How could a Francophile food writer not be intrigued by a collection of sixty years of food writing about Paris? I looked forward to reading this book with keen anticipation and on the whole it didn't disappoint. Compiled by Ruth Reichl, for many years the editor in chief in Gourmet Magazine, it's an anthology of dispatches to Gourmet Magazine from various columnists based in Paris. It covers a period of sixty years, spanning the years immediately post World War 2 to the early 2000s. As Ruth Reichl states in the introduction, there were several decades when Paris was "a shrine for everyone who believed that eating well was the best revenge" and it's the best of those years that are represented in this book.

Once Paris emerged from the doldrums of the war years and their associated privations, it didn't take long for it to reassert its rightful position at the pinnacle of the gourmet world and the essays in this book are a testament to that Paris and the magic it conjured. Several writers tend to predominate, obviously because they were correspondents for larger chunks of time and the book reflects the writing style of those writers pretty much to the exclusion of the others. In particular, essays by Naomi Barry and Joseph Wechsberg are gems of history and fascinating insights into a world that has largely been displaced by more recent developments. It's a reminder of a Paris we all probably still think of in a nostalgic mood, even while acknowledging that it's a world that belongs to yesterday. ( )

I always enjoy reading about France, though I must admit this collection wasn't as fun the second time around. The assortment seems heavily weighted toward tales of France's past culinary glories, skipping past a couple of decades on its way to the present day, and I would've preferred fewer pieces but longer ones as well as more variety in the authors anthologized (even though I recognize how good Joseph Wechsberg's writing is). Still, it was fun to imagine the places talked about, and it's always good to get a little French into my brain before going to Paris. ( )

If you have been to Paris sometime in the 20s to 50s, maybe this book is fun for you. I wasn't even born then. The best essay in the whole book is the one by Ruth Reichl, about trying on a black dress! It is outstanding, but the rest is about as boring as Marcel Proust. But I read nearly all of it while I was stuck on an airplane. If you want to read about French food there are a lot better books. Too much is snotty, snobbish, and only the insiders would know what you mean. More Ruth Reichl, less old dusty stuff.
On a scale from one to 100, this book is a 5 and Comfort me with Apples by Ruth Reichl is a 99.

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I love France and I love food. So what can be better than a book devoted to both. This book is a collection of essays written over the past sixty years for Gourmet magazine and so many are a delight. A person has to be soulless not to be charmed by "The Christening" in which a Parisian mother brings the plans for the party to celebrate her child's entry into the church to the hospital with her as she is about to deliver her baby and one cannot help to sigh over "Paris's Haute Chocolaterie." And then there is the sensation of being born too late when one reads "After the War" written in 1947 when the author bemoans the fact that the average check a Maxim's is an outrageous $16.00 and that a meal in an average bistro has "increased tenfold" - to $1.00 (!!).

In our hard economic times when travel - well, at least my travel - has become extremely limited, a book like this one is a delicious bon bon to be consumed in little bites to savor over the days, or to be gorged upon in one big gulp. ( )