French Literature Reviews - 2026

Valentin Husson, L'art des vivres. Une philosophie du goût
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Nothing is more commonplace than the act of eating. Nor is anything more vital. Yet, is there not more than mere necessity in the art of preparing and tasting food? In this erudite and delightful essay, gracefully weaving through the history of both philosophy and gastronomy, Valentin Husson suggests that indeed there is more—much more.

Eating is an art—an art that pertains as much to aesthetics as to ethics, to knowledge as to politics or ecology. Tasting means learning to recreate a relationship with our immediate environment. It means rediscovering the potential flavor of a region, a season, or a product. It means choosing how to navigate the world through our palate, resisting those who seek to dictate our tastes for us. Above all, it means reconciling ourselves with the idea that life can be good in the most literal sense of the word: in the sense of its flavor. And what if the art of living were, first and foremost, an art of provisions?

Table of Contents

Hors-d'œuvre

Cooking: The Catalyst of Human History

Sapere aude: Dare to Taste!

The (Existential) Meaning of the Senses

Part One: The Philosophy of Cooking

The Education of Taste

The Beautiful and the Good: Is the Agreeable Merely Subjective?

Culinary Art: The Present of the Present

Critique of Puritan Reason

Part Two: Gastrodiplomacy and Food Ecology

The Unconscious Is Geopolitics

The Meal: Time Wasted for the Economy

Food Ecology: Toward a Cosmetics

Western Predation: A History of Appropriation

The Squaring of the Circle of Life: The Four Elements

Universal Life: Universalism and Universals

The Rights of Nature

Part Three: The Spirit of Cooking and the Spirit of the Age

Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern Cuisine: Capturing the Zeitgeist

Style Is the Cook

“The Most Beautiful Cookbook Was Written by Nature”

Alain Passard, A Cosmic Arpeggio

#FoodPorn: Food as Conspicuous Consumption

The Distinction of Good Taste: Tell Me What You Eat, and I Will Tell You Whom You Despise

Carnophallogocentrism

Veganism: The Diet of the Death of God

Animal Suffering in Question

What Pathocentrism Tells Us About Humans, All Too Human

Part Four: On Dietethics. The Epicure, the Hedonist, and the Ascetic

Restoring One's Willpower

The Epicure, the Hedonist, and the Ascetic

Philosophies of Life: Appetite, Hunger, and Deprivation

Anorexia and Bulimia

Health and Grand Health: Ars Moriendi

Epilogue

The Art of Loving

—

Valentin Husson is a philosopher, teacher, and lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. He is notably the author of L'Écologique de l'Histoire (Diaphanes, 2021, with a preface by Jean-Luc Nancy).

The intersection of gastronomy, philosophy, and everyday existence forms a rich tradition in French intellectual history, where food is frequently examined as a cultural signifier rather than mere sustenance. Thinkers from antiquity to the modern era have reflected on how culinary practices mirror societal structures, moral values, and sensory perceptions. In L'art des vivres. Une philosophie du goût, Valentin Husson addresses these themes by examining the history of philosophy and gastronomy, touching upon topics such as the education of taste, the existential meaning of the senses, and the links between food, politics, and the environment. Readers interested in contemporary French essays on food ethics and aesthetics may find this work relevant.

The volume further considers diverse aspects of culinary culture, including gastrodiplomacy, food ecology, historical transformations in cuisine from medieval to postmodern times, and various dietary philosophies ranging from Epicureanism to asceticism. Valentin Husson investigates how culinary habits reflect broader societal concerns, engaging with questions of animal ethics, veganism, and human relationships with nature. Through a structured exploration divided into multiple thematic parts, the text reflects on the ways human societies nourish themselves and conceptualize the good life through taste, bridging the gap between philosophy and the daily act of eating.