Bon Appetit: Travels Through France With Knife, Fork and Corkscrew

The early part of Peter Mayle’s life was spent in the gastronomic wilderness of post-war England.

But a business trip to Paris at the tender age of nineteen began an enduring fascination with the French and their love affair with food and wine. In Bon Appetit!, he brings hilariously and affectionately to life a nation that can get passionate about a frog’s leg or a well-turned omelette and organise a marathon fuelled only on Medoc.

Preparation, of course, is everything, and Peter Mayle has spent long hours with knife, fork and glass. He visits Livarot, where his nose encounters its far from modest fromage, and revels in the spectacle of the annual competitive cheese-eating contest; he attends a church service in Richerenches to celebrate the truffle; in Martigny-les-Bains he learns the best way to eat snails; in Vittel, haven of the frog-fancier, he becomes the first English confrere.

What he discovers in the high level of enthusiasm that turns eating and drinking into a celebration. And while the French take their passions seriously, the French who come to these events don’t take themselves seriously at all. Warm, witty and mouthwatering in equal measure, Bon Appetit! is proof that the old saying ‘Lovely country, France. Pity about the French,’ is only half correct. Over ten years ago Peter Mayle transformed our feelings about Provence, now he captures the irresistible essence of France herself – and her food.