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Vive Les Gourmands! How Six American Expats In Paris Changed How We Eat

A new book chronicles the gastronomic adventures of six influential Americans in the City of Lights and what they brought back to the U.S.
Julia Child and her husband Paul at Richard Olney's house in 1973. The TV chef played a big role in popularizing French food in the U.S.

Mid-twentieth century Paris evokes images of Left Bank intellectuals earnestly discussing existentialism over demitasses of coffee. But the city was also home to a celebrated food scene that drew gastronomes from around the world. The Gourmands' Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy chronicles the Parisian adventures of beloved TV chef Julia Child, New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling, wine merchant and impresario Alexis Lichine, artist and cookbook writer Richard Olney, novelist M.F.K. Fisher, and companion and muse of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas.

This ragtag band of passionate epicureans dove headlong into (small patties), epic multi-course banquets washed down with sundry wines, spirits and liqueurs — bristles with the lavish fare of mid-twentieth century Paris.

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