Customer Reviews

Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France

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I started reading Au Revoir To All That thinking it a book on the decline of French cuisine. It is that, but much more, too. The author is a wine columnist and, while the bulk of the work is taken up with food (and wine), it is really about the decline of France itself.

This is not the type of opinion writing wherein the French are simply bashed. Steinberger provides the regulatory detail, changes in French eating and drinking habits, and political and social background to convincingly show why French cuisine has collapsed - and it is a collapse. By way of example: France is the 2nd largest market in the world for McDonalds, the country has lost close to 200,000 restaurants, French wine consumption is down 50% since the 60's, and the living standard has declined precipitously.

Steinberger is a sympathetic writer. He obviously loves France, the French, and French cuisine, and is dismayed at his findings. He writes warmly of most of the chefs, shop owners, and vintners he meets and interviews. All of them are struggling to keep afloat. He conveys their anger and frustration so well you can feel it coming off the pages. A few come across as dinosaurs, notably chef Paul Bocuse. The situation for even the best, however, is grim. Most are on the edge and virtually all of them are among the few left standing.

For once, the French realize that they've caused their own problems, blaming, with few exceptions, the French bureaucracy. In addition, institutions like the Michelin guide come under heavy criticism. France shot itself in the foot - twice - with wine, in that the AOC system was allowed to run completely out of control precisely at the time that global wine competition was ballooning. As the number of appellations rose 3-fold and controlled wines went from 20% to 50% of production in a bid to (falsely) puff up the image of French wine, quality crashed amid appellation scrabbles and scandals.

At the political root of all this is the Mitterand regime. In response to the global economic issues of the 70s and 80s, France chose a socialist government, which proceeded, naturally, to dramatically increase spending, entitlements, and regulation. Steinberger doesn't write as an anti-socialist. I read him as politically neutral in this book. But the globalization context he provides makes it clear that France's actions were a disaster for French agricultural life - and the cuisine and wine about which he writes.

This book is fascinating reading, providing superb food and wine writing in an unusual economic and political framework. Highly recommended. I look forward to Michael Steinberger's next book.

Based on the books titles I expected some sustained argument that there really is a problem in France. We get some anecdotal evidence, which I don't dispute. I wanted to have a bit more on what the actual problem is in the author's mind. However, after a couple of chapters I realise that we are not going to get more depth on that issue. Instead we get a collection of rewritten articles about various food topics. The essays all describe some kind of decline of French food. I call this a biased sample. There surely are restaurants on the rise as well. Talking to them might have given the author a more nuanced picture.

The author has maybe over a ten year period interviewed a number of people in French gastronomy and there are some interesting bits of information for the person really interested in French haute cuisine. The essays are mostly very readable as long as you don't expect a detailed analysis of the decline of French food.

The book is a very easy read, but I would not recommend it generally.

France, like the rest of the industrial world, is changing. Of that there can be no doubt. People all over are tightening their belts and when families do that they start eating at home. But that's not the only reason for the decline of the French food and wine industry as Mr. Steinberger points out in this book. France, like America, is a land of immigrants and many are Moslem or people of color and they don't eat French food. Also Micky D's sells Big Macs in France by the zillions and the French youth are gobbling them up.

Then there is the government that taxes fine dining and regulates it too and the wine industry as well. Too much regulation make for smaller profit margins and poorer products. Add the fact that there are fewer and fewer master chefs and that the ones there are are busy trying to enrich themselves out of the kitchen via frozen food lines or restaurant chains and you have a recipe for decline.

And the food and wine industry aren't the only things in decline in France. The economy is too. A result of entitlements, taxes, too much government spending, all the usual things conservatives accuse liberals of doing. But, sadly as a liberal, I have to say that I see what Mr. Steinberger is talking about. I didn't get the impression he was liberal bashing at all, more like he was a neutral observer, reporting on events that saddened him. If you want to understand France today, this book is a good place to start.

I have a tropism towards foodie books that also incorporate history, so I expected to love "Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France." I did enjoy reading it... but I found that, like some tasty treats, a little goes a long way.

