This is a very interesting book with short chapters about different French food items and how they came to be an important part of French culture historically. I read this while I was on vacation in France this summer and found myself saying "Hey, listen to this" pretty often. I think lots of people will enjoy it's short, engaging format and very interesting information about French food and culture.

Una storia di Francia come non si era mai letta: in capitoli brevi quanto un pranzo a tramezzini, si dispiegano davanti al lettore prodotti tipici, prelibatezze culinarie, vini e formaggi, dolci e stufati. E rivoluzioni, conquiste, avvelenamenti, guerre di successione e religione, re, amanti e regine, capitani di ventura e pasticceri.

La maniera perfetta di rendere appetibile (letteralmente!) le vicende di uno dei grandi Stati europei, stimolando insieme appetito e curiosità.

Delizioso.

If you are interested in France or French food, you'll love this book. It's written in an easy, entertaining style and a lot of fun to read and learn.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book should come with a warning, "Don't read on an empty stomach!" Within the first few chapters I was craving baguettes, brie and a glass of red wine. Other than my husband and children, I have two loves, my love of food and cooking and history. I first went to France on my honeymoon 43 years ago. My experience with escargot was almost spiritual, along with steak tartare and coq au vin. This book for me was a trip down memory lane with a perfect blend of history and food. Having been to Reims, the beaches of Normandy, Paris and traveling around France, I certainly appreciated the stories of history combined with food. Anyone who has a passion for either of both should get a glass of wine (preferably with bread and cheese) and sit down with this book and let it take you on a wonderful journey. I received this e-book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.

A very accessible, unpretentious collection of vignettes about the history of French foods that shaped France's culture ranging from crepes to croissants, cheese to chocolate . Just make sure not read it on an empty stomach.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

This was a fun book for history- and food-lovers alike.
I happen to love both history and food. And France.
It was packed full of interesting facts and anecdotes about the history of France and its gastronomy, everything from cheese to wines and much more.
It covers 2500 years of French history from the pre-Roman Gauls to the present day, helping us see the influence historical events had on the eating habits and cuisine of the time.
All in all, an interesting read.

A fantastic way to learn history! Rather than another boring list of dates, people, and events, the authors take a completely different route. Use the deliciously wonderful foods of France to explain history!
Why did the Romans consider the Germanic tribes barbarians? One big reason was because they cooked their food with butter, rather than olive oil! They also drank beer instead of wine. How uncouth!
Did you know why soldiers called the Germans krauts? Because of their association with sauerkraut!
Potatoes, honey, champagne, crepes....it's all in here, and tied to historical events.
I only wish that I would have had this book when I was a student. How much more interesting history classes would have been!

Told in very-readable chapters, this book delves into the history of France. I like the way that the history was divvied up into portions. It still took me a long time to read but was overall pretty enjoyable.

This book came out July 10
Four stars
ARC kindly provided by NetGalley

I requested this book from Netgalley purely because it’s about food (even though I don’t really know or eat a lot of French Food).

A Bite Sized History of France tackles French history through its food, from the Gauls (before the Roman Empire) to modern day France. Each chapter is relatively short and focuses on one food, such as honey, wine, many types of cheeses, the croissant (a relatively new invention, it seems), salt, how the potato become popular, and much more.

Along the way, the book dispels some common legends about food and tries to put them in the proper light.

While the book is organised roughly in chronological order, the topical nature of the book means that this isn’t the right place to get an overview of French history. Certain people (like Napoleon and some of the Kings) pop up in a couple of pictures but things aren’t placed into the bigger picture.

But, this book is an enjoyable way to dip in and out of French history. I will freely admit to being an ignoramus about the subject and it was fun to learn about things like how mushrooms became popular (and how seriously they take mushroom hunting). There are also some really great chapters that explore the darker side of French history, namely French’s colonial ambitions that brought peanut oil to the nation.

Overall, this was a fun book that foodies will definitely enjoy. It not only introduced me to French history and culture (and lots of food), it also showed me the global nature of food through the development of French cuisine.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley.

The book proposes to tell the vast and complex history of France through its foods, and it succeeds. As a foodie and a history buff, I found the approach fascinating and amusing. The authors directly confront the contemporary insistence of the far-right that France's foods should be kept "French" by emphasizing that most every food France is known for has a lineage in ingredients or innovations from elsewhere. The history begins with Rome and its influences, continues through the monastic era's liquors and royal obsessions with vegetables, and concludes with tales related to Laughing Cow cheese and contemporary couscous. Even familiar tales felt new and fun. Each chapter is indeed bite-sized and brief, making this an ideal read to work through in snippets as time allows.

