by Baxter, John
“I know what you mean,” I said. “With that décor, you expect something . . . imperial.”
A vision rose of a meal appropriate to such architecture. It was straight out of a Hollywood epic such as Ben-Hur or Gladiator. Dressed in togas, we and the other customers reclined on couches, nibbling bunches of grapes. Lightly dressed concubines danced among us. And in the background, a team of sweating slaves turned a spit on which roasted an entire ox.
But who cooked on that scale anymore? What had happened to the robust country dishes of fifty years ago, before the advent of nouvelle cuisineand food designed not to satisfy hunger but to show off the imagination of the chef? Did it still exist?
Specifically, did anyone still really roast an ox?
Copyright
The Perfect Meal excerpt copyright © 2012 by John Baxter, published by HarperCollins Publishers.
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World copyright © 2011 by John Baxter. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
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First Harper Perennial edition published 2011.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ePub edition June 2011 ISBN 9780062092052
Copyright
All photos courtesy of the author, except where noted.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WALK IN THE WORLD. Copyright © 2011 by John Baxter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baxter, John
The most beautiful walk in the world : a pedestrian in Paris /
John Baxter. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-199854-6 (pbk.)
1. Paris (France)—Description and travel. 2. Walking—France—Paris. 3. Baxter, John, 1939—Travel—France—Paris. 4. Paris (France)—Social life and customs. I. Title.
DC707.B39 2011
914.404'84—dc22
2010046259
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EPub Edition © APRIL 2011 ISBN: 9780062092052
11 12 13 14 15 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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