The Supper Club Book: A Celebration of a Midwest Tradition Author: Dave Hoekstra | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CR6NCEG | Format: EPUB
The Supper Club Book: A Celebration of a Midwest Tradition Description
The phenomenon of the supper club—as unique to the Upper Midwest as great lakes, cheese curds, and Curly Lambeau—is explored for the first time in this attractive and engaging book. Revealing the rich history behind these time-honored establishments, it defines the experience for the uninitiated and reacquaints those in the know with a cherished institution. Painstakingly researched, the book documents modern supper clubs in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois, bringing to life the memorable people who created the tradition and keep it alive. It goes on to explain how combining contemporary ideas such as locavore menus and craft beer with staples like Friday night fish fries and Saturday prime rib has allowed the clubs to evolve over time and thrive. With numerous photographs, this combination social history and travel guide celebrates not only the past and present but the future of the supper clubs.
- File Size: 6243 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Publisher: Chicago Review Press (June 1, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CR6NCEG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,247 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #98
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Travel > United States > Regions > Midwest
- #98
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Travel > United States > Regions > Midwest
I purchased this book because I heard a delightful conversation about it with the author on public radio. I did not grow up in the Wisconsin, or otherwise, supper club culture. My first experiences with them, many years ago, were a little unnerving. Just what kind of place is this? Why supper? Why a club? But, after many trips to Wisconsin, I have come to know a few of them well, and to appreciate, if not fully understand, the ones I've become used to.
This book will tell you a lot about the upper Midwest supper club culture and about a few of the clubs in particular. The author gathered a huge collection of odds and ends about individual clubs--history, decor, menu, surrounding community, customers, and owners. People trusted him with a lot of personal information, and he returns that trust by treating everyone well. Calling the book a kindly cultural anthropology would not be too much of a stretch. The book's approach is more celebratory than critical/analytical. I like that.
What I don't like is the writing style. I settled in to read and enjoy in a relaxed engaging way but could not. Sentence after sentence is short, direct and simple--written as unvarying subject-verb-object. Over and over and over. The information about each club is typically presented in an unorganized, slapdash manner without transitions; sort of just decompiling his notes. The staccato presentation clashes with the descriptions of the more easy-going rural supper club culture. Rather than relaxing as I read, I found myself getting jumpy and unable to concentrate. The author is a newspaperman, so this kind of writing is his style, but it doesn't work for this book. What he does isn't really writing in the larger meaning of that word. A genuine essay on each club would have made this a first rate book.
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