In a sea of books about how to cook, what we should eat, and the history of various ingredients, few authors seek to synthesize all three questions into one historical view of cookery and cuisine. In his new book, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, author Adam Gopnik attempts to do just that. He cites books and quotes spanning from historical figures to modern-day chefs in his quest to understand how we got to our culinary present. Unfortunately, the book is a bit too scattered to provide new insight into the history or future of gastronomy.

Gopnik opens with a discussion of the restaurant and its humble beginnings. He traces the public eatery to the time of the French Revolution and discusses its role as a place of conversation and conspiracy. He then moves into the development of a culture of gastronomy and the philosophy of taste, and how our cultural preferences shape the recipes we create. At every stage, Gopnik presents more questions than opinions, and his wandering narrative left me with no clear understanding of what his take-away points were about the development of public eating and cuisine.

Then, inexplicably, Gopnik turns to the trendy topics of meat eating and local diets within the context of how we make food choices. First he gives an incredibly reductionist version of the argument against eating meat. He claims that the environmental effects of meat-eating are easily ameliorated, so those against industrial farming have no real ethical argument. He lumps together vegetarians, vegans, animal rights activists, and conscientious meat eaters into one "anti-meat" stance that he then dismisses with little evidence beyond his own personal opinion. And his unsurprising conclusion, that we should eat meat because we always have, fails to discuss any of the ethical, environmental, economic, or health consequences of a meat-heavy diet that are at least entertained by most pro-meat individuals.

Gopnik's next topic in food choices is locavorism, an area he is similarly poorly equipped to address. He admits to the fact that his experiment in local eating—which consists of exactly one meal (leftovers don't count)—is essentially a joke made in the face of those who take food sourcing seriously. He enjoys his local chicken, which he feels no qualms eating despite its mysterious origins (he decides it's "local enough"), but deems locavorism "frivolous" because of the lack of data supporting its ecological benefits. It shouldn't come as a shock that in his two long chapters on these two pertinent issues, Gopnik sources not even one credible expert on agriculture, sustainability, climate, or regional economics.

Gopnik then returns to discussion of food culture and experience, which is where his more relevant experience lies. He is well-versed in culinary historians, cookbook authors, and philosophers who have delved into food and temptation. Therefore, his expositions on wine criticism, making food choices, and the decline of French cuisine are at least well-sourced. He discusses what high-cost eating destinations such as el Bulli are providing for the world of food. And he grapples with his positive associations with dessert, and his difficulty in attempting to cut sweets from his diet.

I would have found this book infinitely less frustrating if Gopnik had not spent two chapters on provocative food issues simply for the sake of including them. It is surely my own experience with these questions of food sourcing and annoyance with his style of dismissive discourse that colored my opinion. But that aside, this book is still a bit all over the place. In many cultures and belief systems, the table does come first—but food represents a diversity of values and histories that can't be easily summed up in a short book. Perhaps it is this expansive reality that foils Gopnik's attempt at a brief culinary history.

About the Author: A student in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Douglas loves learning about, talking about, reading about, and consuming food. Her work is also featured in Rhode Island Monthly Magazine.