Author of the beloved best seller Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986. He is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Reviews and Criticism and of the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. He lives in New York City with his wife and their two children.
“Adam Gopnik brilliantly weaves together the history, philosophy,
and culture of food with his deep passion for cooking and the
shared pleasures of the table.”
—Ina Garten
“At once sweeping and intimate. . . . Gopnik’s story is more
ambitious than a history of restaurants—it’s about how we taste,
dream, and argue about food. . . . The Table Comes First indulges
gourmands everywhere. And it’s a refreshing defense of the nation
responsible in so many ways for the way we eat now. In Gopnik’s
distinctive style, it is encyclopedic yet personal and funny, and
it drives at deeper truths.”
—Newsweek
“Captivating.”
—The New York Times
“Exuberant. . . . What flows through [The Table Comes First] is a
deep fascination with gastronomy as a life force and with the way
it’s awakened and flourished over the last couple of centuries. . .
. Gopnik acts as reporter, historian, participant and philosopher
as he leads us on a kind of walking tour of the food world.”
—Slate
“Unapologetically intelligent yet charmingly witty . . . [here is]
history, nutrition, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology all
rolled up into one delectable streusel of insight and
illumination.”
—The Atlantic
“Gopnik is the nearest thing there is—in the English-speaking
world, at any rate—to a philosopher of food. . . . These essays
blend enormous erudition with great elegance of expression, and
pack intellectual firepower too.”
—New Statesman
“I need to read anything that Adam Gopnik writes, and this book on
food, eating and—it follows—life is a particular feast. His acuity,
grace, sensitive intelligence (in short, his brilliance) are, as
ever, dazzlingly displayed and yet with the lightest of
touches.”
—Nigella Lawson
“Gopnik would surely be the world’s greatest dinner guest; he can
make any subject fascinating, and always backs up his curiosity
with unhurried research and an acute eye for the telling
detail.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Compelling. . . . Gopnik gets elbow deep in heady theory, culinary
history, and his own passions. . . . He is a champion at making
connections, wild and free-ranging. Among the allusions are
revelations.”
—The Boston Globe
“The perfect book for any intellectual foodie, a delicious book
packed with so much to sink your teeth into.”
—Padma Lakshmi
“Entertaining. . . . Gopnik’s long experience with France and fine
dining yields some fine observations. . . . [Reading The Table
Comes First,] you feel as if you’re sitting across the table from
an amusing friend recounting his adventures.”
—Minnesota Star Tribune
“Gopnik’s discussions on the changing nature of tastes and how it
defines what we believe to be ‘good’ and ‘right’ in food are a
timely study on the divergent yet complementary trends in modern
cooking.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Gopnik’s writing about food is highly intellectual and profoundly
witty, while also being warm and personal and rooted in common
sense. He thinks hard about the routines of the table, and makes
you think too.”
—John Lanchester, author of The Debt to Pleasure
“Those who share Gopnik’s twin affections for food and reading will
find plenty to savor in The Table Comes First. . . . He’s an
essayist in the grand tradition, throwing out pithy sentences that
offer the reader plenty to argue about, and then blithely
contradicting himself on the next page. It’s easy to imagine how
pleasant a table companion he must be.”
—The Columbus Dispatch
Longtime New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik charts the rise and evolution of America's obsessive foodie culture, tracing the roots of "eclectic eating in big cities" back to French manners, describing how the emergence of restaurants affected social norms, and chronicling his own culinary adventures and misadventures in both the United States and Europe. Gopnik is an enthusiastic reader, especially when describing his own experiences, e.g., the wariness in his voice is palpable as he embarks on a possibly illicit mission to procure (and consume) a New York-raised chicken. However, Gopnik's narration is less natural during more academic sections of the book, such as when he attempts to place our relationship with eating in a historical context. In such cases, his reading sounds stilted-as if he's delivering a lecture from his notes. A Knopf hardcover. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Ask a Question About this Product More... |