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Rating: 
Summary: A teenager could write a better book.
Review: A book about French food written by a woman who can't cook, describes herself proudly as a "non-foodie" and fondly remembers her childhood meals in Iowa.A complete waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Licking my chops
Review: A mildly better read than Rochefort's first book, "French Toast" (which is so infuriating it's difficult to finish), and of somewhat broader scope, this one manages to be both meandering and repetitive as well as occasionally self-contradictory in her supposed observations. Inserted snippets from other writers only serve to highlight the lack of depth in both her observations and her choice of corroborating comments (which often don't corroborate!). It is amazing that she has lived so long in Paris and retained so narrow a focus. This book is really a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not an accurate depiction of French eating habits
Review: As an "expat housewife relocated to France" (as so delicately stated by another reviewer), I found this book somewhat informative. It is hard to get past her obsessive romance with the French and their culture. I think her infatuation with the French makes her writings very biased and not very accurate. I felt like she was looking down her nose at the rest of us Americans that live here and maybe don't appreciate French cuisine with the same gusto as her. That's great she loves stinky cheese and blood sausage. Kudos to her for completely immersing herself into this way of culinary living. However, globilization really HAS reared its head in France and contrary to what Ms. Welty says, the French DO eat cheese singles, snack on chips and very often eat a sandwich for lunch. The French are not all the same as she makes it seem. Sure, they love a good, long, hearty 7 course meal now and then, but in the age where a single income family is practically unheard of, I have yet to meet a family that sits down for the "traditional" home cooked lunch AND dinner everyday as she claims most do.
Most disappointing was her husband's commentary that was put at the end of every chapter. This guy doesn't do good things for the French image. He has got to be the most pretentious, arrogant, French man I have ever heard of. Please, do not think the French all feel this way about us! He just represents one man...not the entire country!
In summary, this book does clear up some of the culinary differences and a few of her recipes are good. However, her pretentious tone and frequent generalizations really spoiled it for me.
Rating:
Summary: Musing from the Heart - French Culinary Culture
Review: I loved this book! It is a sincerely written account of Ms. Rochefort's adaptation to her life in France and of her efforts to find the essence of French cuisine. She examines her midwestern roots and American habits as she learns, step by step, what French food really is. And that is not so much fancy dishes and rich sauces as it is an attitude - a reverence of food, from its preparation to its place on the table. Since so much time is taken up where food is involved it takes on a much more significant role in French family & social life, French culture in general, than it does in the US. Ms. Rochefort's lighthearted and amusing touch is certainly deceiving. Her account of this discovery seems to be written from the heart as she describes her first years in France, then motherhood, and her attempts to find her place with her French in-laws, and finally interviews with the paragons of French gastronomy. By the end of the book it is interesting to see what significance these culinary capers have for her and how much she cares about French food. And how much we can learn by reading the book!
Rating:
Summary: Eat, drink and be Thin.
Review: If you liked "French Women Don't Get Fat" by Mireille Guiliano and want to
read more about the French and how they manage to eat all that delicious food
and not get fat, your next book about the French and their food should
definitely be Harriet Welty Rochefort's "French Fried". With
self-deprecating humor and drawing on 30 years of experience of living in
France, Welty Rochefort, the author of "French Toast", describes how she
discovered the secrets not just of French cooking but of French eating
habits. She invites us into her daily life in France and takes us with her
as she goes to a "cave" to see cheeses before they arrive in the store,
to the Ritz for a special wine tasting with Alain Ducasse's sommelier,
and to the Maison du Chocolate to taste chocolate with its founder, Robert
Linxe. But it's not all "de luxe" - she takes us into her own home where
she details her initial disasters with a few French meals before learning
how to nonchalantly flip out 3 big ones a day for her ravenous French
husband and children. It's obvious that for Harriet, as for the French,
food is a world of marvels to be shared and enjoyed and she's brave enough
to admit her mistakes, something a lot of food snobs don't... The book is
informative, but not pedantic, and humorous but not silly. Whether writing
about "Cultural Clashes in the kitchen", the Parisian waiter, or restaurants
and restaurant manners, she keeps the reader entertained - and informed. In
the end, Harriet's message is the same as Mireille Guiliano's: if you want
to stay slim, slow down and enjoy your food. The scene in which Rochefort's
85-year-old very French mother-in-law steps out for a 7 hour 7- course
luncheon banquet is a gem and proves, if need be, that the French love the
pleasure of a good long meal at any age.
Rating:
Summary: A teenager could write a better book.
Review: Poorly written, not funny, arrogant! Not worth the money I paid for it.
Rating:
Summary: More French follies from Harriet Welty Rochefort
Review: Rochefort's follow-up to "French Toast" focuses on the culinary differences between America and France, which have lead to huge differences in culture, lifestyle, and waistlines. With a breezy style and self-deprecating wit, she demystifies what the French cook, how they cook it, how they eat it, and how it enhances the pleasures of life. Surely one of the pleasures in life is relaxing with this book and a nice glass of red wine. It's been an interesting experience to read this book (a celebration of good food, good wine, and a high quality of life) alongside Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" (a wonderfully written and thoroughly depressing exploration of the rise of fast food in the U.S. during the latter half of the 20th century and its impact on our culture). Rochefort, too, warns of the encroachment of McDonalds and other American fast-food enterprises on the French culinary landscape; she notes that she hopes her observations of French cuisine will not serve as a memorial of such an inherent part of French culture. Reading these two books side-by-side guarantees that you will never eat fast food again. And to make certain of that, Rochefort includes several tried-and-true French recipes. The ones I've tried have been simple and delicious!
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