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Balzac's Omelette

A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac
by Anka Muhlstein
Balzac's Omelette: A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac. Other. Oct. 2011. c.248p. tr. from French by Adriana Hunter. illus. maps. ISBN 9781590514733. $19.95. LIT
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Like the many feasts it describes—historical and fictional—this book presents readers with course after course, carefully crafted to appeal to palates with a taste for history, biography, or literary criticism. Award-winning historian and biographer Muhlstein (Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart) delivers a palimpsest that is part wide-ranging study of French culture and daily life in the early 19th century, part biography, and part in-depth consideration of the importance and treatment of food in Balzac's novels. Muhlstein contrasts Balzac's habits and concerns (quite often his creditors) with characters and scenes from his many novels and grounds all these in the necessary context of the social and political history of the era. VERDICT Well written and thorough, this title will appeal most to students of French history, lovers of Balzac and his writings, and those with a deep interest in food history; it might be a bit rich in detail for the taste of a casual reader. [Previewed in "Booked Solid: Falls Finds from BEA 2011," LJ 7/11.]—Courtney Greene, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Like the many feasts it describes—historical and fictional—this book presents readers with course after course, carefully crafted to appeal to palates with a taste for history, biography, or literary criticism. Award-winning historian and biographer Muhlstein (Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart) delivers a palimpsest that is part wide-ranging study of French culture and daily life in the early 19th century, part biography, and part in-depth consideration of the importance and treatment of food in Balzac's novels. Muhlstein contrasts Balzac's habits and concerns (quite often his creditors) with characters and scenes from his many novels and grounds all these in the necessary context of the social and political history of the era.
VERDICT Well written and thorough, this title will appeal most to students of French history, lovers of Balzac and his writings, and those with a deep interest in food history; it might be a bit rich in detail for the taste of a casual reader. [Previewed in "Booked Solid: Falls Finds from BEA 2011," LJ 7/11.]—Courtney Greene, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Reviewed by Courtney Greene , Oct 01, 2011
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