A Taste of Paris: A History of the Parisian Love Affair with Food Hardcover – September 26, 2017

Woe is me! I have never been to Paris! David Downie's book is an entertaining reminder of what I've been missing. Part food tour book and part food history book, A Taste of Paris gives quite a comprehensive understanding of how Parisian food developed its unique style. I must admit that some things in the book were quite surprising, such as the description of a medieval process of cooking an entire boar for a banquet and serving it wrapped up inside its original pelt. One cannot unsee this (or unsmell it!) There are many colorful examples that will hold the reader's attention, as he/she races from one chapter to the next. The pace is brisk, the writing is excellent and almost poetic at times. As we are taken from one arrondissement to the next, it would have been helpful to have had a map of Paris printed on the endpapers. I must visit Paris, and bring this book as a guide. Kudos to the author for his excellent research for this book, which must have taken a lifetime!

David Downie comes through again, this time combining history and food in a very interesting book about food in Paris through the ages. I think he covered everything in both subjects so it's a book for history buffs and foodies. I found myself constantly amazed by the amount of research it must have taken for him to fill in all the blanks and he didn't leave a single blank by the end. If you love Paris, food and the writing of David Downie you must read this book.

This is one of David Downie's best books. It is lively, festive, and enlightening. He incorporates an indepth culinary history into a tour - really a romp - through the City of Light. There are many engrossing stories about the personalities and food preferences throughout centuries of Parisian history.

Good historical book - the title is a little misleading, it is really about the history of food in France (and before). I disliked that the author had a "snarky" attitude and I wish more current information was included.

It was not by accident that Paris became the world capital of gastronomy. But -- how did it happen? David Downie, who in his marvelous books has walked you all the way around the City of Light, now walks you back in time to her secret history, through the centuries-long saga of how Paris was fed. The logistics are staggering, the characters unforgettable, and the stories of the kind you can dine out for a year on. Reading, you may just feel that gastronomy as we know it in the best Paris restaurants is the tender flower of mighty and continuous labor dating to the deep, deep past. As always, David Downie leads you to see Paris anew, through any lens he crafts for you. Don't miss this one!

I 'm very sorry to say it, but I found this to be one of the most irritating, least worthwhile, books I have read in a long time.The title is seriously misleading—“A Taste” must refer to the author’s, because that is the main theme of the text. Though there are many references to historical documents, places and events, they are not connected by a coherent historical narrative in which one subject leads to another. The claim of “the Parisian Love Affair with Food” is never addressed, much less demonstrated, and as for even the author’s “love” of “food”, there is no evidence here of a refined palate or much culinary knowledge on his part. Many names are dropped, but often this seems to be showing off, marketing his walking-tour business rather than teaching readers; street maps would have helped. The strongest takeaway as the central thread for me was the author’s apparent fascination with himself—his constant padding of the text with often gratuitous insertions of his personal takes on everything (as if that is what readers care most about), instead of simply presenting an objective history in which we are interested, for which we were misled to buy the book.The prose style is breezy, smart-alecky, over-written and purportedly facetious—more suitable to short, light magazine articles than to nonfiction books. Servers in restaurants are many times described as dressed like penguins, as if that (cliché, after all) were—what? Witty? Clever? Funny? Certainly none of those from the second time on. Unremitting and purportedly clever word-plays draw more attention to the writing than to the subjects at hand. I found no depth of insight or nuanced sensibility.Actually the pretext of a “history” and “the Parisian Love of Food” are misconceived. Because so little is known about the early history of Paris, the text focuses on the author almost entirely—e.g., the solid historical information in the first 24 pages of the book (after which I stopped counting) could easily have been fitted into two paragraphs. Charlemagne is adduced as if somehow representative of Paris, whereas he was born in either Belgium or Germany, and lived all over Europe wherever he was (almost always) fighting, keeping his court at Aachen, in today’s Germany. The history of Paris is of course familiar from many other sources, but this book contains no illuminating attempt to create a specialized narrative fitting into that history.

Gave this as a gift to a chef friend, who loved it! Fun, witty, good information and some decent recipe ideas.

This book kept me sane on a last crazy business trip to China this week! Such a fascinating trip through the history of eating in Paris! Well written, smart, inspired!Now I am waiting for the paperback to come out because I've yet to master the ability to revisit passages on Kindle that I want to research further. And I can't wait to revisit the Mazarin Library to take a peek at some of those manuscripts myself.

Very well written, funny and informative

This is a stunning book that pulls you right into the French way of life and the history of France's love affair with food. Erudite, enthralling, engaging. An absolute must-read. You won't be able to put it down. Bravo, David Downie!