Les Enfants Terribles

In The Secret History of French Cooking, Barr takes us through the tumultuous birth of nouvelle cuisine, illustrating the triumphs and controversies within this culinary counterculture revolution with intimate looks at some of the most famous chefs of the era, names like Paul Bocuse and Michael Guerard, but also the lesser-known female chefs who fought against sexist exclusion from training and jobs while challenging chauvinistic beliefs. Post-1960s France was full of possibility, conflict and controversy. It bred forms of counterculture rebellion that redefined taste, and, at the forefront of the rebellion, was the 'Bande a Bocuse,' a gang of rebels, rivals, and old friends who transformed cooking and dining across the world who, in the space of a few short years, upended the staid world of French cooking and redefined the role and cultural importance of chefs and restaurants. The story of nouvelle cuisine, with its drama, celebrity, money, and politics, its spectacular success and the inevitable, ferocious backlash, is very much the story of the birth of modern food and restaurant culture, the way we eat today, and it's a story told in vivid, intimate detail in The Secret History of French Cooking.