Amuse Bouche by Carolyn Boyd

Amuse Bouche: How to Eat Your Way Around France by Carolyn Boyd is a romp around France via your tastebuds! French gastronomy is legendary for good reason, and Carolyn delves into the history and legends of French dishes and meets the people who make great French food so special from passionate chefs to artisan producers and the secretive brotherhoods who swear to uphold the traditions of great French cuisine.

What makes a real salade niçoise?
What type of cheese is officially France’s stinkiest?
Why does the sandy carrot have such a superior flavour?
And who exactly are the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Giant Omelette?
Leading expert on French food and culture Carolyn Boyd shares the stories behind the country’s most fascinating foods and ingredients. Spanning every region of France and divided into 200 separate vignettes, each entry blends history and travel, personal anecdotes and recipes.

It’s a fun and fascinating read, full of quirky facts, and utterly delicious descriptions. You can almost taste the food as Carolyn guides you around France, sharing her favourite dishes, cherished restaurants, fabulous festivals – an enticing resource for food lovers, Francophiles and visitors to France.

Discover the taste of Brittany – crepes, Kouign-Amman, the impossible to pronounce but utterly irresistible buttery cakes, “sinister” black tripe sausages and pâté Hénnaf which you may never have heard of, but Bretons love it so much there’s even a museum dedicated to the spam-like product!

Find out the best place to taste socca, the chickpea-based superfood of Nice, and where to buy the real deal lemons of Menton which have a unique taste and texture that makes chefs covet them and mere mortals smile at the zing.

Full of facts, captivating historic anecdotes, fabulous descriptions and scintillating flavours of villages, towns and regions all over France – Amuse Bouche is a mouth-watering travel guide, or a journey to France from your kitchen table.

And the book is peppered with recipes that offer a taste of France at home, from tarte ds Noces, AKA the “honeymoon tart” of Ile de Yeu, it’s origins lost in time but made to this day with prunes and orange flower water. Or poulet Gaston Gerard, a chicken dish with a rich creamy sauce created in error by the Mayor of Dijon’s wife for Curnonsky, the “Prince of Gastronomy.”

Cheese, cakes, bread, bonbons, meat, fish, snails, markets, restaurants, chefs, brotherhoods of food – they take it seriously in France, this really is “how to eat your way around France” – and it’s seriously delectable.

You can have a taste of what’s in store – read Carolyn’s article in The Good Life France Summer Magazine and discover the annual omelette festival at which a 15,000-egg omelette is made in honour of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Amuse Bouche is a book to be devoured: a beautifully illustrated, joyous celebration of French food, and a charming, practical guide to inspire your own travels – whether you’re a proud Francophile or don’t know your ficelle from your flûte.

Available in hard back from Amazon and all good bookstores.