Interesting little history of France in bite sized chunks. I thought a knew a fair bit about culinary history, but much of this content (particularly pre-Napoleon) was new to me. The photos caused the formatting on the Kindle paperwhite version to go a bit wonky.

I love French food (actually I love food full-stop), I love visiting France, and I am really interested in history, so this book was made for me. It is a staggering tour de force covering 2500 years of French history from the pre-Roman Gauls to the present day, showing the influence historical events had on the eating habits and cuisine of the time, and how they in turn influenced history. The authors’ aim is to show “how ludicrous it actually is to claim there is a “pure” and unchanging French cuisine”, and they spend a lot of time pointing out how crude, bigoted and plain wrong groups like the Front Nationale are claiming that there exists quintessential French Food and eating habits, unsullied by foreign hands. “Many elements believed to be ineffably French—the wines and liqueurs, the pastries and chocolates, the flavors of Provence—are not native to France but arrived upon its shores over the centuries and were gradually absorbed”.
There is so much information in this book, and so many interesting facts to note down, but it never gets boring. The narrative style is very readable and witty, so you don’t feel weighed down by it all, and keep wanting to read more and more.
There are introductions to great French leaders such as Charlemagne (responsible for the concept of Europe, and the proliferation of French honeymaking), Henry IV, Louis XIV, Napoleon and Charles de Gaulle, and how they used food to define their eras.
Over the centuries food became a signifier of differences in class (“Food became more than just a marker of class—it was also used to justify the rule of one class over another. As certain foods became imbued with a sense of nobility and good health, others came to be seen as base and unhealthy, and it seemed only natural that those who consumed the former should enjoy an exalted position over the latter”); in religion (“the eating of forbidden foods was a sure marker of religious deviance”); in philosophy; in politics and as a flag of patriotism and nationalism.
The book charts the change as “the spicy-acidic flavors of the medieval era were supplanted by the cream, butter, and herb triumvirate associated with modern French cuisine”, through the gourmet (gourmand) culinary revolution to nouvelle cuisine and McDonalds.
It deals with the advent of restaurants (as the Middle Ages food guild sales privileges were curtailed), cafés (with their social as well as culinary functions) and bistros, and the rise of the ubiquitous baguette (actually only popular since the 1920s!).
Scientific breakthroughs are discussed that leading to increased food preservation and availability, such as Appert’s bottling (precursor of canning), and Louis Pasteur’s work on improving wine production, that lead to huge leaps forward in the field of human health.
Banquets were employed to support French diplomacy: “Talleyrand’s elegant dinners were intended to make his counterparts more receptive to his suggestions, but he also used them as a sort of culinary espionage tool. Knowing that fancy food and wine often loosened tongues, he instructed his service staff to listen in on his guests’ conversations and report details back to him”, and later to foment revolution as “the most effective way for critics of the regime to legally meet and sustain their cause”.
The importance of cheeses (especially Camembert and Brie), of regional wines and champagne, to the French identity cannot be underemphasised. Other alcoholic drinks such as brandy, cognac, calvados, absinthe and Kir also have their part and historical imprint.
France’s food has been moulded by slavery, colonialism and war. The slave and sugar trades were predominantly routed through Nantes. The warping of Senegalese agriculture to provide peanut oil to France, used in soap manufacture and “supplanting olive oil in dressings and driving a new taste for fried foods”. The North Africans and Pied Noirs brought couscous, now a French staple.
I have travelled a lot in France, and tried so many local regional dishes, but this book shows that I have barely scratched the surface. I now have a huge list of places to visit, things to eat – enough to keep me busy and very well entertained for many years to come. I read this book on my Kindle, but loved it so much that I have bought two hard copies – one for myself, and one for my mother-in-law (another Francophile). I would recommend this book to anyone who likes food and/or history and/or travel and/or France. Something for everyone.

I didn't really know what to expect from this book. But it brought together food, history, and France, three things which hold special places in my heart. My family came to America prior over 250 years ago from eastern France. While that has always been part of the family "story", there has never been much more than that. We didn't get all misty-eyed at "La Marseillaise", didn't eat French food, or celebrate Bastille Day. It's only in the last decade or so that I've started looking at that portion of my background. So a book that could help with that and give me some tasty tidbits too sounded like fun.

This book turned out to be all of that and then some.

