Bon Appetit!

The early part of Peter Mayle's life was spent in the gastronomic wilderness of post-war England. But a business trip to Paris at the tender age of nineteen began an enduring fascination with the French and their love affair with food and wine. In Bon Appetit!, he brings to life all the charm and taste of France's culinary calendar: its fairs, festivals and traditions.He visits Livarot, where his nose encounters its far from modest fromage, and revels in the spectacle of the annual competitive cheese-eating contest; he attends a church service in Richerenches, which has little to do with religion and everything to do with truffles; in Martigny-les-Bains he learns the best way to eat snails; and he becomes the first English confrere of Vittel, haven of the frog-fancier.Warm, witty and mouthwatering in equal measure, Bon Appetit! is proof that the old saying 'Lovely country, France. Pity about the French,' is only half correct.