The Table Comes First

This is a book about food that Adam Gopnik approaches from many angles, the act of dining both at home and at the restaurant, the art of cooking, or cookery as it was once called, the way cooks and chefs used to think about food, and how they think about it now, taste and how it changes, the use of spices and seasonings, how we think and talk about flavour and so on. This is a fascinating book, full of ideas and insights, and it covers a vast amount of ground.

Gopnik begins in France. He traces the invention of the restaurant and explains how the modern, western idea of the three-course meal came to be. He writes about the beginnings of recipe writing, the first cookbooks, restaurant criticism which also has its roots in France, and then he tells the story of the Michelin guide and how that came be.

He writes about the various food movements that have come and gone, and goes into some detail about the question of vegetarianism vs meat eating. He introduces us to British chef, Fergus Henderson who's famous for his dedication to nose to tail cooking, and he contrasts his approach with French Chef Alain Passard who decided, at the height of his fame, that he does not want to cook meat any more. All his dishes are now built around vegetables. He does not cook vegan food or health food. He loves his dairy and he refuses to let his customers count calories, and eat for anything other than pleasure. But he champions vegetables and believes that we've barely begun to explore all the wonderful things that can be done with them.

One of the most interesting sections of the book is about eating food that's sourced locally. Gopnik sees the merits of this approach, but he also sees the absurd extremes to which some people can take their devotion to, what is at the end of the day, an idea. He decides to cook a meal using only the ingredients that he can get in and around the city of New York where he lives. He sources honey from rooftop hives in the city, goes foraging in Central Park and goes upstate to buy a chicken after trying and failing to get one raised in the city. Hens are raised in New York City, but they are apparently only kept for their eggs.

The narrative is full of interesting details like this. It can occasionally feel like too much detail, and the writing though very good, is dense in parts, but it’s worth sticking with.

Gopnik features several people in this book who are famous in the world of food. He writes about his experiences eating at a variety of restaurants in Paris, New York, London, Barcelona, provincial France, and rural Spain. He brings many perspectives to this narrative, but the primary one is his own, and what he is, is a home cook. He's a husband and a dad who loves to cook for his family. He enjoys all the rituals around food and dining, and he just plain loves food. That, in the end, is what makes this book so enjoyable.