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Books: Cooking by Cuisine -> Cooking French
Accounting for Taste : The Triumph of French Cuisine
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by:
Ferguson, Priscilla Parkhurst
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Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Published: July 12, 2004
ISBN: 0226243230
Format:Hardcover
Pages:272
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Book Description
From Booklist
French cuisine may or may not be the world's best, but it certainly is the most widely influential cooking style, and it is unquestionably the standard against which all other cuisines are measured. In this culinary history, Ferguson
traces how the cooking of the French nation survived revolutions and changes in fashion to reach the summit of good taste. She contrasts the aesthetic of French dining with the raucous, undisciplined cuisine of America. But she does find America's
attitude toward a single meal, Thanksgiving, a revealing exception to the general rule. In a striking epilogue, Ferguson minutely analyzes the film Babette's Feast, showing how French cooking came to stand in the film for art in general. She also delves
into the differences between the film and Dinesen's original story, which gave Babette a harder edge than did the movie. Although this work is determinedly academic, those interested in the history of food will discover a wide-ranging, intelligent, and
original approach to the preeminent role of French cooking in the history of civilization. Mark Knoblauch
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