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Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas

John Baxter

Discussion: IMMOVEABLE FEAST

Why we're reading this: the group was looking for a light uplifting December read.
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IMMOVEABLE FEAST

What surprised you about this book?
By Genie , AUTHOR · 7 posts · 14 views

last updated Feb 03, 2021 02:02PM

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last updated Jan 07, 2021 10:40AM

What Members Thought

Dec 18, 2020 Cinda Bennett rated it really liked it

Very enjoyable read, although it would seem to be a Christmas theme, this book could be enjoyed any time of the year. I've been to Paris once, too short of a stay, after reading this book, I know I have to return and return and return, for the food of course, but to walk the streets in all the seasons.
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Dec 29, 2020 Genie Higbee rated it really liked it

A quick-witted, earthy, and informative read.
With humor and no loss of respect Baxter compares Christmas customs in Paris with those of America and Australia. An instructive wife at his side is endearing and an invaluable aid as he bows to his new family’s traditions. Early on, I mistook the author/cook’s task to be a rite of initiation, he, the new-unproven-relative. Only to eventually learn that the Immoveable Feast was created more than a decade later when another first-time guest (in-utero) A quick-witted, earthy, and informative read.
With humor and no loss of respect Baxter compares Christmas customs in Paris with those of America and Australia. An instructive wife at his side is endearing and an invaluable aid as he bows to his new family’s traditions. Early on, I mistook the author/cook’s task to be a rite of initiation, he, the new-unproven-relative. Only to eventually learn that the Immoveable Feast was created more than a decade later when another first-time guest (in-utero) had become a teenage granddaughter. Wondering if anyone else was similarly misled. (?)
The author treats us to his Australian mother’s preparation of boiled Christmas pudding, serves up the history of bread in France, waltzes us through a market in India, takes us adventuring to a reclusive French fish market, and shares requirements given a butcher.
If one expected to find recipes in this small volume one would be disappointed. Nevertheless, recipes are unnecessary since the cook describes his processes. “…pork chops pan fried in butter, apples, peeled, heated to nothing with lid—twenty minutes.” In the French manner he values most the quality and specificity of his ingredients. “…French cuisine, I’d come to understand through painful experience, is essentially simple. It relies on precisely isolating and emphasizing the essential flavor of an ingredient, then juxtaposing two or more tastes in a pleasing or surprising harmony.”
All the storytelling, of industry, of perseverance, of obstacles, of serendipity, leads to The Supper—mussels, cheese, pork, apples, let’s not forget the impromptu carrot /cottage cheese pudding, bread, fabulous wine, fruit, cream, eggs, and flame—the ingredients of a picnic transformed into dinner for twenty and delivered like a gift of love. The author recalls Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen.
A cross genre book—memoir + cooking + culture. At times we hear the voice of the bon-vivant raconteur Baxter is, a product of his generation with shades of the macho-sexism that younger male authors might avoid these days. At other times we hear a poet’s reflection on mankind’s physical and spiritual connection with the earth.
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Nov 27, 2020 Rochelle Fairfield added it · review of another edition

Dec 21, 2020 Patricia Beyer rated it liked it

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