Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris

“Mastering the Art of French Eating is a food memoir in which the reader explores several of France’s regions, including Alsace, Lyon, Troyes, and Brittany with Mah as she masterfully recounts the beauty the France she travels while also exploring the various regions’ culinary creations.”

Food journalist Ann Mah and her diplomat husband Calvin realize their shared wish in moving to Paris when Calvin receives a new diplomatic assignment in France.

Unfortunately, their wish comes with a catch: for the first year she must live alone in the city of their long-term dreams when he is sent to Iraq. Mastering the Art of French Eating, however, is not a maudlin tale but one of triumph as Mah learns to navigate France on her own terms with her daily-improving French and newfound courage to enjoy herself even without Calvin. 

Encouraged to explore the surrounding regions and delve into her passion for cooking by her husband Calvin, Mah travels, explores, writes, makes friends, and even finds a job at the American Library.

Mastering the Art of French Eating is a food memoir in which the reader explores several of France’s regions, including Alsace, Lyon, Troyes, and Brittany with Mah as she masterfully recounts the beauty the France she travels while also exploring the various regions’ culinary creations.

Mah provides a brief history of the region and the foods for which they are famous, starting in the backyard of Paris and steak frites. Each section is a mouth-watering package of aromatic descriptions of the foods and wine she tries. For readers interested in cooking for themselves, a recipe at the end of each chapter is included.

Navigating the language barrier and snooty waiters disappointed with her lack of knowledge of French cooking terms, Mah craftily shares the tale of her year without her husband while weaving in the story of another American diplomatic wife, Julia Child. Mastering the Art of French Eating, a nod to Julia Child’s book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is not heavily focused on the famous chef but adds dashes of her tale to spice up the author’s own. If anything, the peppering of Julia Child’s tale so tastefully added will urge the reader to learn more about this unique American woman.

Anyone who has lived in a different country, or perhaps just a different state far away from family, friends, and all that is familiar will recognize Mah’s bouts of homesickness and doubt, excitement and fear, and the hesitancy of moving forward when feeling isolated not only by new borders but by a new language.

But Mah is quite fortunate where many diplomatic wives are sometimes not: her career and friendships, as well as her husband’s past connections to France, have opened doors to her across the country. Furthermore, she has the added ability to work anywhere worldwide thanks to the flexibility of her job and the availability of the Internet, and she has learned the language sufficiently well, which is not something that all diplomatic wives are successful at despite immersion courses.

Friends introduce Mah to relatives living in Paris and other regions; her husband’s old school chums are available and willing to have a chat and reach out to their own contacts to put her in touch with people, chefs, and experts she would like to meet to learn more about a region and its food; expats who read her blog are eager to share meals and conversations with her. In many ways, the isolation she experiences is more of her own making than of circumstances.

Regardless of any criticism of this book, Mastering the Art of French Eating is a fun read and a culinary journey one ought not to make while hungry. A reader’s stomach will growl at the mouthwatering descriptions of soupe au pistou or get a sudden craving for cheese when reading about fondue (and chocolate fondue is never served after cheese fondue). Even if a reader has an aversion to a food described, the travel descriptions will create a longing to book the next flight to Paris, at the very least, and soak in the café culture despite the occasionally un-rosy picture paints of the Parisian population and their self-imposed isolation from strangers.

Fortunately, when the reader finishes Mastering the Art of French Eating, Mah continues her journey on her website and blog where further descriptions of travel, friendships, and food may be found along with eye-catching photography. Readers may wonder if Mah perhaps follows the advice in French Women Don’t Get Fat or what her secrets are to eating such rich foods and not suffering the added pounds.