marvelously funny and horrifyingly mouth-watering." (Rolling Stone)
"Trillin is to food writing what Chaplin was to film acting." (BusinessWeek)

Ou se trouve la plage?

This is my favorite book. It’s the one I listened to with my parents in the car when I was a child. Every time I listen to it something new sticks out and I laugh just as hard. Thank you for all the beautiful memories Mr. Trillin. You helped bring our family together. You will always be our most beloved author.

Great writing but horrible narration

I love Calvin Trillin's writings and thought this would be a fun book, but gave up after 3 tummy tales, unable to listen anymore to his exceedingly dull narration. His inflection rarely varies and his timing is way off. With the talents of a professional narrator this book would be an absolute hoot, instead of a big disappointment.

Poorly executed and delivered

For some reason, the titles are not read in order. Even though it's a trilogy, the first story read is from the first book, the second from the second book. It makes navigation impossible. As others have noted, the performance is awful, tired-sounding. I think Trillin is as bored reading his 40 year old material as, well, anyone would be. Finally, although he's a great writer. These stories, sound dated. They're nothing like his recent work.

I'm halfway through the second story and I wish I could return it.

Dull and dreary

I found this food writing not very interesting. It is a collection of very scrappy pieces with not much of a theme. Perhaps if you’re familiar with the author you would get more out of it. It left me cold. The narration was also monotonous.

I agree with Laurie's review!

Let me preface this by saying that I LOOOOOOve Calvin Trillin's writing, have done so for the past 25 years. Both his food writing and his novels are always laugh out loud funny. It's impossible to understand why his narration of his own stuff is SO dreadful: monotone, no sense of comic timing or delivery.
How can he write like that and yet read like that???
I'm mystified. But my advice is, read his stuff, it's fabulous,...
but DON'T listen to it!