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Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, and even our moralizing — “You still eat meat?” With our top chefs as deities and finest restaurants as places of pilgrimage, we have made food the stuff of secular seeking and transcendence, finding heaven in a mouthful. But have we come any closer to discovering the true meaning of food in our lives?

With inimitable charm and learning, Adam Gopnik takes us on a beguiling journey in search of that meaning as he charts America’s recent and rapid evolution from commendably aware eaters to manic compulsive gastronomes. It is a journey that begins in 18th century France — the birthplace of our modern tastes (and, by no coincidence, of the restaurant) — and carries us to the kitchens of the White House, the molecular Meccas of Barcelona, and beyond.