William Rodarmor 
French Feast 
A Traveler’s Literary Companion

This book isn’t the usual kind of book about food. It has no restaurant reviews, and very few recipes. You won’t hear about that darling place in Dordogne, but you may learn how to slice a cuttlefish. This is about food as experience. And who better to describe that experience than the French?


French Feast is a wide-ranging collection of mostly short stories with delicious idiosyncratic twists. Who would have thought that the bank robber’s gun was actually made of nougat? Or that you can starve at a chic Paris dinner when the fuses blow? Some stories are elegiac, like “The Taste of New Wine, ” or rich with family memories, like “Bresse.” Others cast an ironic eye on diners’ manners—or their marriages, as in “Tears of Laughter.” Still others lusciously combine food and love: you can use porcupine stew to seduce a neighbor, or a caramel berlingot to poison a faithless lover. The trick, in food as in writing, is to do it with taste.

—William Rodarmor, editor

A propos de l’auteur

Christiane Baroche, Calixthe Beyala, Philippe Claudel, Albert Cohen, Mariette Condroyer, Philipe Delerm, Maryline Desbiolles, Henri Duvernois, Cyrille Fleischman, Pascal Garnier, Michèle Gazier, Laurent Graff, Roger Grenier, Joseph Incardona, Claire Julier, Anthony Palou, Martin Provost, Fabrice Pataut, Chantal Pelletier, Jacques Perret, Claude Pujade-Renaud, Alina Reyes, Nadine Ribault, Marie Rouanet, Annie Saumont, Dominique Sylvain, Tiffany Tavernier, Michel Tournier, Tranh Van Tran Nhut