Your article surveys the 100-year term with brisk writing that touches on unarguably salient points. It should benefit from an update in two senses: certainly the decade that will end with this year (as in counting 2000 as the first year of the decade and this year as the last) is ripe for a comparable summary, which will update this 100-year essay; the next update would be to extend your article to book length, with lots more recipes and photos and…(but, alas, you know the challenge of writing and putting together a good cookbook), and coverage of more of the less salient points.

Let’s see. M. F. K. Leite? Only after you give us recipes for how to cook a wolf (the ones which happens to be at the doors of many would be wonderful). Perhaps Elizabeth David Leite? Nawh. There is no fat lady to write an intro.

When James Dickey (he of ‘Deliverance’ and much good poetry) spoke with Bill Moyers about culture, Mr. Dickey honed in on cuisine as integral to culture. He claimed that the only indigenous cuisine is Southern, all else being imported. “Dining through the Decades” seems to collect evidence that suggests Mr. Dickey’s judgment might have been a bit clouded. It would be wonderful to read an expanded version of “Dining” and what I suspect is many and sundry examples of a cosmopolitan cuisine…with recipes.

Sales manager? Nawh. More of a long silent consumer of your work who is now yelling into the kitchen for more.

When can we expect you to add the last decade? Perhaps you should update this piece with more recipes and offer something like a CD with all of the recipes bundled with the article.