Food and Wine : French

Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin (April 1, 1755, Belley, France - February 2, 1826, Paris), a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an epicure and gastronome. He was born in the town of Belley, Ain, where the Rhone River then separated France from Savoy, to a family of lawyers. [...]. His famous work, Physiologie du gout ( The Physiology of Taste ) , was published in December 1825, two months before his death. The full title is Physiologie du Goût, ou Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendante; ouvrage théorique, historique et à l'ordre du jour, dédié aux Gastronomes parisiens, par un Professeur, membre de plusieurs sociétés littéraires et savantes. [...]. The body of his work, though often wordy or excessively - and sometimes dubiously - aphoristic and axiomatic, has remained extremely important and has repeatedly been re-analyzed through the years since his death. In a series of Meditations that owe something to Montaigne's Essays, and have the discursive rhythm of an age of leisured reading and a confident pursuit of educated pleasures, Brillat-Savarin discourses on the pleasures of the table, which he considers a science. His French models were the stylists of the Ancien Régime : Voltaire, Rousseau, Fenelon, Buffon, Cochin and d'Aguesseau. Aside from Latin, he knew five modern languages well, and wasn't shy to parade them, when the occasion suited. As a modernist, he never hesitated to borrow a word, like the English sip when French seemed to him to fail. The genuine philosophy of Epicurus lies at the back of every page; the simplest meal satisfied Brillat-Savarin, as long as it was executed with artistry:. Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Anthelme_Brillat-Savarin] more...

Price: $6.50

Attention bread lovers! In the first of his famous books about Provence, Peter Mayle shared with us news of a bakery in the town of Cavaillon where the baking and appreciation of breads “had been elevated to the status of a minor religion. more...

Price: $16.95

Peter Mayle, francophile phenomenon and author of A Year in Provence , brings another delightful (and delicious) account of the good life, this time exploring the gustatory pleasures to be found throughout France. The French celebrate food and drink more than any other people, and Mayle shows us just how contagious their enthusiasm can be. more...

Price: $13.95

Susan Loomis arrived in Paris twenty years ago with little more than a student loan and the contents of a suitcase to sustain her. But what began then as an apprenticeship at La Varenne École de Cuisine evolved into a lifelong immersion in French cuisine and culture, culminating in permanent residency in 1994. more...

Price: $14.95