In a world ruled by food, where “Top Chefs” and competitive eaters are part of the norm, it’s hard not to be seduced by a book that promises to explore our relationships with one another through the scope of what’s on our plates. In “The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food,” Adam Gopnik attempts to do just that, offering a journey from 18th century France to today’s tables. Amid his apparent dismissals of today’s Food Network stars and our “obsessive interest in food,” his attempt falls flat.
The title of the book, as well as its description, is misleading. “The Table Comes First” seems to be a romantic look at food and our intimate, personal relationship with it, but it ends up being a systematically historical account of things that relate to food through olden times. An account, no less, which takes on a pretentious voice and assumes the reader harbors a sound knowledge of French history to begin with.
The book recognizes the principle, unchanging components of eating, including the restaurant, the cookbook, moral dilemmas, spirits and dessert. The progression makes sense, but the logic is sometimes diluted by opinion and is drowned out by the sound of Gopnik’s endless philosophical musings.
His arguments for the way we do things are often solidly backed by historical references. In some cases, however, as in that of vegetarian versus carnivore, they are flimsy. He would have been better off simply offering both sides of the argument rather than making a sweeping, opinionated dissertation on the topic.
Throughout “The Table Comes First,” Gopnik weaves in letters to the long deceased Elizabeth Pennell, a feminist food critic from the end of the 19th century known for her acerbic and unapologetic approach to life. By writing to her, he involves the reader in a way that he is unable to in the other chapters.
To his credit, the author offers some interesting theories about the way we plot out a meal. One such instance is the concept he presents of wine and coffee being the two drugs around which we shape our lives. In his mind, wine takes us from the world, coffee restores us to it again, and in between, we eat.
These glimmers of hope — the anecdotal stories and the pseudo-love letters to Pennell — are not enough to make the book compelling. In fact, it’s indulgently lengthy, and Gopnik goes on and on to the point where he throws the reader into an intellectual stupor.
“The Table Comes First” will satiate only the marginal gourmand’s hunger for knowledge. Call it crass and rather un-French, but an episode of “Man v. Food” is just much more fulfilling.
Rating: W W 1/2
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