PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewSpring sets out to prove that the six writers he chronicles were responsible for making 'the age-old French dialogue surrounding food, wine and the table' part of the American dialogue. I’m not convinced he’s done that, but he has achieved something much more interesting: offered us an entirely new perspective on a group of people we thought we knew ... All this sounds very dishy, but I don’t believe that was Spring’s intention. He is, at heart, an obsessed biographer who seems to have left no diary unopened, no letter unread, no manuscript unscrutinized. And he’s scathing about the many sloppy writers who preceded him, gleefully recounting the errors he has unearthed ... Spring may have removed your rose-colored glasses, but even his unromantic vision leaves you wishing you had been there.
