Between Meals

A. J. Liebling recalls his Parisian apprenticeship in the fine art of eating in this charming memoir, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris. “For me the title was something of a misnomer,” writes Liebling. “I was always skipping meals in favor of one course between meals. My favorite was the sandwich (par excellence). ” It is by recounting his love for food that Liebling fondly recalls his friend and mentors Yves Miranda, “one of the last great gastronomes of France,” who would dispatch a lunch of “raw Bayonne ham and fresh figs, a hot sausage in the crust, spindles of filleted pike in a rich rose sauce Nantua, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five kinds of cheese, with a good bottle of Bordeaux and one of Champagne. ”