When Ann Mah moved to Paris in 2008, she envisioned three glorious years of exploring the French cuisine. Living in Paris was a dream come true for Ann, a freelance food writer, and she had always imagined exploring it with her “favorite person,” her husband. The couple was accustomed to moving frequently, but after only a month in Paris, her husband, a foreign diplomat, was called to serve in Baghdad for a year. Ann is suddenly forced to change her expectations and explore France on her own.
Mastering the Art of French Eating: From Paris Bistros to Farmhouse Kitchens, Lessons in Food and Love focuses on Ann Mah’s first year in Paris. Each chapter is devoted to a different French dish like steak frites, crepes, soupe au pistou, and cassoulet. She also explores the history of each dish and connects with those who make them today. Recipes are included if you want to make them at home.
Her need for crepes reminded me of my Chinese mother, who can’t go more than a day without a bowl of rice, or my Italian friend Gianfranco, who requires regular infusions of pasta, or even Didier, who once told me that he missed cheese so much on a trip to South Africa that he ate an entire wheel of Camembert on the airplane home. Crepes, I realized, were a Breton’s comfort food.
The strengths of this memoir are in the exploration of French cuisine and its history, but it is also about navigating loneliness and independence, and exploring identity. Although Ann has a lot of experience traveling and living abroad, she is not comfortable doing those things alone. Her experience has always been with a parent or partner. At times I wanted to reach into the book and shake her as she wastes a lot of time wallowing in loneliness. She struggles to find her own joy, but by connecting with others, she also learns about herself.
How does a cross-cultural seesaw affect a person’s identity? Perhaps if I learned more about Alsace and its cuisine, I could better understand what might happen to me, an American of Chinese ethnicity who changed countries every three to four years.
If you want to explore more of Ann Mah’s writing, you can also check out two of her novels inspired by France in Nebraska Overdrive.
Mah, Ann. Mastering the Art of French Eating: From Paris Bistros to Farmhouse Kitchens, Lessons in Food and Love. Penguin Books, 2013.
