The Gourmands' Way

July 15, 2017
A thoroughly researched account of how Americans fell in and out of love with French cuisine and cooking.Cultural historian Spring (Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade, 2011, etc.) returns with a stunning account of six eclectic, electric personalities, a group of Americans who helped popularize French cooking in America in the middle of the 20th century. Some are names that even the most casual cook knows (Julia Child, Alice B. Toklas), but others will be recognizable mostly to oenophiles or those who know a bit of kitchen custom and/or history (M.F.K. Fisher, Alexis Lichine, A.J. Liebling, Richard Olney). Throughout, the author combines biography and cultural history. He tells us the relevant pieces of his principals' biographies--focusing, of course, on their gastronomical work--and how each affected the swelling interest in all things French. He also credits numerous others, including John F. and Jackie Kennedy, for influencing public opinion. Although Spring is mostly generous in his assessments, he does do some occasional slicing, especially on Fisher, whom he basically calls a liar--though he recognizes that her artful lying was a form of storytelling. It is fascinating to read how these six figures discovered French food, wine, and cooking and how each developed a specialty and then brought that knowledge to a public eager to read about it all--or, in the case of Child, who had a long-running show on PBS, to see it on TV. Spring also discusses the deaths of each of his subjects, their legacies, and the ultimate implosion of the fascination with French culture, brought on largely by the turmoil of the late 1960s, both in the U.S. and France. A literary meal both luscious and lively--and essential to understanding our vacillating love affair with the French.

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Starred review from August 14, 2017
As Spring (Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade) 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. Richard Olney, in Simple French Food and other books, demonstrated that good cooking was a matter of improvisation, like playing jazz. Julia Child and her collaborator Simone Beck Fischbacher produced Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which took the fear out of cooking French meals at home. Alexis Lichine introduced Americans to the bouquets and beauties of French wines in Wines of France and his more ambitious Alexis Lichine’s Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits. Alice B. Toklas delivered a memoir told through the recipes of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook after her companion, Gertrude Stein, died. Novelist turned food writer M.F.K. Fisher recalled her own glorious moments of eating and drinking as a way of writing about some of her darkest life experiences in Gastronomical Me, and New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling wrote about glorious French repasts with brio and humor in Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris. Spring’s book is a wonderful culinary history.

September 1, 2017

French cuisine became more familiar in America post-World War II, as soldiers returned home. This interest was often fanned by the likes of six authors and chefs: A.J. Liebling, Alice B. Toklas, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alexis Lichine, and Richard Olney. While Child and Fisher may be household names, some of the others are lesser known, particularly for their culinary contributions. However, all six figures profiled in this book by Spring (Secret Historian) loved food and wine, and spent much of their lives cooking, eating, drinking, or writing about the same. Spring chronicles specific chapters in each of their lives, while also placing them in the context of mid-20th-century French and American culinary, literary, and social history. Though quite lengthy and detailed, this is a well-crafted and entertaining book in which readers will constantly find something new to think about or discuss, particularly at the dinner table. VERDICT A solid read for both foodies and literary history buffs.--Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2017
Spring (Secret Historian, 2010) branches out from his usual study of art history to take an entertaining look at a half-dozen American writers and enthusiastic eaters who helped residents of their home country begin to understand French wine and cuisine in the mid-twentieth century. During the period following WWII and running up through the midseventies, expatriate Julia Child studied cooking in France and then wrote cookbooks and hosted television shows, while the now lesser-known wine merchant Alexis Lichine persuaded Americans of the virtues of French wine, as two examples. Spring juggles all six of his subjects' stories ably, treating them with affection while dispensing criticism where appropriate, as toward the accuracy of cult author M. F. K. Fisher's stories of her life. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)