Savoir-Faire

Maryann Tebben is Professor of French and head of the Center for Food Studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Massachusetts. She is the author of Sauces: A Global History (Reaktion, 2014).

This is a chronicle of how French cuisine reflects its cultural traditions, with delightful meanderings about what workers ate, the influence of female chefs in the provinces, scientific and agricultural innovations, and how colonial products and dishes have been allotted space in the classical food pantheon. From the robust, pig-centric meals of the Franks, which set the table for “the embrace of pleasure over moderation,” Tebben charts the influential development of courtly Renaissance feasts and the first printed cookbooks, which staked out French gastronomic dominance with terminology, recipes, and cooking techniques that endure today.