Dirt by Bill Buford

Dirt

Adventures in Lyon As a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking

Bill Buford

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 30, 2021

“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal What does it take to master French cooking?

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Who it’s for
A funny, immersive account of learning French cooking inside Lyon’s demanding professional kitchens.
Themes
French culinary culture, Professional kitchen life, Family relocation abroad
Genres
Food World Lives, French Cooking, Food Travel

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About this book

“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France.

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But what was meant to be six months in a new and very foreign city turns into a wild five-year digression from normal life, as Buford apprentices at Lyon’s best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school, and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, where he discovers the exacting (and incomprehensibly punishing) rigueur of the professional kitchen. With his signature humor, sense of adventure, and masterful ability to bring an exotic and unknown world to life, Buford has written the definitive insider story of a city and its great culinary culture.

Kitchen Apprenticeship

A funny, immersive account of learning French cooking inside Lyon’s demanding professional kitchens.

Come here for

  • The craft and rigueur behind French cooking
  • A family’s five-year detour into Lyon life

Expect

  • Humor alongside the punishing standards of a professional kitchen
  • Apprenticeship, culinary school, and restaurant work

Where it sits

Food World Lives62%
French Cooking53%
Food Travel41%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Lives in Entertainment
  • French Cooking
  • France Travel
Authors
Bill Buford
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published
March 30, 2021
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
French culinary culture · Professional kitchen life · Family relocation abroad
Reading lane
Lives in Entertainment