Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking
Who Would Like This Book:
If you love culinary adventures, travel stories, and peeking behind the swinging doors of French kitchens, this book serves up a heaping portion of all three. It's perfect for foodies, Francophiles, and anyone fascinated by the grit and heart it takes to master a classic cuisine. Buford's willingness to uproot his whole family for a dream makes for a funny, honest, and sometimes chaotic memoir. Plus, you'll pick up scads of fascinating tidbits about Lyonnais cooking and the traditions that shaped French food.
Who May Not Like This Book:
If you prefer your food memoirs short, sweet, and to the point, Buford's sprawling deep dives and tendency to over-describe may test your patience. Some readers found the relentless detail exhausting - think long, meandering passages on everything from family logistics to the origins of wheat. The book's subtitle promises more hands-on chef training than it actually delivers, and the mix of kitchen tales with personal and culinary history won't be everyone's taste.
About:
'Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking' by Bill Buford is a memoir that follows an American with a background as a chef who uproots his family and moves to Lyon in search of classical French culinary training. The book details his struggles of being turned down by every restaurant he applies to, his experiences as an apprentice at a boulonger learning to make bread, and his time in restaurant kitchens where he faces hazing and bullying. Throughout the narrative, the author explores the roots of French cooking and its complex relationship with Italian cuisine, providing a mix of personal anecdotes, historical insights, and societal observations.
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From The Publisher:
"You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford's Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France." -The Wall Street Journal
What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France. But what was meant to be six months in a new and very foreign city turns into a wild five-year digression from normal life, as Buford apprentices at Lyon's best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school, and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, where he discovers the exacting (and incomprehensibly punishing) rigueur of the professional kitchen.
With his signature humor, sense of adventure, and masterful ability to bring an exotic and unknown world to life, Buford has written the definitive insider story of a city and its great culinary culture.
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Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking?
About the Author:
Bill Buford is the author of Heat and Among the Thugs. He has received a Marshall Scholarship, a James Beard Award, and the Comune di Roma's Premio Sandro Onofri for narrative reportage. For eighteen years, Buford lived in England, and was the founding…
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