Includes index

There's no French food without French bread: Nantes, Brittany, and 6th Arondissement, Paris, Île de France -- The struggle and triumph of haute cuisine: 7th and 15th Arondissements, Paris, Île de France -- The vegetables of the king: Versailles, Île de France -- The croissant: tender richness and crunch: 14th Arondissement, Paris, Île de France -- The new-old sense of champagne: Épernay and Avize, Champagne -- High-scented sausage: Troyes, Champagne -- A sense of welcome and Wistub Brenner: Colmar, Alsace -- The odor is part of the reward: Lapoutroie, Alsace -- The kugelhopf of Christine Ferber: Niedermorschwihr, Alsace -- Comté: high pastures, joint efforts, and a big mountain cheese: Labergement-Sainte-Marie and Le Fort Saint-Antoine, Franch-Comté -- Vin jaune: the virtue of rancidity: Château-Chalon, Franch-Comté -- Vinegar in barrels: Orléans, Orléanais -- "The bread was better, it's true": Tours, Touraine -- A point of reference for pure Cabernet Franc: Chacé, Anjou -- The slope at the world center of sauvignon wine: Chavignol, Berry -- Parsleyed ham: Dijon, Burgundy -- A spice cake lost in time: Dijon, Burgundy -- The goal of a gulpable wine: Villié-Morgon, Beaujolais -- Lyon and a cook I never met: Lyon, Lyonnais -- Sea salt: Ars-en Ré, Aunis -- Snails: Champagnolles, Saintonge -- Blackened cheesecake: Saint-Estèphe, Angoumois, and L:a Mothe-Saint-Héray, Poitou -- If you aren't worried, then maybe the cheeses could be better: Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, Rouergue -- Guy Gedda and real Provençal cooking: Bormes-les-Mimosas, Provence -- Ruins: Les Baux, Provence -- Wrapped and aged in leaves and completely different from all other cheeses: Valensole, Provence -- Richard Olney, an uncompromising French cook: Solliès-Toucas, Provence -- A sauce from a mortar: Avignon, Provence -- A slippery white cheese and a surprise: Arles and Vauvert, Provence -- The importance of goose fat: Samatan, Gimont, and Saint-Martin-Gimois, Gascony -- The last wine in France: strong, dark, and sweet: Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon -- What is French food?

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