Meet Paris Oyster: A Love Affair with the Perfect Food

by Mireille Guiliano Narrated by Mireille Guiliano

Overview

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of French Women Don't Get Fat comes a memorable look at the French appetite for oysters, the characters who harvest and serve them, and the compelling reasons why we should all enjoy them.

A Love Affair with the Perfect Food

Meet Paris Oyster is an engaging exploration of the Parisian love affair with the world's most sensuous shellfish. It centers on HuvÆtrerie Rv©gis, a tightly packed oyster bar in the heart of the City of Light, with an opinionated owner and a colorful cast of regulars. Part cultural journey, part cookbook, and part slice-of-life play, this book introduces readers to the appetites (gastronomic and otherwise) of Paris and its people. Beyond HuvÆtrerie Rv©gis, the French oystermen, and the other characters in pursuit of the oyster, Mireille Guiliano shares information on the best oysters around the world, their nutritional value, the best wine pairings with them, and a dozen mouthwatering recipes that will have readers craving, buying, and preparing oysters with confidence. So take a virtual trip to Paris -- indulge and enjoy!

Editorial Reviews

NOVEMBER 2014 - AudioFile

Author-narrator Mireille Guiliano's enthusiasm is evident from the first few minutes of this short but informative treatise on oysters, which also includes stories about her friend Régis, a Parisian oysterman. Listeners can't help but be charmed by Guiliano's French accent and conversational approach to her performance. Moving past her lifelong love affair with eating oysters, she offers advice on everything from how to shuck the bivalves to how to order them at a restaurant and what to drink with them. Because this valuable resource introduces many technical terms (oyster species and appellations, for example), listeners may find it difficult to comprehend and retain the material from the audiobook; the practical information is better absorbed and reviewed in print. An accompanying PDF contains Guiliano's recipes. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2014
In her breezy and engaging new paean to the French way of living and eating well, Guiliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat) discusses one of her favorite foods and the tiny Paris oyster bar in the Sixth Arrondissement that’s become her home away from home: Huitrerie Régis (huîtres is French for “oyster”), which is barely big enough to accommodate 20 diners with seven tables inside and a few outside. It is run by the imperious but charming Régis, who bakes his own apple tart for the restaurant six days each week. It’s not the kind of place where everyone will call out your name when you arrive, and the small staff may be indifferent if you’re new. In fact, when Guiliano went for the first time, starving and ill-tempered, Régis made her wait 30 minutes for a table. As she learned later, his number one rule is “Nobody gives me pressure.” But her bad mood was quickly forgotten upon tasting the oysters, which are simply accompanied by a slice of bread with a thick layer of salted butter and a chilled glass of wine. Guiliano also provides lessons in how to open and eat an oyster (an expert shucker should leave the liquor in the bottom shell to avoid a dry, less flavorful tasting experience) and gives a brief but helpful overview of French oysters, including types, regions, and which wine makes for the best pairing. (Nov.)

NOVEMBER 2014 - AudioFile

Author-narrator Mireille Guiliano's enthusiasm is evident from the first few minutes of this short but informative treatise on oysters, which also includes stories about her friend Régis, a Parisian oysterman. Listeners can't help but be charmed by Guiliano's French accent and conversational approach to her performance. Moving past her lifelong love affair with eating oysters, she offers advice on everything from how to shuck the bivalves to how to order them at a restaurant and what to drink with them. Because this valuable resource introduces many technical terms (oyster species and appellations, for example), listeners may find it difficult to comprehend and retain the material from the audiobook; the practical information is better absorbed and reviewed in print. An accompanying PDF contains Guiliano's recipes. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2014-09-13
Another instructive fantasy of French luxury lifestyles from former Veuve Clicquot CEO and best-selling author Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Facelifts, 2013, etc.). "Where else do you find people excited to rapture over slurping slippery gross-looking chunks of flesh down their gullets? Ummm…délicieux." In this slender book, Guiliano sets out to convince readers that Paris is the international center for oyster lovers, and her narrative is rather like a whirlwind specialty tour. She manages to make her own nationality seem like an affectation by salting her already French-influenced prose with often clichéd French words and phrases and inconsistent replacements of "the" with "zee." This book is not likely to please fans of good travel and food literature, but for the author's fans, and for a light first introduction to the world of oyster consumption and the oyster's place in French culture, it may be a pleasant choice. Guiliano circles around a tiny and excellent oyster restaurant in Paris, the Huîtrerie Régis, and its predictably charming and temperamental owner, making them the stepping-off point for the rest of her material. The author provides some solid information about oysters embedded in scattershot anecdotes. Throughout the book, she devotes sections to oysters' nutritional value, a brief history, the many varieties and their characteristics, how to open them, eat them and evaluate them, the condiments and wines that go best with them, the oyster growers of France, the first oyster experiences of her friends and even a few glances at the oysters of other nations. Her preference is very much for the freshest possible raw oysters, but as in her previous books, she includes a nice selection of French, American and Italian recipes in the penultimate chapter. A somewhat fluffy and affected introduction to mostly French oyster consumption.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173520814
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	11/04/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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