The early part of Peter Mayle’s life was spent in the gastronomic wilderness of post-war England. But a business trip to Paris at the tender age of nineteen began an enduring fascination with the French and their love affair with food and wine. In Bon Appetit he brings to life all the charm and taste of France’s culinary calendar: its fairs, festivals and traditions.

          He visits Livarot, where his nose encounters its far from modest fromage, and revels in the spectacle of the annual competitive cheese-eating contest; in Martigny-les-Bains he learns the best way to eat snails; and he becomes the first English confrere of Vittel, haven of the frog-fancier.

          What Peter Mayle dicovers is the high level of enthusiasm for any event, however bizarre, that seeks to turn eating and drinking into a celebration. Warm, witty and mouthwatering in equal measure, Bon Appetit is proof that the old saying "Lovely country, France. Pity about the French", is only half correct.