Reading: A Meal Observed

May 8, 2007 in A Front Page Item, Books & All Things Literary | No comments

I am reading Andrew Todhunter’s A MEAL OBSERVED. It’s a magazine-length idea that he’s turned into an amusing little book, combining history and experience with a sheaf of helpful culinary notes. The book recounts their meal at Paris’s Taillevent, “a Michelin three-star restaurant considered by many critics to be the finest in France and thus the world”.

Interestingly, Todhunter is not a ‘foodie’ — indeed, his first couple books were about extreme sports – though I think he downplays his ignorance of the food world for the purpose of the book. The first few chapters of this book irritated me because Todhunter would provide a bit of information about the restaurant and then launch into a recollection of dining with his father as a child or other nostalgic claptrap that I feel is unnecessary and misplaced in this book. Happily, the latest chapters I’ve been reading have gotten away from this indulgent approach; I hope this trend continues.