It was cheap at a thrift store in Boca Grande, and I needed some reading, figuring some nonfiction about eating habits was better than a Mary Higgins Clark mystery. I think her book is better than her title, though it was a very quick read saying many common sense things we all already know, and listing many recipes that I am excited to try (pumpkin pie with hazelnuts, cauliflower gratin, asparagus flan!, cooked pears with cinnamon, carrot soup).Her book offers a cross-cultural comparison of eating between America and France and worries that if french culture goes by the wayside, her pais-mates will be getting obese like Americans. She quotes Brillat Savarin, the great 18th-century French gastronome: “The destiny of a nation depends on how it feeds itself.” She worries: "Where are we going? And why is everyone following?"
She advocates regulated gastronomic pleasure instead of diets as the most powerful tool of weight control and is shocked by how overweight we in the USA are. She presents a plan to change eating habits and lose weight. Start off writing down everything you eat, and send it to her; she'll find your main "offenders" in habit or food choice and advise you a solution. Just kidding she won't send you anything, you have to find your own "offenders." She stresess that you move a lot; french women walk everywhere and do little secret exercises with their arms and abs at home. Climb lots of stairs.
Second step to your new french-style life is to eat leek soup for 3 days. Thereafter, include lots of leeks in your life.
She speaks about having a variety of seasonal foods on your plate, sitting to eat giving full attention to the meal, chewing slowly deliberately meditatively, buying food at the local market and only enough for a few days. We must not cut out the fats; eat butter and whole milk and goat cheese. Just moderate. And if you eat a large meal today, compensate tomorrow with no sweets, and minimal bread etc.
The funniest thing is her encouragement to fool yourself and others. Example: When you don't really want a dessert when everyone else is getting their own, go ahead and order it, eat 2 bites slowly and engage your neighbor in conversation so they won't notice that you've put your fork in the 5 o'clock position that tells the server to take it away and of course s/he will without anyone noticing that you were so moderate!!
What a notion that we are all going to start spending 1 hour shopping every 2 days and an hour preparing meals with 4-5 sides on a set table with linens and candles. But her idea of variety and small portions of each makes a lot of sense for your digestive enzymes and nutrient requirements.
I do like leek soup... Her anecdotes describing the wild blueberries and mirabelle plums are delightful, and you can learn a lot about different little foods (how to clean mushrooms) and french food culture. The 2 days a year at Christmas where everyone eats a few slices of cake are a charming picture.
She encourages doing chores, cleaning things the old fashioned way, taking the stairs; essentially stop being lazy! Work to enjoy food and work to reap psychological reward and exercise benefits. Oh, and she is the CEO of Clicquot, Inc. and encourages us to drink champagne often; it's not just for New Year's and rare celebrations. Her recipes call for Champagne Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut, and that you drink the rest with dinner.
She just falls a little short by not discussing our society and culture bent on consumerism, professional competition, fitting in lots of activities aimed at kids' pleasure because of parental guilt, socializing with wide unconnected sets of friends, and needing to do things fast, and get places fast so there is more time doing activities with our gadgets (watching, talking, playing, texting, buying). I guess she is challenging us individually to make gastronomic pleasure a bigger priority and an enjoyable family affair.
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