THE TUMMY TRILOGY by Calvin Trillin...

THE TUMMY TRILOGY by Calvin Trillin (Noonday: $12; 386 pp.). In these three volumes of collected New Yorker columns, Trillin writes about food for the nutritionally incorrect, the gastronomically challenged and people in touch with their inner childish appetites. He revels in oyster loaves, barbecue, crayfish, funnel cakes and French fries cooked in lard, but disdains anything flavorless or healthy, complaining that some bland cream cheese “tasted as if it might have been made by a Presbyterian missionary rigidly following directions from the Campfire Girls Cookbook.” In an era when eating is often made to sound like a chemistry lesson, Trillin reminds the reader of its sensual pleasures.