The book is a collection of essays that explore, as the book's back cover says, the upheaval in French gastronomy. Because it's evident that France has lost its #1 spot for leadership in food and wine. Some of this is clearly for good reasons; that is, the rest of the world gained better food consciousness, from an emphasis on ingredient freshness to the continuing improvement of non-European locals for wine production. But, as author Michael Steinberger points out, plenty of the fault can be laid at the French as well.

Individually, some of the chapters are really wonderful. I learned a lot about the current state of cheese production in France (is a cheese "raw milk" if it's undergone thermalization, heating to 161 degrees for 20 seconds?) -- and its decline. I was fascinated by the details behind the Michelin stars and the pursuit thereof (I already knew the Michelin guidebooks were started by the tire company to promote auto travel, but maybe you didn't). And I was completely unaware of the crisis in the AOC, particularly that since 1960, France's per capital wine consumption has plummeted by 50%. (One result: in 2003, one hundred million liters of AOC wine were distilled into ethanol.)

But as a collection... I liked this book. I didn't adore it. I'm glad I read it, but it won't stay on my shelf for long. I think it's because the author offers no resolution; at the end of the book, the situation is just as dire as it was when we began. Not that any journalist (however entertaining he might be) can actually change things, but I have no particular call to action, and I'm not sure that any of the individuals or organizations he highlighted do, either. All the people he interviewed (and interviewed WELL, mind you -- I admire anyone who asks good questions) are in exactly the same place they were when he spoke with them. By the end of the book, I felt unsettled rather than satisfied by my new knowledge.

So if you happen to come across a copy of this book, by all means read it. I don't recommend that you put it on the Must Read NOW list, however.

As a wine enthusiast, Francophone and pseudo-foodie, I was eager to get an advance copy of Au Revoir to Food, Wine and the End of France. Because it was not a finished version, it was rife with typos and missing information, which made it hugely challenging to get through. However, you folks will be buying the final copy, so you won't be stymied by those issues.

However, the book is so heavily researched and full of specific tidbits of information that it gets bogged down in the details. I had a hard time keeping track of the many chefs Michael Steinberger interviewed and restaurants he visited. Too many facts, dates, names, etc. In one way, that information seems relevant and possibly necessary, but as I was reading this for my own edification and not a school assignment, I would have preferred less data. It does read somewhat like a textbook in many areas, and it is laborious to get through, typos or no.

When Steinberger instead tells anecdotes, gives his impressions of the chefs and other experts (quite a few probably won't speak to him again!), and shares their input on what's wrong with French cuisine (hint: mostly a bureaucratic government that seriously gets in the way, coupled with a society that's become too busy to appreciate good food), the book becomes far more readable and enjoyable. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of French cuisine: the history of French cuisine, the impact of the economy and the government's policies, the famed/dreaded Michelin Guide, the role of racism in the restaurant business, the wine and cheese industries, the threat from Spanish and other foreign cuisines, infamous chefs such as Paul Bocuse and Alain Ducasse, etc. No stone is left unturned, and it is a thorough treatise of the topic.

If you are a culinary professional or layperson with a deep interest in the topic, you would gain a lot from reading this book. If you are merely curious or just have an above-average interest, you are probably better off reading one of the many articles that resulted from Steinberger's book publicity tour (there's one on NPR's Web site). I do have a deeper appreciation of how tough French culinary artisans have it over there, and quite a bit more disdain for their government than before (and I am a serious Francophone who wants to live there), but I felt like this a real chore to get through and wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

Had I not been familiar with Michael Steinberger's excellent wine reviews in the online magazine, Slate, and his love of French wines and France I might have thought from the title that this book was going to be about Freedom Fries and overly critical of French food and wines. As it was, I was very anxious to receive and read this book. Like his articles in Slate and many other publications, this book was not only a great history of French food and wines, but also a thoughtful exploration of the reasons that French food and restaurants are losing some of their status as the top places to eat in the world.

Steinberger takes us through a history of French dining through the years explaining how they got to where they are today. There are so many factors that he discusses as the reasons for the decline, some particular to France, but many others that I could see were common factors in other countries as well. The decrease in the number of people eating out was a factor as was the government bureaucracy, taxes and laws that were damaging to the industry and the increase in fast food. Also a factor was the Michelin Guide and the way their ratings affected restaurants and chefs.

