Balzac's Omelette

A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac

By: Anka Muhlstein

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

“Tell me where you eat, what you eat, and at what time you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein’s erudite and witty audiobook about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honore de Balzac’s The Human Comedy.

Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his novels, showing how food can evoke character, atmosphere, class, and social climbing more suggestively than money, appearances, and other more conventional trappings. Full of surprises and insights, Balzac’s Omelet invites you to taste anew Balzac’s genius as a writer and his deep understanding of the human condition, its ambitions, its flaws, and its cravings.

©2010 Anka Muhlstein. Originally published in French as Garçon, un cent d’huîtres, Balzac et la Table by Odile Jacob in 2010. Published by agreement with Arche Literatur Verlag AG. Translation copyright 2011 Adriana Hunter (P)2014 Audible, Inc.