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Rating: 
Summary: What a bore! One star is an over-rating!
Review: Before purchasing this book, I read all the customer comments which gave nothing but praise. I just don't get it. I wish one of the reviewers would have given me tips on how to stay awake while plodding through each sentence/paragraph, along with where to find a single nugget in these pages worth remembering. Okay, I'll probably always wonder how the author's love of boxing was deemed worth inclusion, but then I wonder why the entire book was printed. I feel suckered! And can't think of anything to recommend this book. My advice is to spend your money on ANYTHING written by M.F.K. Fisher, "The Tummy Trilogy" by Calvin Trillin or "Blue Trout and Black Truffles" by Joseph Wechsberg for much more pleasurable reading.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, So This Is Supposed To Be Classic But I Was Left Cold
Review: I have to say that I did not find Liebling's book as much of an enthralling delight as the other reviewers. Much of that could simply be due to the fact that I was expecting a book about eating in Paris and about the joys of French food. The subject matter of the book was neither Paris of the 1920s nor French food, though both crop up with great frequency in his essays. The essays are more personal riffs on Mr Liebling's own life experiences which happen to be in Paris and of which food played a major part. However, I frankly did not find Mr Liebling's life to be so interesting that I wanted to read about it. Nor did I find his writing to be particulary humourous or engaging. This could well be due to my lack of sympathy for Mr Liebling's view of the world. In particular, his espousal of the virtues of being fat, and his disparaging remarks on the form of the 50s woman I found exceedingly disconcerting. So, yes, I do realise that he is supposed to be a classic food writer of his age, but I will say that perhaps he has not worn well with time. (Although if I wanted to read a writer of about the same period, I'd go to M K Fisher any day!) My Personal Rating Scale:
5 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative, thought provoking, pushes the envelope in one or more ways, a classic.
4 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative. Book that delivers well in terms of its specific genre or type, but does not do more than that.
3 stars: Competent. Does what it sets out to do competently, either on its own terms on within the genre, but is nothing special. May be clichéd but is still entertaining.
2 stars: Fails to deliver in various respects. Significantly clichéd. Writing is poor or pedestrian. Failed to hold my attention.
1 star: Abysmal. Fails in all respects.
Rating: 
Summary: feast
Review: Much of Between the Meals, as the title suggests, is about what happens between meals, though the meals are always there in the background. When Liebling talks about friendship and love, he is superb; when he describes his apprenticeship in eating, however, he is incomparable. Others (a few) may write as well; others may have as sensitive a palate, but no serious writer can match Liebling's perverse determination in the pursuit of culinary pleasure and gigantic appetite. This is the finest book on eating ever written by an American. Being a Francophile, Liebling was mistaken in asserting that France is superior to China in its culinary art. He forgot that he was describing the--as he puts it-- "late silver" age of French cuisine, the 1920s, during which most people in China were starving. Today, of course, France is probably in the Bronze age; and the Chinese have just recovered from famines. But that mistake aside, this book is thoroughly satisfying, highly recommended for those,i.e. all of us, who must accept mediocre cooking everyday.
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