Book Review: The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food

by Adam Gopnik

Let me begin with some technical details. Adam Gopnik reads his audiobook, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food. His cadence and inflection add much to the listening experience. But keep in mind, he is a New Yorker who talks fast. He imparts a boatload of facts you may wish to linger on. His elegant turns of phrase are often bewitching. I wish I had listened with the paperback and a highlighter in-hand, and a notepad nearby.

I don't think the title needs the words after its colon. The Table Comes First is poetic and evocative on its own—it implies history. A glance at the cover photo confirms that the book is about food. And anyone who has read Gopnik knows he will undoubtedly add-in his family, France, and a heaping-helping of New York City.

At the onset, I glazed over. The history of bygone Parisian restaurants and the gourmands who ate themselves to death holds little fascination. But when Gopnik examined our modern-day fetishes: gluten-free, dairy-free, low-calorie, sugar-free, vegan, I sat up. For a man who can eat what he likes, I am impressed by how informed he is with the various choices eaters make and the rigor each choice requires. He doesn’t touch on keto or macrobiotics, but otherwise, he covers them all.

At the end of Part I, Gopnik introduces his reader to Elizabeth Pennell (1862-1952) an American writer who mostly lived in London writing cookbooks, biographies, and criticisms. He does this by penning an email to her with a recipe he thinks she will appreciate. Throughout the rest of the book, he speaks to Pennell through an ongoing email correspondence, discussing his opinions on taste, recipes, farming, wine, traditions, criticism, and more. This allows Gopnik to step outside the memoir and opine, and to fulfill his fantasy of writing a narrative full of his own favorite recipes. Initially, I found the POV change to be disruptive fluff, but, by the book’s midpoint, I eagerly awaited the next email communiqué and the developing conversation with Pennell.

The essay "How Does Taste Happen?" (Chapter 4) was particularly interesting and backed up by diligent research. Throughout the chapter, Gopnik's weaves stories about how kids, including his own, respond to food, restaurants, and adult tastes, which brings his headier discussions of taste and values, at times, bordering on the philosophical, right back down to earth.

I loved Chapter 10, the essay about wine, "In Vino Veritas?" It springs logically out of Gopnik’s ideas on taste and his observations on the history of food writing. He deftly contrasts the American vs French approaches to connoisseurship and wine criticism, which is both amusing and spot on.

Like most good cooks, Gopnik has edicts he believes and follows: grill meat 4 mins on 1 side, flip, lower the temp and grill for another 3, on the other; the universality of rice pudding; the 3-step recipe, etc. Ever since living in France, I am fascinated by rules we humans make about food and cooking. I have a few of my own. Perhaps it’s something we both picked up while living in France. The French have strict rules regarding food. One can place a slice of ham on a gruyere sandwich but cannot then swipe it with Dijon. Pancakes are good, but only if the butter is unsalted. Don't put sweet and savory on the same plate—ever! Influential chefs are challenging these ideas, but go into a small restaurant in Nyons, or a bistro in Apt, and these dictates will still be true today.

His investigation of Le Fooding, and the engineered food that appears at top global restaurants, is fascinating. Gopnik's descriptions are delightfully vivid: the entertaining concoctions, the dramatic tables, the creative achievements of the various chefs—and especially, the unique people who are pushing the creative boundaries of the kitchen. I felt like I was meeting these distinguished foodies and remarkable chefs. When he returns to France from Barcelona after indulging in the foams and smokes that are reminiscent of familiar things, Gopnik craves a Trou Normande, for the very reason that it is old-fashioned, and thus, just the right fashion for himself.

A narrative conflict does appear in Part IV which fuels the memoir aspect of the book. His email correspondence with Elizabeth Pennell sorts it out. I wish this conflict were more deeply explored. It gives the book a timely relevance—perhaps, it is resolved, brushed aside, too easily.

The book does not reference Julia Child or any of the TV chefs many of us grew up on. Nor does it delve into diverse cooking traditions; the book is focused mainly on French and American foodways. That's fine, a manuscript needs guardrails. But I believe Child has earned a place in this history. She translated French cooking for American home cooks, at a time when American cooking lacked romance and passion and few women or Americans had any role in French cooking. I'm curious why he chose to overlook her contribution.

The Table Comes First is a series of related essays, all focused on various aspects of food—metaphorically, "The Table." Each essay is able to stand on its own and contributes artfully to a cohesive whole. A good way to digest this book? Read one chapter every couple of days. I read it over three weeks and wish I had read it even more slowly. The gentle, narrative memoir coexists with hypotheses, research, and opinion. It reads like many books all at once: multiple college theses, a cookbook, a memoir, an epistolary email correspondence, and a travelogue.

I ended the book wishing I could sit down with Gopnik with a glass of Margaux, in a little bar I know in Marseille, to discuss France and food, wine and writing. This book is a conversation starter. It fires the brain’s synapses. It’s full of ideas you'll want to eat up and others you’ll spew back out. Isn't that what taste is all about?