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181 reviews for:
Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking
Bill Buford
3.67 AVERAGE
181 reviews for:
Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking
Bill Buford
3.67 AVERAGE
My personal cat nip : Francophile food writing. Loved so many of the kitchen characters, particularly Bob the breadmaker. Learned so much about the Lyonnaise food scene and made me desperate to travel again (drat this covid19).
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I picked this is to complete an reading challenge and the Audiobook was good and is a chefs journey into french cooking. I enjoyed the writing but ultimately I wasn’t invested in the book and I was not picking it up over any other books so I will have to let this one go
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
Food books always make me hungry. Whenever I read a food book I want to learn more in the kitchen and what I loved about Dirt was the way we get into Buford's head as he thinks through and prepares a dish. Something that this book handled that I don't see a lot of food books discuss is the farmers and the small farmers who are trying to keep their livelihoods through the old ways and how little things like the dirt impact the taste. After reading this book I want to find a small farmer who grows wheat to see how different bread will be without the store bought stuff.
I absolutely loved Buford's previous book about kitchens, Heat. I've read it several times, and think of it as a comfort read, something friendly and inspiring, one man's obsession. I remember the ending of that book considering France and French cooking. Dirt is that book, considering France and its Frenchness, with Buford cooking at a professional level yet also remaining a kind of journalist.
Yet, at the same time, Dirt lacks clarity as a tale of Bill's time in France, the timeline is jumbled, sections are elided over. Dirt reads more as memoir than journalism, and at the same time, more maudlin. I'm less in love with any of the people that Bill meets, I feel like his observations are so personal and yet do not expand to the universal. Bill feels behind the times in strange ways, betraying some of the privilege that he lives with: a white guy who fits in Lyon, who can become part of the kitchen. He acknowledges his privilege to some degree, and seems hesitant to call out the fact that he was bullied for being old in a kitchen by younger men.
The book is melancholy, exploring and acknowledging the spirit of French cooking, and the ways that it is handed down from generation to generation, exploring the current handoff from Bocuse to Boulud, and concerned about the death of a kind of Frenchness, but it's all about the old guys. There's not the exploration of the people taking over, the stewardship, or even the lack thereof. There's a few implied remarks about the harm of industrial farming, but Michael Pollan and many others have explored that angle so very thoroughly. I just feel like there's something missing here, and even the title: why is it called Dirt? Heat made a kind of sense, but Dirt, speaking to a kind of place, seems less emphasized than it should have been.
The are genuine good chapters here, and Buford remains as elegant as ever writing down the practicalities of cooking as a well-intentioned novice in the kitchen, and connecting the historical dots between cultures, but much of the memoir pieces felt underwritten in a kind of way. Buford sets up some conversations/tensions with with his wife that never come to pass on the page. I wanted more of her, more of their journey! It's good, I am just disappointed.
Yet, at the same time, Dirt lacks clarity as a tale of Bill's time in France, the timeline is jumbled, sections are elided over. Dirt reads more as memoir than journalism, and at the same time, more maudlin. I'm less in love with any of the people that Bill meets, I feel like his observations are so personal and yet do not expand to the universal. Bill feels behind the times in strange ways, betraying some of the privilege that he lives with: a white guy who fits in Lyon, who can become part of the kitchen. He acknowledges his privilege to some degree, and seems hesitant to call out the fact that he was bullied for being old in a kitchen by younger men.
The book is melancholy, exploring and acknowledging the spirit of French cooking, and the ways that it is handed down from generation to generation, exploring the current handoff from Bocuse to Boulud, and concerned about the death of a kind of Frenchness, but it's all about the old guys. There's not the exploration of the people taking over, the stewardship, or even the lack thereof. There's a few implied remarks about the harm of industrial farming, but Michael Pollan and many others have explored that angle so very thoroughly. I just feel like there's something missing here, and even the title: why is it called Dirt? Heat made a kind of sense, but Dirt, speaking to a kind of place, seems less emphasized than it should have been.
The are genuine good chapters here, and Buford remains as elegant as ever writing down the practicalities of cooking as a well-intentioned novice in the kitchen, and connecting the historical dots between cultures, but much of the memoir pieces felt underwritten in a kind of way. Buford sets up some conversations/tensions with with his wife that never come to pass on the page. I wanted more of her, more of their journey! It's good, I am just disappointed.
This felt like a slog. Normally I love food memoirs, I did learn from this and he is a funny writer. But I felt like it was overly technical at times and just felt a little hard to get through.
I wish I had the courage to uproot my life and move across the world to try something new. Reading Buford's account of his time in Lyon was a great way to do it vicariously, though I don't think I would have been able to stick it out with the long workdays and harsh environment of the professional kitchens. I was frustrated early on that he seemed to be able to get whatever he wanted without having worked for it (i.e., a stage at a prestigious restaurant, meetings with well-known chefs, temporary admission into a selective culinary training program) and that he just seemed to assume everything would work out fine. (Who moves to France without a thorough grasp of the language?) Still, once he was there and working, I enjoyed reading his story and seeing his growth over time. This was a nice book to read and it makes me want to plan a trip to France.
I forget how I stumbled across this book but I'm glad I did. The author writes of his time in Lyon, where he learned the techniques of French cooking. This book made me hungry and gave me a desire to get into the kitchen and whip something up.
The book is a skosh long. I found myself skimming past quotes that weren't directly about the story, skimmed past arguments pro/against Italy influencing French cooking, and at the end definitely skimmed through recaps of time spent with chefs I've never heard of that didn't actually apply to the story of learning to cook the French way. But, I did like the section where he talked about getting freshly ground flour and making bread. We ground wheat growing up and very rarely do I have bread that tastes as good as what I had in my childhood.
A solid read. I'll definitely read his other books.
The book is a skosh long. I found myself skimming past quotes that weren't directly about the story, skimmed past arguments pro/against Italy influencing French cooking, and at the end definitely skimmed through recaps of time spent with chefs I've never heard of that didn't actually apply to the story of learning to cook the French way. But, I did like the section where he talked about getting freshly ground flour and making bread. We ground wheat growing up and very rarely do I have bread that tastes as good as what I had in my childhood.
A solid read. I'll definitely read his other books.