Between Meals (Penguin Modern Classics)

'Fantastic. The benchmark for great food writing' Anthony Bourdain

'The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite'

Between Meals is the gourmand and journalist A.J. Liebling's delectable account of his time spent eating and drinking in 1920s Paris, under the tutelage of his friend Yves Mirande, 'one of the last of the great around-the-clock gastronomes of France'. With gluttonous joie de vivre, he fondly recalls everything from glorious dining ('A leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five kinds of cheese') to bad rosé ('a pinkish cross between No-Cal and vinegar'), and an ill-fated sojourn at a Swiss slimming-clinic. Witty, tart and full of gusto, this is a love song to food, wine and Paris.

'Liebling transfers excitement, warmth, wit and information ... as hearty and explicit as good Calvados' The New York Times Book Review

With an introduction by James Salter

Reviews

You can read Between Meals for its wonderful descriptions of food, but it is also a cultural history of Paris and a bildungsroman about an American immersed in Europe’s lascivious ways... Between Meals reads like a lament for a way of being. [Liebling] craved the best of everything, on his own terms, wherever and whenever he could find it