The Table Comes First
Book description
Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, and even our moralizing—“You still eat meat?” With our top chefs as deities and finest restaurants as places of pilgrimage, we have made food the stuff of secular seeking and transcendence, finding heaven in…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Table Comes First as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Adam Gopnik’s book, The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food has it all: essays on the history of restaurants, followed by second on taste, then come the recipes (a stellar one on leg of lamb prepared with bacon and anchovies, saffron and cinnamon), and finally, in Chapter Ten, an essay on wine that is a far cry from the plethora of books on “how to taste.” It calls wine what it is, alcohol, and talks about why it makes us happy. I downloaded this book onto my Kindle a long time ago, and writing about it…
From Janet's list on modern day France containing food and wine.
This is a wonderful read about food, about how we enjoy food, and about how we eat food. It’s part history, part sociology, part recipes, and beautifully written. Gopnik has lived in France, and the book is centered on French ideas about food, and given France’s obsession with cuisine, that feels totally appropriate.
From Catherine's list on to contemplate food systems.
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