Intrepid blogger Ken Payton of Reign of Terroir understands what the Terroir Guides are all about, and has written an informative, spirited and intelligent review of them, focused on Food Wine Burgundy. I encourage you to take the time to read his piece and comment.
The first few paragraphs are pasted below as a teaser, with Ken’s permission, followed by a link to his site.
Ken also took a fine photo (above, left) of the three Terroir Guides I authored, with remarkable photography by Alison Harris, and a wonderful design provided by the publisher, The Little Bookroom.
“I am an an avid collector of travel guides. And the Baedeker series occupies pride of place on my crowded shelves. Begun in the early 18th century by Karl Baedeker, by 1900 this little red book could be found in the knapsacks of poets and statesmen, artists and perpetual tourists. Virtually all of Europe, her countries, regions and major cities, as well as Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Canada and the United States were covered by frequently updated individuated editions. Written by hundreds of pens, the guides were quite democratic in nature, providing precise info on everything from thrifty to expensive lodgings, museum entrance fees, front row theater and balcony prices, and train fares in first class or coach. Capturing the spirit of Nietzsche’s notion of the ‘Good European’, even if rather bourgeois, the Baedeker guides offered dignified commentary on the Western World’s shared history and culture, a common language for understanding monumental architectural forms and art, all for the ennoblement of the traveler wishing to learn as much about distant peoples and places as about themselves.
Then the world lost its mind. Two world wars made many a European Baedeker guide into an instrument of espionage and invasion, and transformed the excursion of a living city into a tour of ruins. But to this reader more than a half century later, this is also Baedekers great strength, what gives the guides their enduring value. They offer once living testimony of a vanished world.
Now this may seem an odd way to introduce David Downie’s Terroir Guides, but I am convinced that his work, the patient, herculean task he has successfully completed in three healthy volumes, Rome, The Italian Riviera and Genoa, and most recently Burgundy, is deserving of a similar admiration. And this is why. Focussing on food and wine, his Terroir Guides are generous and rich acts of resistance to globalization and homogenization.” READ MORE
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