Status
Available
Collection
Publication
New York : Knopf, 2011.
Description
"From the author of Paris to the Moon--one man's quest for the meaning of food in a time obsessed with what to eat. Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, even our moralizing--"You still eat meat?" How could the land of Chef Boyardee have come so far overnight? And where can we possibly go from here? Locating the roots of our foodways in France, Adam Gopnik traces our rapid evolution from commendable awareness to manic compulsion and how, on the way, we lost sight of a timeless truth: what goes on around the table--families, friends, lovers coming together, or breaking apart; conversation across the simplest or grandest board--is always more important than what we put on the table. Gently satirizing the entire human comedy of the comestible, The Table Comes First seeks to liberate us from the twin clutches of puritanical guilt and cable TV glitz. It is the delightful beginning of a new conversation about the way we eat now"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member simchaboston
Intelligent and thoughtful essays on the big and little questions surrounding food. I always enjoy Gopnik's prose, and this book is no exception -- even if, unlike some of his other works, I feel like I should reread certain sections to try to get concepts I couldn't quite grasp the first time. I
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also found the subtitle a little misleading; it made me expect more of a personal memoir, along the lines of his earlier "Paris to the Moon" or "Through the Children's Gate", and his musings on various food movements and the meanings of taste far outnumber his thoughts on France or family. Still worth the read, though, for people who like to think about, talk and of course eat food. Show Less
LibraryThing member RealLifeReading
This wasn’t what I was expecting.
What was I expecting?, you might ask. A sort of history, evaluation of the current state of the culinary world, the progress it has made, from home-cooked to fine dining. It was, and it wasn’t.
It took me three weeks to read this book. And that involved a LOT of
I hesitate to recommend The Table Comes First to anyone, even if you are a foodie. I mean, I love to eat and read about food and all that, but how I struggled with this book. It was not a fun read, it wasn’t all that insightful either. It was too Franco-centric, largely ignoring most of the non-western world. It is obvious that his target audience are those who have already eaten at Momofuku and El Bulli and all those ‘top’ restaurants.
However, if I hadn’t read it, I would not have come across to Elizabeth Pennell, whose 1900 book The Feasts of Autolycus, the Diary of a Greedy Woman (available as an ebook here) begins:
“Gluttony is ranked among the deadly sins; it should be honoured among the cardinal virtues.”
Gopnik decides to start ‘emailing’ Elizabeth Pennell, which is a little silly, but at other times, entertaining as he details his attempts in the kitchen.
And even more so for that great bibliography at the end because with the exception of the Steinberger book, I have not heard of any of them. And these definitely sound more up my alley.
What was I expecting?, you might ask. A sort of history, evaluation of the current state of the culinary world, the progress it has made, from home-cooked to fine dining. It was, and it wasn’t.
It took me three weeks to read this book. And that involved a LOT of
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skimming. Because while Gopnik is full of passion about food and eating (mostly French/French-styled food), he enjoys a too long philosophical ramble, one which leaves more questions than answers, and sometimes it’s all a bit too preachy like he’s glaring at us from his high culinary pulpit especially when he’s going on about the meat-vs-veg debate (nevertheless to say, I skimmed that chapter).I hesitate to recommend The Table Comes First to anyone, even if you are a foodie. I mean, I love to eat and read about food and all that, but how I struggled with this book. It was not a fun read, it wasn’t all that insightful either. It was too Franco-centric, largely ignoring most of the non-western world. It is obvious that his target audience are those who have already eaten at Momofuku and El Bulli and all those ‘top’ restaurants.
However, if I hadn’t read it, I would not have come across to Elizabeth Pennell, whose 1900 book The Feasts of Autolycus, the Diary of a Greedy Woman (available as an ebook here) begins:
“Gluttony is ranked among the deadly sins; it should be honoured among the cardinal virtues.”
Gopnik decides to start ‘emailing’ Elizabeth Pennell, which is a little silly, but at other times, entertaining as he details his attempts in the kitchen.
And even more so for that great bibliography at the end because with the exception of the Steinberger book, I have not heard of any of them. And these definitely sound more up my alley.
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LibraryThing member PattyLee
I really wanted to like this book; I like the author; I like the topic. I don't mind a little philosophy and history in the least, but Gopnik takes it to extremes in the first two chapters. Then he tries to argue that there is no such thing as "taste," only frames for taste. His defense of Robert
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Parker (yes, the man who brought the French wine industry to its knees in imitation of Coke or Pepsi or some other sweet drink) in the wine chapter and, in general, he just annoyed the heck of out me. In between- when I wasn't being annoyed- there were some interesting tidbits. Show Less
LibraryThing member debnance
“In cooking you begin with the ache and end with the object, where in most of the life of the appetites---courtship, marriage---you start with the object and end with the ache.”
