A typical Frenchman thinks the world is made up of the French — and those less fortunate.

Indeed it is impossible to think of food without putting France into a separate, exalted place. Listen to a group of French carpenters or plumbers sharing lunch on the job, a meal made up of bread, cheese, perhaps a little sausage, and a measure of wine. Eavesdrop on a group of housewives waiting their turn in the butcher’s shop, or three or four businessmen assembled in a fine restaurant. They will be sharing memories of their Breton grandmother’s matelote of eel with wine, cream, eggs, and shallots, even prunes. “Did you ever eat a matelot with prunes?” one will ask, and another will launch into a tale of cassoulet from Toulouse, full of beans and sausage, duck, pork and lamb, taking six hours to cook and three more to eat. Another will recall, with his tongue passing over his lips, a certain earthenware pot that was always filled with a Burgundian beef stew — a stew perfected by time and hallowed by generations, a noble stew with lardons of salt pork, dark woodland mushrooms tiny white onions, a crust of bread to soak up the gravy, and a liter or two of wine, all served on Sundays that seemed never to end…

Advice from a Travel Writer

Food writer Sharon Hudgins says: Everyone from novice journalists to experienced cookbook authors still confronts the same set of challenges when writing about the cuisine of another country, region or ethnic group. During more than 20 years of working in this field, I’ve developed a set of guidelines for planning projects, doing background and on-site research (the really fun part — eating!) and writing accurate accounts about the foods of people living in other parts of the world.

‘One rule is fundamental: You must go to the country that you’re writing about.  That might seem an obvious statement — but I’ve known cookbook authors and magazine journalists in the United States who intended to write about another country’s cuisine without ever actually traveling there themselves. They claimed they could do all the necessary research in the United States, eat at selected foreign restaurants in America, and then write authoritatively about the foods of the foreign countries they were assigned to cover — even though they’d never set foot in even one of the countries.”

To quote a sheep farmer I met in Colorado: “The way to make a small fortune is to start out with a large one.” We could say the same thing about food travel writers. It is a great job for a few and particularly the few who are able to take fabulous photographs.

The Cookbook Conference at the Roger Smith Hotel was an enormous success As always, though, the best part is the opportunity to run into so many old (and getting older,) friends. I loved every minute and really like this hotel too.  There was a lot of talk about creativity. Many ideas were hatched. All this thinking reminded me of three creative  eggs I have eaten.

The first was a brown egg in an egg cup.  The top had been removed and inside was a miniature soufflé.

The second egg was not an egg at all but was also nestled into an eggcup. The cook had molded an outer part of white vanilla ice cream and inside; “the yoke” was a passion fruit sorbet.

The third egg was also a pretend one.  It was a “fried” egg in which the white was formed from white chocolate and “yolk” was an apricot mousse.

It is happening everywhere: NICHING.

Like TV niches: if you are on the right, you go to FOX. On the left, MSNBC. CBS, NBC and ABC Networks are fading. They are generalists. TV channels are increasingly specialized: Food, fishing, fashion, biggest losers, biggest winners…hardly anything in the middle. Same with specialty stores, specialty doctors, specialty religious institutions, political parties etc. Same with magazines that were once read by “general” readers. Only specialized readers thrive.

It’s becoming the same things with cookbooks: What sells are famous chef books, (I see Paula Deen’s estimated net worth is $24 to $28 million.) Famous country (Tuscany) books are still selling as are diets of the day (gluten free) or Minimalist, books for those who can’t or don’t want to cook. So what options are available to an author who is exploring a different topic entirely: Season to Taste for example…

This is one of those astonishingly unexpected treasures that we may be fortunate to stumble across by chance or word of recommendation. It’s food memories remain in the palette of the mind while interspersed in a tale of loss (of the sense of taste after a devastating car accident) and the joy of gradual recovery.  Skillfully woven between meals is a love story. You won’t find a more lucid explanation of the physiology of smell than these words written by its author, Molly Birnbaum.

How can this author reach those who are reading Grant Achatz’ Life on the Line, a widely recognized narrative also about the loss of taste? How can she bask in his reflected glory?

Many of us lose our sense of taste as a side effect of chemotherapy or traumatic head injury or other medical catastrophy. So Molly Birnbaum and Grant Achatz publishers could/should/would do good things to make doctors aware of these books and recommend them to all the many patients yearning for reassurance that their own sense of taste will return, even an astonishing, fleeting one whiff at a time.

Many despairing authors could reach a wider readership by exploring unconventional paths.