Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard

A Love Story with Recipes

I thought I had read all of the food memoirs that I owned, so I borrowed Lunch in Paris from my aunt in order to have something “foodie” to read in this year of books I hadn’t read before. (I did find something else that I’d forgotten about and hope to get to soon.)

Elizabeth Bard decided to move to Paris for her fabulous man, and found that language was not the only obstacle to her easily fitting in. Among other things with which she struggled, she addresses values, medical care, careers, and politics in Lunch in Paris. The book is not, however, a few hundred pages of whining about how things are different in other places than they are in the good ol’ USA. It’s also not about how things are better in other places. It’s about finding a way.

Bard not only found her way through the markets and bistros and teeny-tiny apartment kitchens in Paris, but also a way to make her die-hard American ambition and optimism work in a place where such concepts were so foreign as to be nearly alien. In the end, it seems she neither gave up, gave in, nor forced her way through. She influenced her husband to successfully pursue a dream career that he had not been convinced was possible, but had to be more patient with her own success. She did things her more American way when she could, but often had to just accept it when “FWA, baby.” France wins again.

She also has a lot of great things to eat through the course of this story, and many recipes are included. What is most fun about this memoir, however, is the engaging style in which it is written. It is funny, ironic, witty and conversational. Bard’s optimism never seems to have waned, and, while I won’t say she gives us an exact formula for making difficult things work, she offers us a great personal example of how bravery, boldness and a little audacity can be combined with just the right kind of open-mindedness and compromise to create a meaningful life in an unfamiliar place. Perhaps a love of great food, however, can get one a little further in a place like Paris.

  

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