...[a] riveting biography ... Spring understands that every cookbook and wine encyclopedia has a fascinating backstory, which he uncovers by exploring the character and situation of each of his writers ... Among the most original aspects of The Gourmands’ Way is Spring’s revelatory use of publishers’ archives and contract negotiations, which helps us understand the books these writers created ... I read The Gourmands’ Way with constant interest, and I read it slowly for its many delicious details and astonishing backstories. Spring clearly expresses his understanding of food and wine without any pretense. The knowledge he has at his fingertips might easily have overwhelmed this book. Instead, he uses footnotes for the kind of information that is too intricate for the text but still relevant.
Justin Spring's subjects include the legendary and luminary Julia Child, essayist M.F.K. Fisher, wine entrepreneur and author Alexis Lichine, New Yorker journalist A.J. Liebling, artist-turned-culinary savant Richard Olney, and art world notable Alice B. Toklas. What all of Spring's six gourmands have in common is an interest in carrying the ideals of French food from Paris to America. But their motivations and methods vary wildly … The Gourmands' Way really finds its voice in its second half, when Spring spins bigger, bolder, longer, and considerably wilder tales about his subjects, rewarding the persistent reader with some legitimately shocking stories … Along the way as readers dive into these rich life stories, they are rewarded with virtual tastes of food and wine that are skillfully executed by these masters of the art.
Spring 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.
As he chronicles the popularization of French food in America during the decades after World War II, Justin Spring describes in luscious detail some fabulous meals, helpfully annotated for those who have no clue what poularde à la vapeur de Lucien Tendret or rissolettes of foie gras Carisse might be … Spring’s mixed feelings about the process of making French food accessible are most evident in his scathing take-down of M.F.K Fisher for self-mythologizing, carelessness with facts, and sloppiness with recipes, especially as manifested in The Cooking of Provincial France … The broad outline of Spring’s thesis is so persuasive, the details so evocative (not to mention mouth watering), that anyone interested in the evolution of cooking and eating in America will find The Gourmand’s Way informative and indispensable.
Spring’s book is both a critical and highly entertaining chronicle ... Spring brings each of his six subjects (as well as a fair share of colorful side characters who orbit them) to life with psychological insight and a sharp focus on historical context, backing up his findings with meticulous, near-forensic research.
Mr. Spring does a superb job of painting detailed portraits of his six protagonists. He has packed an enormous amount of material into this book, which is erudite, gossipy, entertaining and eminently readable.
Spring has a grand theory — interesting in some of its particulars but not altogether compelling — that these six discovered the essential genius of traditional French cooking (one thinks of astronauts exploring a vast and unknown domain) and brought the good news home to their readers, changing the American palate forever. Well, maybe. The theory doesn’t matter as much as the stories, and Spring’s versions are exhaustive, engaging, at times hilarious ... For the serious student of gastronomy, this book is part academic tome, part gossipy treatise, part anthropological monograph of a rarefied little world that no longer exists. Spring does a masterful job of getting all the details straight, but we sometimes stagger beneath their weight.
As Spring points out in his excellent culinary history, six American writers introduced French cuisine to American restaurants and home kitchens and were responsible for the nation’s postwar love affair with French food and wine ... Spring’s book is a wonderful culinary history.
An entertaining look at a half-dozen American writers and enthusiastic eaters ... Spring juggles all six of his subjects' stories ably, treating them with affection while dispensing criticism where appropriate ... His accounts of the publishing experiences of his subjects, including Alice B. Toklas’ comically horrifying collaboration with the author of The Can-Opener Cookbook, are particularly fascinating.
...a stunning account of six eclectic, electric personalities ... A literary meal both luscious and lively—and essential to understanding our vacillating love affair with the French.
