More than a book about food alone, French Food uses diet as a window into issues of nationality, literature, and culture in France and abroad. Outstanding contributors from cultural studies, literary criticism, performance studies, and the emerging field of food studies explore a wide range of food matters.
Serious scholars of French cooking will enjoy digging through Schehr and Weiss' anthology...not for recipes but for its many revelations. -- Mark Knoblauch, Booklist
Cooking, eating--the whole dining experience--has momentous implications that influence our ability to understand a people, a way of life, a civilization. French Food is required reading for anyone who, like me, views cuisine as a significant and integral part of culture. -- Jacques Pepin
This collection offers detailed accounts of gastro-culinary themes across an unexpected range of texts. -- Rebecca L. Spang, author of The Invention ofthe Restaurant
French Food, a collection of essays entirely harvested in America, is neither scholarly junk food nor a quick fix for the mind, but a Barthesian feast of historical, literary and semiological insights--a nourishing reconciliation of savoir and saveur. -- Philippe Roger, author of Roland Barthes, roman and editor of Critique
Over the years, many have come to recognize the importance and influence of French cooking. Now Schehr and Weiss offer us delightful essays as sophisticated and subtle as the food, cooking, eating and culture they analyze. Whether you are a casual diner interested in exploring the complexities of French cuisine or an expert seeking scholarly discussion about French culinary conventions and practices, French Food is a pleasure that should not be denied. -- Eating Culture
Lawrence R. Schehr is Professor of French at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Among his many books are Rendering French Realism and The Shock ofMen: Homosexual Hermeneutics and French Writing. Allen S.Weiss teaches in the departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies at New York University. His many books include Phantasmic Radio and Mirrors of Infinity:The French Formal Garden and 17th Century Metaphysics.
Introduction Hor d'Oeuvres, Lawrence R.Schehr and Allen S. Weiss Chapter 1: A Cultural Field in the Making: Gastronomy in Nineteenth-Century France, PriscillaFerguson Chapter 2: Grimod de la Reyniere'sAlmanach des gourmands: Exploring the Gastronomic New World of Post-Revolutionary France, Michael Garval Chapter 3: Culina Mutata: Careme and l ancienne cuisine, Philip Hyman Chapter 4: Tastes of the Host, Marc Smeets Chapter 5: Agape and Anorexia: Decadent Fast and Democratic Feast, Naomi Schor Chapter 6: Colette's Ecriture gourmande, BrigitteMahuzier Chapter 7: Monsieur Marcel's Gay Oysters,Franc Schuerewegen Chapter 8: Savory Writing: Marcel Rouff's Vie et Passion de Dodin-Bouffant,Lawrence R. Schehr Chapter 9: Diet and Ideology in Corps et Ames, Gerald Prince Chapter10: Existential Cocktails, George Bauer PartIV Chapter 11: The Betrayal of Moules-frites:This Is (Not) Belgium,Stephane Spoiden Chapter 12: Eating Your Way Out: The Culinary as Resistance in Ferdinand Oyono's Le Vieux Negre et las medaille, Francis Higginson Chapter 13:The Politics of Food in Post-WWII French Detective Fiction, Pierre Verdaguer Chapter 14: Film, Food, and La Francite:From le pain quotidien to McDo, Dana Strand Chapter 15: Screening Food: French Cuisine and the Television Palate, Toby Miller Chapter 16:Tractatus Logico-Gastronomicus, Allen S. Weiss Bibliography Contributors Index