The Gourmands’ Way

Join Justin Spring and Amanda Vaill as they discuss The Gourmands’ Way, Spring’s biography of six writers on food and wine whose lives and careers intersected in mid-twentieth-century France.

During the thirty-year boom in France following World War II—les Trente Glorieuses—Paris was not only the world’s most stylish tourist destination, it was also the world capital of gastronomic genius. Justin Spring and Amanda Vaill will bring back to life the story of A. J. Liebling, Alice B. Toklas, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alexis Lichine, and Richard Olney, six American writer-adventurers having the time of their lives in the City of Light during this period and, in doing so, transforming the way Americans talk and think about food—and the way they eat.

Our speakers will lead us through both the fabled world of haute cuisine and the vibrant bohemian and artistic haunts of the Left Bank during the 1950s.