Author: Edward Behr Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0399564020 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
One of Christopher Kimball’s Six Favorite Books About Food A beautiful and deeply researched investigation into French cuisine, from the founding editor of The Art of Eating and author of 50 Foods. In THE FOOD AND WINE OF FRANCE, the influential food writer Edward Behr investigates French cuisine and what it means, in encounters from Champagne to Provence. He tells the stories of French artisans and chefs who continue to work at the highest level. Many people in and out of France have noted for a long time the slow retreat of French cuisine, concerned that it is losing its important place in the country's culture and in the world culture of food. And yet, as Behr writes, good French food remains very, very delicious. No cuisine is better. The sensuousness is overt. French cooking is generous, both obvious and subtle, simple and complex, rustic and utterly refined. A lot of recent inventive food by comparison is wildly abstract and austere. In the tradition of great food writers, Edward Behr seeks out the best of French food and wine. He shows not only that it is as relevant as ever, but he also challenges us to see that it might become the world's next cutting edge cuisine. France remains the greatest country for bread, cheese, and wine, and its culinary techniques are the foundation of the training of nearly every serious Western cook and some beyond. Behr talks with chefs and goes to see top artisanal producers in order to understand what "the best" means for them, the nature of traditional methods, how to enjoy the foods, and what the optimal pairings are. As he searches for the very best in French food and wine, he introduces a host of important, memorable people. THE FOOD AND WINE OF FRANCE is a remarkable journey of discovery. It is also an investigation into why classical French food is so extraordinarily delicious--and why it will endure.
Author: Tyler Colman Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520267885 Category : Cooking Languages : en Pages : 204
Book Description
"Kudos to Tyler Colman for this illuminating look at wine's fascinating backstory. This excellent overview of how important politics is to the taste of the wine in your glass is a new kind of wine book, essential for every wine lover's bookshelf."—Elin McCoy, author of The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste "In shrewdly examining how politics influences the production, distribution, and consumption of wine on both sides of the Atlantic, Tyler Colman has written a much-needed and long-overdue book. Wine Politics won't necessarily make you a better taster, but it will unquestionably make you a more enlightened drinker."—Mike Steinberger, wine columnist for Slate magazine
Author: John V. C. Nye Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691190496 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 174
Book Description
In War, Wine, and Taxes, John Nye debunks the myth that Britain was a free-trade nation during and after the industrial revolution, by revealing how the British used tariffs—notably on French wine—as a mercantilist tool to politically weaken France and to respond to pressure from local brewers and others. The book reveals that Britain did not transform smoothly from a mercantilist state in the eighteenth century to a bastion of free trade in the late nineteenth. This boldly revisionist account gives the first satisfactory explanation of Britain's transformation from a minor power to the dominant nation in Europe. It also shows how Britain and France negotiated the critical trade treaty of 1860 that opened wide the European markets in the decades before World War I. Going back to the seventeenth century and examining the peculiar history of Anglo-French military and commercial rivalry, Nye helps us understand why the British drink beer not wine, why the Portuguese sold liquor almost exclusively to Britain, and how liberal, eighteenth-century Britain managed to raise taxes at an unprecedented rate—with government revenues growing five times faster than the gross national product. War, Wine, and Taxes stands in stark contrast to standard interpretations of the role tariffs played in the economic development of Britain and France, and sheds valuable new light on the joint role of commercial and fiscal policy in the rise of the modern state.
Author: Mack P. Holt Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781108456814 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
In the late fifteenth century, Burgundy was incorporated in the kingdom of France. This, coupled with the advent of Protestantism in the early sixteenth century, opened up new avenues for participation in public life by ordinary Burgundians and led to considerably greater interaction between the elites and the ordinary people. Mack Holt examines the relationship between the ruling and popular classes from Burgundy's re-incorporation into France in 1477 until the Lanturelu riot in Dijon in 1630, focusing on the local wine industry. Indeed, the vineyard workers were crucial in turning back the tide of Protestantism in the province until 1630 when, following royal attempts to reduce the level of popular participation in public affairs, Louis XIII tried to remove them from the city altogether. More than just a local study, this book shows how the popular classes often worked together with local elites to shape policies that affected them.
Author: Donald Kladstrup Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0767913256 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
The remarkable untold story of France’s courageous, clever vinters who protected and rescued the country’s most treasured commodity from German plunder during World War II. "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." –Claude Terrail, owner, Restaurant La Tour d’Argent In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown–until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them. Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.
