Dirt

3.5 really. The writing works and the story is interesting, even, if only, to a diminishingly small group of people. The thesis sort of sputters and as he intermittently labors through it one gets the impression that the origins of French cooking may not be a weighty enough food question for these times and probably not enough to carry this book. Of course, if transport is your goal the book can work but it meanders, so beware the ‘mal de la route'. This is not a harsh criticism and there are touching personal stories in the book and you will learn new things about the French and the way they nourish themselves.

As with ‘Among the Thugs', one has to admire Buford's ability to just bluster in past the big, ‘... Not Welcome Here', signs and win enough people over to help him with his outrageous projects. Living in France myself I can only imagine the obstacles that were thrown down all around him and he gets beaucoup respect for soldiering on and getting it done and apparently with enough style to impress enough of the French cooking elite.

If Buford returns to France maybe he can write more about the collision of French cooking/dining/sourcing traditions with industrialization and how the French are adapting and how this could perhaps inform the larger projects in the US and EU and further. He is probably uniquely qualified to discuss that timely topic.

I did enjoy reading this. The sections describing his family adapting to life in Lyon, learning French, making friends, going to school, were really engaging. The descriptions of the city, its food and history were likewise interesting.

But the book also felt a bit disjointed. For example, near the end of the book, Buford takes a trip to a lake where a unique freshwater fish can be found. He goes to some trouble to convince the local fisherman to take him out on the lake, however the next page Buford is instead tracking down he local flour miller, without ever again mentioning the lake or describing the fishing he went to such lengths to experience.

I also found his defense of the abusive working conditions he experienced at a top tier kitchen to be strange and off putting. (Where pots are thrown at workers, people are regularly hit, name calling and cursing or expected, all in the name of holding up some ideal of cuisine.) Kudos to Hortense for getting out of there and getting into the fashion industry. I imagine her perspective on that kitchen would have been a lot less favorable that Buford's.