There is more to the title of Justin Spring’s riveting biography of six American food writers in love with France than meets the eye. If you say it fast enough, The Gourmands’ Way sounds a lot like The Guermantes Way, volume three of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. As I made my way through its artfully constructed chapters, I kept thinking about the “paths” or “ways” that Proust imagined for his cast of characters and the model he provided for Spring’s celebration of French cuisine. The Gourmands’ Way is a biography of food writers from vastly different backgrounds—a scrappy war reporter, a