One of my favorite things about the book were the many interviews with the chefs and wine makers and even the head of McDonald's. It gave me the feeling of being right there, sitting in a restaurant over a meal or bottle of wine, involved in the conversation, and asking the kinds of questions that I myself would have liked to ask. It made me feel like an "insider" hearing the opinions from famous chefs, winemakers and others involved in the food industry. The book was much more fascinating than I expected it would be and was in fact, a difficult book to put down. Michael Steinberger has such an entertaining writing style and it really comes through in this book. I think that many people having read this book, will want to do a search on Slate and other publications to read his other interesting articles.

this was an excellent book to read -e specially to anyone who has travelled or lived in france for the past few decades. it seems that the french are becoming more 'americanized' in terms of how they share meals, eat out and what they eat (more junk like us). while i believe that the bistrot and cafes are still the lifeblood of the french culture, the michelin star, 3 hour dinners are waning. a great book for any one who loves french culture

As a lover of France and food, I worried that this would be a rant based on some uninformed agenda. It was anything but. From the first chapter I found myself swept away on a culinary journey through France and history, illuminated by just the right mix of personal acccounts, agricultural facts, cutural history, and politics.

Steinberger emerges as a food lover and Francofile of the first order, whose goal is anything but an assasination of French cuisine. He recounts his formative years with French food, and then documents a decline over the last several decades. His analysis leads him to many of the great (and formerly great) kitchens of France, to farms and cheee factories and vineyards, to the president of the French division of McDonalds, and to a renowned Japanese culinary academy outpost in the south of France.

The book ends on a hopeful note, showing how France is slowing being taken over by a new wave of cooking, pioneered by young chefs willing to break with the past. And how classical French cuisine is being kept alive and even thriving, not so much in France, but in Japan, where chefs and food lovers have hung on to the tradition that the French have fumbled.

Overall I found it well written, personal, and authoritative. The copy I received from the Amazon vine program unfortunately was an uncorrected proof. My copy lacked pictures, statistics, an index, and even a first attempt at proofreading. But even with these glaring issues it was an interesting and informative read.

Au Revoir to All That is a collection of research and many, many interviews all illustrating a country in a culinary slump. Steinberger attacks the complicit nature of France, the superiority of the Michelin Guide and the French Government, which seems to have turned its back to what should be France's greatest pride. Having mixed experiences at the Michelin rated restaurants I've visited, I was particularly swayed by his condemnation. Of course, to a New Yorker, Zagat's is "the Guide."

While Steinberger's points are well-supported and articulate, he sometimes goes back and forth between them. It serves to emphasizes his points to a degree, but left me feeling a bit of having ran in circles. Also, there are so many interviews, I began to feel lost for a sense of personality among any of the Chefs. I would have preferred some of the interviews provide more depth and reflection and several others omitted. On balance, Steinberger is quick to his points and direct.

As damning as the title is, Steinberger gives voice to the hopeful as well as the downtrodden. However, his regular interjections and opines are mostly doom and gloom. For, even the recent accomplishments of French Chefs are depicted as too little too late, misguided, or quixotic. The little time I spent in Paris 2 years ago, introduced me to some amazing culinary feats, especially at Jules Verne and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. However, coming back to New York, it's easy to see how favorably the culinary scene here compares. Yet, many of my favorite high-end New York fare is created (or managed) by a French Chef. Steinberger seems to portray this huge global influence as having it's ups and downs. I'm not really convinced of any downs, but I suppose I'd have to have eaten at Louis XV back when Ducasse was cooking there to realy know. In fact, one of the major points of the book is that most people, even the average French diner is unaware of how far France has fallen. It's one of those things that is hard to relate without the relevant personal experiences to draw on. Steinberger's attempt is comendable.

Michael Steinberger has beautifully collected a wealth of information and combined it in this interesting book. Although it's no surprise that France has been affected by the current economy, I was sad to see how McDonalds has risen in popularity in France and how a beautiful old country such as France is slowing becoming homogenized. What I really enjoyed about this book was the fascinating culinary history that the author has unearthed. I have been to France twice and thanks to Mr. Steinberger's book, it felt like I was tagging along exploring new villages, tasting delicious foods and meeting some interesting chefs. This is a literary trip worth taking!