COQUILLES, CALVA, AND CRÈME Exploring France's Culinary Heritage: A Love Affair with French Food by G.Y. DryanskyJoanne Dryansky (Pegasus) (IBRCookBooks)

A gastronomical memoir of French cuisine that combines historical facts and traditions with today's best dishes.

Longtime Condé Nast Traveler senior European correspondent Dryansky (The Heirs, 1978, etc.) and his wife and contributing author, Joanne (Fatima's Good Fortune, 2003), have been living and eating in Paris for more than 30 years. Their remembrances include the joys of eating ortolans, a small bird "not much bigger than the top joint of your thumb,” before the creature was declared endangered, and drinking an 1874 Mouton Bordeaux at Chateau Mouton Rothschild with Philippe Rothschild and a Japanese ambassador. 

The authors write of eating leg of lamb with Coco Chanel in the flat above her couture house and pieds de cochon, breaded and fire-roasted pigs' feet, at a brasserie surrounded by local Parisians. The couple has traveled among farms, vineyards and restaurants across the country, and they recall with great love their adventures and meals. They move from the decadent, overblown, gourmet dishes of the past to the simplicity of the terroirmovement, "the unique savor of things that are what they are because of where they are.” The prose is as rich and delicious as the highlighted meals, and the authors also include some of the chefs’ recipes for confident or adventurous home cooks to try.

A journey that will delight the palette and nourish the soul.