Tender at the Bone

In Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998) four-time James Beard Award-winning food writer and restaurant critic Ruth Reichl serves up a memoir full of life and love, loss and survival, and, of course, food. In revealing the food stories and recipes that have shaped her life, Reichl reveals something larger: a saga of a family, a celebration of friendships, and a journey of self-discovery. Ultimately, what Reichl presents is not really a food memoir but a testament to the relationships that sustain us and the stories that nourish us. The book spent several weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.

Tender at the Bone opens as Reichl discusses the power of storytelling and the central role it has played in her life. Storytelling is a rich tradition in the Reichl family, and in keeping with that tradition, she warns readers, "Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual." The most important thing Reichl has learned is that telling a good story is the highest aim one can achieve, and she vows to do it to the best of her considerable ability.

The first chapter of the book, "The Queen of Mold," introduces readers to Reichl's mother, a mercurial bipolar woman who is potentially the worst cook on the face of the Earth. She routinely gives her family and dinner guests food poisoning by serving them moldy or expired food. In one memorable event that proves to be formative for twelve-year-old Ruth, her mother holds an engagement party for Ruth's older half-brother, Bob. Not only does Mother charge the guests an admission fee to attend the party, but she serves them a casserole made out of long-expired leftovers from Horn & Hardart, a restaurant called an automat that served all its food from vending machines. At the party, Reichl stations herself at the food table and discourages guests from taking helpings of Mother's casserole. Despite her best intentions, little Ruth is not able to block everyone from Mother's cooking, and several guests fall victim to food poisoning.



Because of her mother's instability, Ruth is desperate for an anchoring presence in her life. Her father, who often takes on the responsibility of managing her unmanageable mother, is not that presence. Therefore, Ruth develops a way to have some control, some insight, into her mother's moods. Ruth learns that by opening the refrigerator the first thing in the morning, she can see what her mother's mood will be like that day. "The more odd and interesting things in the refrigerator, the happier my mother was likely to be," Reichl says.

Another anchoring force in Ruth's life is her surrogate grandmother, Aunt Birdie, and Birdie's cook, Alice. The two women lay the foundation for Ruth's appreciation for good food and good cooking. She shares Alice's recipes for apple dumplings and potato salad, and she discusses one of the most important life lessons she learned from these two women: there are few problems in life that a pan of brownies cannot solve.

After complimenting her mother's ability to speak French, her mother ships Ruth off to a Canadian boarding school. Where, incidentally, no one speaks French. It takes Ruth nearly a year of trauma and adjustment before she starts to settle in; she eventually finds both friends and foodies who make her feel less alone in her new environment.



This would not be the only time Ruth's parents virtually desert her. When she is in high school, ostensibly living back with her mother and father again, her parents abandon her at their Connecticut home while they live in New York City during the week. Ruth takes refuge in the kitchen, learning to prepare massive meals to serve to her friends. Because her parents are absent much of the time, Ruth's home becomes the one where her friends can cut school and while away the hours or have a few drinks without the adults being any the wiser. Ruth becomes hostess extraordinaire, discovering the joys of sharing devil's food cake with a roomful of drunken teenage friends.

After college, Ruth moves to Berkeley, California, where she joins a collectively-owned restaurant as both a chef and co-owner. During this time, she lives in a commune. Berkeley in the early 1970s is at the epicenter of the counterculture movement, and Ruth ends up playing a major role in the food revolution taking place there. She helps take the idea of cooking out of the hands of gourmands and puts in the hands of the people, making the culinary world universally accessible and socially and politically relevant. She soon writes her first cookbook.

Ruth also travels extensively throughout the book, sharing foodie experiences from her journeys. In France, a waitress teaches her how to debone a fish. In Greece, a farmer serves Ruth yogurt made fresh from the milk of the farmer's sheep. Ruth relishes a seemingly endless, dreamlike meal in Tunisia.



Throughout it all, Ruth is also plagued by worry that she will succumb to the same madness that grips her mother. As the events of the book come full circle, Ruth returns home to make a celebratory meal for a party in honor of Aunt Birdie's 100th birthday. By not poisoning her guests, Ruth sees just how different she is from her mother. After the party, Ruth returns to California, with her ultimate goal of becoming a caterer seeming closer than ever. However, when New West magazine hires her to be a restaurant critic, her entire career—and life—shift, and she finds a way to marry her love of storytelling and her love of food.