Birdseye : the adventures of a curious man

From the author who gave us "Cod," "Salt," and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mrmapcase

The author has written many well received books about food, which led him to want to write about Clarence Birdseye, the inventor of frozen foods. The problem with this is; which he admits, there are very few sources for information on Birdseye, and this leads him into describing a lot of

superfluous details, like when all of Birdseye's college professors graduated. This goes off on too many tangents to be a coherent narrative.

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LibraryThing member konastories

Joy's reviews: Lots of very interesting factoids about Clarence Birdseye and inventions and inventors of that era. It somehow felt disjointed, though. I think it needed some major themes or something tying the whole thing together.It sometimes felt like Kurlansky had left-over research from "Cod"

and "Salt" and figured this would be a good place to put it. So, interesting material, but not very well writteh.

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LibraryThing member hombredemaderas

Not as good as Kurlansky's past work, but still a fascinating look into the life of an extraordinary man.

LibraryThing member melydia

I picked this up on a whim; I had no idea Bob Birdseye was even a person. I've eaten Birdseye frozen vegetables as long as I can remember, but it was only through this book that I learned that Birdseye was basically the start of frozen foods as a preferred option. Previously, frozen foods were

pretty much the bottom of the barrel - bad food prepared poorly which was then mushy and bland when reheated. To me, though, the most fascinating part was Birdseye's love for the outdoors, and the (to my modern eyes) foreign ways people lived in harsh climates all those years ago. And I admit I got a kick out of Birdseye's propensity for eating every creature he comes across. I don't know many people who would think "oh hey, the frozen food guy, let's read about his life," but I'm glad I gave it a shot.

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LibraryThing member UberButter

Birdseye: The Adventure of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky

★★★

Want to read the biography of a man who reinvented the frozen food industry? Clarence Birdseye would invent a technique of flash freezing that is still used today. Without him, your frozen food aisles at your grocery store would be

much different. Ok….so this book isn’t for everyone but it was interesting! This man invented many products, patenting many products but flash freezing would be his main triumph. But even before the inventions was an adventurous man who traveled the world.

Mark Kurlansky has written many books on the history of subjects such as salt, cod, and oysters so it was no surprise he tackled this eccentric man next. Unfortunately I felt that this book fell a little short. I don’t think this was because of the author but just because there doesn’t seem to be enough information on Birdseye. It was short biography that swept through his younger life since mostly all we know about that period was he was born and he traveled (most info was glimpsed from his journal). I feel like the author tried to make for these short-comings by making lengthy info on other people in Birdseye’s life and while that was interesting, it took away from the main attraction. I enjoyed the information there was on the man and his inventions and time but it makes sense why a biography has never been done on him before, there just isn’t enough information to properly done one in my opinion.

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LibraryThing member Ken-Me-Old-Mate

I am a sucker for accessible non-fiction.

My top 3 writers being Simon Winchester, Jared Diamond and Mark Kurlansky.

If I was to make an air travel analogy, then Simon Winchester is first class, Jared Diamond is business class and Mark Kurlansky is economy. That is said not by way of judgement but by

way of illustration.

For clarification Bill Bryson is bus travel.

What I adore about Mark Kurlansky's books is that they give context, and lots of it. So, in this book you get to find out a bit about Birdseye and a lot about what was going on around him so you can truly appreciate, not the greatness of what he did, but the impact of it, at the time, on normal people and all of us who came later.

By way of comparative illustration:
Mark Kurlansky tells us how have freezers full of edible food in our supermarkets today thanks to Clarence Birdseye.
Jared Diamond would be telling you about the historical and cultural development that got him there.
Simon Winchester would tell you not only the size of his underpants but also how ofter he washed them.
Bill Bryson would be on a bus to nowhere while his researchers wrote his latest book.

If you are interested in how the world we live in (as people) got here, then books like this are priceless
for turning the mundane invisible (and amazing) features of our culture into gripping yarns of human achievement that are not based on wealth, class or privilege.

If you haven't read Salt or Cod by this author then you should be sent back to Kansas.

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