Do you see why I love Adam Gopnik? He can take the simplest of activities---like cooking, for example---and he can
Here’s another example of Gopnik’s wisdom that often goes over my head in a first reading, truth that is wiser than simple information about cooking and eating: “It seems to me that the real spirit of localism---the thing most worth taking from it---is the joke: the playful idea of the pleasure of adventure, the idea, at the heart of most aesthetic pleasures, that by narrowing down, closing up, the area of our inquiry, we can broaden out and open up the possibilities of our pleasures.”
And not only does he find deep wisdom in simple activity, but he shares his ruminations with a cleverness that few essayists display:
“Yes, of course, everybody’s recipe is someone else’s recipe, with the exception of those few rare new things that someone really did invent….But there is a recipe that has, so to speak, through suffering become yours, unlike those that you have simply copied out of a book. We recognize the concept of sweat equity in recipe writing: if you have labored nightly over a stove in a restaurant kitchen cooking the thing, then you can write it down, even if its origins lie ultimately not in your own mind but in someone else’s cooking.”
“The good food of twenty-five years ago always looks unhealthy; the good food of fifty years ago always looks unappetizing; and the good food of a hundred years ago always looks inedible.”
“On the other hand, or in the other fork….”
And beneath his wisdom and his cleverness, Gopnik shares little tidbits of the craft that help us all:
Gopnik suggests that everything is better by adding a little saffron and cinnamon or bacon and anchovies.
He also shares the surprising truth that good cooks either go very hot or surprisingly cold. They have time.
Do you see why I love Adam Gopnik? He can take the simplest of activities---like cooking, for example---and he can
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find great wisdom there. Half the time I don’t understand what he’s talking about as I’m reading along; it’s only later, when I’m looking over his words again, that his thoughts become clear to me.Here’s another example of Gopnik’s wisdom that often goes over my head in a first reading, truth that is wiser than simple information about cooking and eating: “It seems to me that the real spirit of localism---the thing most worth taking from it---is the joke: the playful idea of the pleasure of adventure, the idea, at the heart of most aesthetic pleasures, that by narrowing down, closing up, the area of our inquiry, we can broaden out and open up the possibilities of our pleasures.”
And not only does he find deep wisdom in simple activity, but he shares his ruminations with a cleverness that few essayists display:
“Yes, of course, everybody’s recipe is someone else’s recipe, with the exception of those few rare new things that someone really did invent….But there is a recipe that has, so to speak, through suffering become yours, unlike those that you have simply copied out of a book. We recognize the concept of sweat equity in recipe writing: if you have labored nightly over a stove in a restaurant kitchen cooking the thing, then you can write it down, even if its origins lie ultimately not in your own mind but in someone else’s cooking.”
“The good food of twenty-five years ago always looks unhealthy; the good food of fifty years ago always looks unappetizing; and the good food of a hundred years ago always looks inedible.”
“On the other hand, or in the other fork….”
And beneath his wisdom and his cleverness, Gopnik shares little tidbits of the craft that help us all:
Gopnik suggests that everything is better by adding a little saffron and cinnamon or bacon and anchovies.
He also shares the surprising truth that good cooks either go very hot or surprisingly cold. They have time.
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LibraryThing member jessibud2
I listened to Adam Gopnik read this unabridged book to me on audiobook and I have to say, I really enjoyed his reading. I think when an author happens to be a good reader, as well as a good writer, the listener has hit the jackpot. I heard this as it was meant to be heard, with the author's voice,
This is the second Gopnik audiobook I've listened to and I will be seeking out more.
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his nuances, his emotions. I can't improve much on the review debnance gave, below, but I have to say I particularly enjoyed how Gopnik manages to weave analogies in with his own narrative. For example, I doubt anyone would expect references to Keith Richards to have much relevance to a food book but there it was - and it wasn't just a passing name-dropping reference. Also, his imaginary emails to 19th century food writer, Elizabeth Pennell, were not only endearing but also creative and enlightening. This is the second Gopnik audiobook I've listened to and I will be seeking out more.
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LibraryThing member annbury
This is a terrific but difficult book. I had always thought that Gopnik was a lightweight due to his New Yorker pieces, and his book "Paris to the Moon"but this is something else. I actually bought a book by Elizabeth Pennel, an Anglo-American 19th century author who wrote great cook books, before
including a great history of restaurants, taste, local eating, a visit to Barcelona to see Ferran Adria and eat at his place, and last and certainly not least a visit to a restaurant in a village outside of Paris that is mentioned by a young man about to be killed by the Nazis in WW!!. Gopnik is pretty level headed about a lot of things, including anti-Semitism and the Stalinism of the young man.
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Gopnik revealed that not only was she an anti-Semite, she had a particular animus against Russian Jews who lived in the better areas of Philadelphia, such as Gopnik's family. There is lots to interest one here,including a great history of restaurants, taste, local eating, a visit to Barcelona to see Ferran Adria and eat at his place, and last and certainly not least a visit to a restaurant in a village outside of Paris that is mentioned by a young man about to be killed by the Nazis in WW!!. Gopnik is pretty level headed about a lot of things, including anti-Semitism and the Stalinism of the young man.
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Awards
IACP Cookbook Award (Winner — Literary — 2012)
Language
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