What Calvin Trillin likes to write about is eating rather than food. Known to his fans as a "happy eater," he is also a highly-respected journalist and a nimble humorist. It is this unique combination of talents that makes The Tummy Trilogy such a wonderfully entertaining collection. Includes American Fried; Alice, Let’s Eat; and Third Helpings.

In the 1970’s, when Trillin was writing the "American Journal" feature for the New Yorker, he spent a great deal of time on the road, diligently questing after the best cooking in every city, town, and village he passed through. When approaching local people, his technique was simple, and simply brilliant: "Don’t take me to the place you took your parents on their 25th wedding anniversary; take me to the place you went the night you came home after 14 months in Korea." With this kind of attitude, whether he is writing about taking his own multi-course picnic on a no-frills flight to Miami, describing the perils of post eating, indulging in the pleasures of pigging-out in Hong Kong, or giving us the definitive history of the origin of the Buffalo chicken wing, the results are marvelously funny and will be a very special treat for people who love eating and relish good prose.