Before she took the helm at Gourmet magazine, Ruth Reichl won two James Beard Awards for her work as restaurant critic for The New York Times. Courtesy Ruth Reichl hide caption

"Can something be called chicken or pork if it was born in a flask and produced in a vat?" asks Michael Spector. "Questions like that have rarely been asked and have never been answered." iStockphoto.com hide caption

Patton Oswalt is the voice behind Remy the rat, hero of Ratatouille, who likes his cheese avec des oeufs. Disney/Pixar hide caption

Alinea's version of pheasant, served with shallot, cider gel and burning oak leaves. Lara Kastner/Alinea hide caption

Clockwise from left to right: cover art for The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Battles, cover art for To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild. St. Martin's Press, courtesy of the artist, Houghton Mifflin hide caption

Jerry Leiber (right) looks over Elvis Presley's shoulder at the sheet music for "Jailhouse Rock" in Los Angeles in 1957. His songwriting partner Mike Stoller stands to the left. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption

Comic book nerd Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) encounters an alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) after traveling to America for Comic-Con. Double Negative/Universal Pictures hide caption

In the 1983 gangster film Scarface, Al Pacino gave a "performance the size of a Caribbean cruise ship," says critic John Powers. Universal Studios hide caption