Customer Reviews

French Fried: The Culinary Capers Of An American In Paris

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Rochefort's follow-up to "French Toast" focuses on the culinary differences between America and France, which have lead to huge differences in culture, lifestyle, and waistlines. With a breezy style and self-deprecating wit, she demystifies what the French cook, how they cook it, how they eat it, and how it enhances the pleasures of life. Surely one of the pleasures in life is relaxing with this book and a nice glass of red wine.

It's been an interesting experience to read this book (a celebration of good food, good wine, and a high quality of life) alongside Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" (a wonderfully written and thoroughly depressing exploration of the rise of fast food in the U.S. during the latter half of the 20th century and its impact on our culture). Rochefort, too, warns of the encroachment of McDonalds and other American fast-food enterprises on the French culinary landscape; she notes that she hopes her observations of French cuisine will not serve as a memorial of such an inherent part of French culture. Reading these two books side-by-side guarantees that you will never eat fast food again. And to make certain of that, Rochefort includes several tried-and-true French recipes. The ones I've tried have been simple and delicious!

As an "expat housewife relocated to France" (as so delicately stated by another reviewer), I found this book somewhat informative. It is hard to get past her obsessive romance with the French and their culture. I think her infatuation with the French makes her writings very biased and not very accurate. I felt like she was looking down her nose at the rest of us Americans that live here and maybe don't appreciate French cuisine with the same gusto as her. That's great she loves stinky cheese and blood sausage. Kudos to her for completely immersing herself into this way of culinary living. However, globilization really HAS reared its head in France and contrary to what Ms. Welty says, the French DO eat cheese singles, snack on chips and very often eat a sandwich for lunch. The French are not all the same as she makes it seem. Sure, they love a good, long, hearty 7 course meal now and then, but in the age where a single income family is practically unheard of, I have yet to meet a family that sits down for the "traditional" home cooked lunch AND dinner everyday as she claims most do.

Most disappointing was her husband's commentary that was put at the end of every chapter. This guy doesn't do good things for the French image. He has got to be the most pretentious, arrogant, French man I have ever heard of. Please, do not think the French all feel this way about us! He just represents one man...not the entire country!

In summary, this book does clear up some of the culinary differences and a few of her recipes are good. However, her pretentious tone and frequent generalizations really spoiled it for me.

I loved this book! It is a sincerely written account of Ms. Rochefort's adaptation to her life in France and of her efforts to find the essence of French cuisine. She examines her midwestern roots and American habits as she learns, step by step, what French food really is. And that is not so much fancy dishes and rich sauces as it is an attitude - a reverence of food, from its preparation to its place on the table. Since so much time is taken up where food is involved it takes on a much more significant role in French family & social life, French culture in general, than it does in the US.

Ms. Rochefort's lighthearted and amusing touch is certainly deceiving. Her account of this discovery seems to be written from the heart as she describes her first years in France, then motherhood, and her attempts to find her place with her French in-laws, and finally interviews with the paragons of French gastronomy. By the end of the book it is interesting to see what significance these culinary capers have for her and how much she cares about French food. And how much we can learn by reading the book!

I loved the author's self-deprecating humor as she tells the story of her love of French food and shares the wealth of information she has gleaned both from living in France for three decades and from talking with some of the foremost people in France's food world. After reading what she says about cheese, I can't wait for my next trip to France to feast on some "real" Brie. Meanwhile, her tips on what makes a good cheese plate have been put to use as have her simple but delicious recipes. After a spate of books from food "experts", most of whom couldn't mix up a simple green salad, this book is a gem.

You might think this book is a witty and insightful guide to understanding the differences between American and French cuisine. Wrong! It is a pretentious and boring tale of Ms. Welty Rochefort's adventures of cooking and eating in France as an American. It is an idea that could have been executed wonderfully in a short story or magazine article; as a book, it's far too long and repetitive. Her writing is riddled with stereotype after stereotype: American families don't know how to sit down for a meal, they are either obsessed with eating fat-free foods or they are obese, they can't enjoy eating, they serve dinner guests things like hamburgers and hot dogs and don't know how to treat their guests right. Yawn. It seems as though Rochefort believes her typical reader is a clueless American who wouldn't know brie from Velveeta, and if you don't mind the condescending tone, perhaps you might enjoy hearing all about her, her family, her experiences, her mishaps, and so on. It's like listening to "When I was a girl..." stories from your grandmother for seven hours straight. You have been warned!

A thoughtful, humorous peek under the covers of French culture. Her candid take on the pleasures and difficulties of living in Paris makes for a relaxed and informative read. As soon as I finished French Fried, I ordered her other book, French Toast, and loved it also. These are a must-read for even a casual traveler to France.

If you equate France with good food and you'd like a delectable read, I highly recommend "French Fried," an ode to the French love of all good things, food-wise (bread, wine, cheese and sweets) and soul-wise (sweets again, this time chocolate; pampering of body and soul, and the long and pleasurable French meal).
Ms Welty-Rochefort has done her homework with interviews, visits, on-site trials, tastings and classes with all the top bakers, pastry chefs, restaurateurs, wine, champagne and cheese makers.
Her section on making the famous chocolate Opéra layer cake at the Le Nôtre Culinary Academy, a four-hour process, will have you running to France to buy one! As her French sister-in-law points out: "That's a cake you BUY!"
But most of all, it's a personal account by someone who soon becomes like a friend, as she shares her very real experience of adapting to France, sprinkled with lots of hints on doing things the French way.

As a Chinese living in America, I found this book very interesting. True, not all French people dislike Americans. But it is also true the differences between American and French people toward food and eating style are part of reasons why 60% of adult Americans are overweight. This book reminded me how much Chinese and French are alike in some aspects, and how much American culture influences has impact on both French people and Asians. I enjoy reading her two books. It gave me different points of view on different cultures.

FRENCH FRIED By Harriet Welty Rochefort, Thomas Dunne Books/ St. Martin's Press, $22.95

You may be able to find Le Big Mac far too easily in Paris today, but the culinary chasm between the U.S. and France still runs deep. The author, an American who has lived in France for 30 years, describes the food scene there in hilarious detail, from dogs (the real, live four-legged ones) in every restaurant to rather hard-to-swallow French delicacies. Boar's head, anyone?

Another tour de force from the author of French Toast! The flavor of France is vividly captured and she makes it easy to understand why so many of us who discovered this wonderful country have never left it. Tired of ingesting garbage that calls itself food? You'll never do it again once you have read French Fried.