Gourmet - Couverture souple

'An exquisite French black comedy.'--The Times

'A foodie's delight; just don't read it when you're hungry.'--Daily Mail

'Barbery has a knack for describing food, and for evoking the physical and emotional sensations it produces.'--Financial Times

'The exquisite descriptions of eating are like nothing you've read before'--Good Housekeeping

'An ode to the pleasure of good food ... mouthwatering from beginning to end' --Paris Match

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Proust's infamous madeleine cannot hold a candle to the lush, winsome memories of meals past that you'll find in Muriel Barbery's Gourmet Rhapsody. M. Pierre Arthens is France's premier restaurant critic so premier in fact that he's simply called the Maître and we meet him as he lies in bed, waiting to die. Fervently he mines years of gastronomic delights and discoveries in search of one single flavor, one that he says is 'the only true thing ever accomplished.' What unfolds in vignettes narrated by him and by a chorus of his familiars (most human, some quite comically not) is a portrait of a man in thrall to the very ingredient that makes French cuisine so inescapably, ecstatically, seductive: It's not cream, nor cognac, but the cook who defines those glorious tastes. 'The only true work of art, in the end,' he says,' is another person's feast.' --Amazon.com Review - Anne Bartholomew

In the pages of this book, Barbery shows off her finest gift: lightness. --La Repubblica

Muriel Barbery's gifts as an evocative storyteller are used to mouthwatering effect in this voluptuous and poignant meditation on food and its deeper significance in our lives.

France's greatest food critic is dying, after a lifetime in single-minded pursuit of sensual delights. But as Pierre Arthens lies on his death bed, he is tormented by an inability to recall the most delicious food to ever pass his lips, which he ate long before becoming a critic.

Desperate to taste it one more time, he looks back over the years to see if he can pin down the elusive dish. Revealing far more than his love of great food, the narration by this larger-than-life individual alternates with the voices of those closest to him and their own experiences of the man.

Muriel Barbery's gifts as an evocative storyteller are put to mouth-watering use in this voluptuous and poignant meditation on food and its deeper significance in our lives. A delectable treat to savour.