Mention Alice Toklas and Gertrude Stein races to mind. But as author Justin Spring reminds us in The Gourmands’ Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy, Toklas eventually turned to food writing after the death of her companion. A lifelong reader of cookbooks, she plunged into the task with the fortitude she had shown throughout the war years.
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook was just one expression by American foodies in 1940s and ’50s Paris whose influence on stateside food culture Spring explores. Another ex-pat in that milieu, Julia Child, returned home to become America’s first mass-media culinary celebrity. She was seduced by the gastronomic riches she discovered in Paris, studied at the Cordon Blue and embarked on a mission to show that “preparing and eating delicious food ought to be within every person’s grasp.” Child demystified French cuisine for her American audience.
The Gourmands’ Way is a most enjoyable read, not only for its description of luscious meals but of French culture during the war and postwar years. Smart, chatty and full of stories, Spring captures the excitement of Americans experiencing a cosmopolitanism hard to find in their homeland.
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