From Camembert to absinthe, croissant to Calvados and from the Roman Empire to today, French history comes in tasty, petite morsels. Enough history to keep the history buff amused but not so much to overwhelm a more casual reader, all of the many nuances of the history of my ancestral land are plated beautifully. More than an amuse bouche, think of it as a tray filled with wonderful appetizers.

OK, I promise I'm done with the food imagery.

It was a fun read, and easy to stop and start. If you're a foodie or a history buff, this will be great light reading. Perfect for the summer. If like me, you are looking to connect a little more with France, its culture and history, this is a great place to start. I immediately started looking into the traditional foods of my family's home region, Alsace. The history of that oft-contested part of La Belle France is no small study all by itself.

(review posts at website 5pm on August 1)

This book is loaded with fascinating information about French food and it history.
Wine, cheese, balsamic vinegar, coffee, potatoes, plums, Oyster...and docens of other
subjects.
Written in a very informative way, amusing and sometimes humorous.
Perfect coffe table book, to enjoy as a good wine, small sips at a time.
You will become a master on French cuisine trivia.

How do you explore and understand the history of a country like France, which prides itself on being a Mecca of fine foods and wines? Through the development of its' foods and wines of course! What started as stories told by a French cheesemonger to try and convince his (non-French) wife that the cheeses he wanted her to try were not smelly and disgusting once you knew the story behind them eventually became A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment.

Told in small, bite-sized chapters, this book follows the history of France beginning with the Gauls and Romans to the modern day. It explores the creation or increased popularity of foods from croissants to Camembert, seafoods to sauces. Where did certain foods come from? Who are some dishes named after and why? What brought them to popularity? Including both actual culinary history and the more apocryphal tales surrounding certain foods, Hénault and Mitchell provide entertaining and informative vignettes linking food and French history.

The history is told with a witty, often tongue-in-cheek approach that should appeal to foodies more interested in the story behind their favorite wine than the history of France, and the weaving of food into history will give historians a new light to shine on what they thought they knew. As the book does literally cover almost the entire history of France, reading it in bite-sized pieces will keep it fresh and interesting instead of gorging on the entire book at one sitting.

Witty, entertaining, and informative, A Bite-Sized History of France allows readers a delightful new look at their favorite foods and the political and global story behind them- and still being formed to this day.

I love France, food and history, so A BITE-SIZED HISTORY OF FRANCE was a perfect read! Left my tummy hungry for French gastric delights but satiated by a great historical review. 5/5

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

I like the idea of reciting history in the bite-sized concept. Combining history, wine and culinary, "A Bite-Sized History of France" uses an interesting way to retell the history. Overall a great read but there are few dull moments. It's great to read a chapter or two every day. The chapters are short and easy to understand.

3.5 star rating overall.

This book is deliciously fascinating. What better way to learn about a country’s history than by being introduced to it around a certain food item, such as artichokes, wine or cheese. The author explains how politics, economics and culture link with food in ‘foodways’, which reveal a great deal about a country. We discover many such foodways in this book.
The book is like a plate of nibbles – bite-sized chunks of history and food at a time. We learn about Gauls as the same time as wine, Barbarians and table manners, The Battles of Tours and Poitiers and goat cheese, Charlemagne and honey, Viking invasions and Bénédictine liqueur, feudalism and diet, the Crusades and plums, Eleanor of Aquitaine and claret, Cathars and vegetarianism, taxes and seasalt, the Black Prince and cassoulet, the plague and vinegar, Charles the Mad and Roquefort, the Renaissance and oranges, colonisation and chocolate, sugar, forks and Catherine de Medici, chickens and King Henry IV… and that’s just for starters! Many other snippets of info are sprinkled like condiments over the main ingredients to pique our appetite. This really is a feast of a book.
Just as it’s hard to relinquish a plate a plate of moreish food, it’s very hard to put down the book once you’ve started reading. The author’s style is thoroughly engaging and enjoyable. He’s witty as well as wise, and you learn so much without realising it. He communicates so passionately and knowledgeably it’s hard not to be won over.
Like your favourite restaurant, this book is absolutely to be recommended.

This is a fun history of France and especially of French food! It was interesting and also easily digestible in small bites -- I often read bits out loud to my family. It made me hungry....

As someone who ate lavender honey just because it is French, this book is a delight for both senses and future bucket lists. It takes you on a ride through France's history and gastronomy and enchants your senses with flavors and (great) facts. For someone who loves France this book is like a little treasure. Prepare a notebook or a new document to jot down fascinating places for your first or next visit. This book is also a nice gift if you have a francophile friend.