Author: Kolleen M. Guy Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 9780801887475 Category : Cooking Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
This work explains how nationhood emerges by viewing countries as cultural artifacts, a product of "invented traditions." In the case of France, scholars disagree, not only over the nature of French national identity but also over the extent to which diverse and sometimes hostile provincial communities became integrated into the nation. The author offers a new perspective by looking at one of the central elements in French national culture -- luxury wine -- and the rural communities that profited from its production
Author: Thomas Edward Brennan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Wine industry Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
After an initial examination of France's viticultural society and the process of creating wine, Thomas Brennan turns his attention to the wine trade, the process of finding the buyers who would make the vines bear economic fruit. He draws on remarkably revealing statistics from Champagne to establish the crucial role played by brokers in this trade. Brennan also examines the role of brokers in the early eighteenth century, both nationally and in the provinces of Champagne and Burgundy. He analyzes the winegrowers' response to the brokers' innovations and growing power, interpreting the language of judicial, political, and silent protests to illuminate the emerging views of the market's role in society. Brennan concludes with a look at the internationalization of the wine trade, as commercial ties grew to knit together most of France in the late eighteenth century, and certain provinces moved to thrust themselves into a wider, European commercial world.
Author: Leo A. Loubere Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438411316 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 429
Book Description
The delight of Bacchus, wine has ever been man's solace and joy. Growing out of the poorest soil, the wild grape was tamed and blended over millennia to produce a royal beverage. But the nineteenth century brought a near revolution in the production of wine, and democracy in its consumption; technology made wine an industry, while improved living standards put it on the people's dinner table. The vintners of France and Italy frantically bought land and planted grapes in their attempt to profit from the golden age of wine. But the very technology which made possible swift transportation, with all its benefits to winemen, brought utter devastation from America—the phylloxera aphids—and only when France and Italy had replanted their entire vineyards on American stock did they again supply the thirsty cities and discriminating elite. In an exhaustive examination Professor Loubère follows the wine production process from practices recommended long ago by the Greeks and Romans through the technical changes that occurred in the nineteenth century. He shows how technology interacted with economic, social, and political phenomena to produce a new viticultural world, but one distinct in different regions. Winemen espoused a wide range of politics and economics depending on where they lived, the grapes they grew, and the markets they sought. While a place remained for carefully hand-raised wine, the industry had, by the end of the century, turned to mass production, though it was capable of great quality control and consistency from year to year. The author uses a wide range of sources, including archives and contemporary accounts. The volume contains extensive figures, tables, graphs, and maps.
Author: C. Ludington Publisher: Springer ISBN: 0230306225 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
A unique look at the meaning of the taste for wine in Britain, from the establishment of a Commonwealth in 1649 to the Commercial Treaty between Britain and France in 1860 - this book provides an extraordinary window into the politics and culture of England and Scotland just as they were becoming the powerful British state.
Author: Joseph Bohling Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501716069 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne. The names of these and other French regions bring to mind time-honored winemaking practices. Yet the link between wine and place, in French known as terroir, was not a given. In The Sober Revolution, Joseph Bohling inverts our understanding of French wine history by revealing a modern connection between wine and place, one with profound ties to such diverse and sometimes unlikely issues as alcoholism, drunk driving, regional tourism, Algeria’s independence from French rule, and integration into the European Economic Community. In the 1930s, cheap, mass-produced wines from the Languedoc region of southern France and French Algeria dominated French markets. Artisanal wine producers, worried about the impact of these "inferior" products on the reputation of their wines, created a system of regional appellation labeling to reform the industry in their favor by linking quality to the place of origin. At the same time, the loss of Algeria, once the world’s largest wine exporter, forced the industry to rethink wine production. Over several decades, appellation producers were joined by technocrats, public health activists, tourism boosters, and other dynamic economic actors who blamed cheap industrial wine for hindering efforts to modernize France. Today, scholars, food activists, and wine enthusiasts see the appellation system as a counterweight to globalization and industrial food. But, as The Sober Revolution reveals, French efforts to localize wine and integrate into global markets were not antagonistic but instead mutually dependent. The time-honored winemaking practices that we associate with a pastoral vision of traditional France were in fact a strategy deployed by the wine industry to meet the challenges and opportunities of the post-1945 international economy. France’s luxury wine producers were more market savvy than we realize.
Author: Edward Behr
Author: Tyler Colman
Author: John V. C. Nye
Author: Mack P. Holt
Author: Donald Kladstrup
Author: Kolleen M. Guy
Author: Thomas Edward Brennan
Author: Leo A. Loubere
Author: C. Ludington
Author: Joseph Bohling