Customer Reviews

A Literary Feast

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I've read many an anthology about food, and none in my experience has come close to this one. Usually there will be a few stories that are interesting, but as a whole it's not memorable. It usually seems as though the publishers sent out a bunch of reprint requests, and then stitched together the ones that were approved and inexpesive to reprint.

But this book is different; it's a thoughtfully composed arrangement of stories, or sections of stories that revolve around a food setting. They are written by masters: MFK Fisher, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, AJ Liebling, Ernest Hemingway....

My copy is dog-eared and yellowed. I even love the creepy people on the front cover. I have the contents pretty much memorized, but I still go back to the stories like old friends depending on my mood.

If there was version 2 of this book, maybe one that included a piece from Elizabeth David, I'd buy it in a second, and copies for friends.

I purchased this book when it first came out in 1995, but as with most anthologies I have bought in the past it went straight into my bookcase. I only recently took it off the bookshelf and then I could not put it down. I relished it just like the authors relish good food and enjoy their dinner companions. I so much liked the story on the Provence I now purchased A Year in Provence and can hardly wait to start on that one.