Reviewed by: Mangées: une histoire des mères lyonnaises by Catherine Simon Ann Williams Simon, Catherine. Mangées: une histoire des mères lyonnaises. Sabine Wespieser, 2018. ISBN 978-2-84805-281-6. Pp. 260. To many it will come as no surprise that it was a small group of independent women known as les mères lyonnaises who made Lyon the food capital of France. Often of modest origins before opening their own restaurants in Lyon, these women went against the tradition of male chefs and succeeded against all odds. Their strong instincts and well-honed skills plus fresh products from regions surrounding Lyon allowed them to create meals to charm the palate and nourish body and soul. Mangées tells the stories of several mères lyonnaises whose prestige was, for a time, "gobbled up" by the recognition given to their male counterparts and apprentices. No longer is that the case! They are honored now, both in reality and in the pages of this book. Far more than a simple set of biographies, Mangées is a novel of discovery, a feminist treatise, a visitor's guide to Lyon, a diary of the journalistic process, a recipe book and a tasty slice of history. Catherine Simon puts all of this together to form a cohesive whole in a remarkable manner. She gives us a contemporary protagonist, journalist Étienne Augoyard, who has been tasked with writing a series of articles on the mères lyonnaises for a Lyon newspaper. We get to know him and we observe his writer's anxiety and his curious relationship with the photographer assigned to the project. Thanks to him readers have a reference point to which we can return as we wind our way through the streets of Lyon, through its history, and through the lives of his remarkable subjects. But who are these restauratrices? To tell their stories Simon uses a variety of narrative approaches. We learn about la Mère Brazier with her famous poularde demi-deuil, her Michelin stars, and her struggles during the Occupation as we watch Augoyard scrape together information from books, articles, family, and friends. He even invents details and narrates as though from her point of view. Next, we see him rereading his notes and transcribing a documentary from the 1980s to give us chef Léa Bidaut, known for her tablier de sapeur and her difficult character. Augoyard's personal interview of retired chef Fernande Gache serves as a springboard for her story, while fortuitously discovered photographs are a pretext for a gathering in honor of chef Paulette Castaing [End Page 267] where her tale is told. In a quirky twist, the ghost of the chef La Génie appears, allowing a glimpse into her nineteenth-century restaurant. And it is in a theater that Marie-Thé Mora's life is recounted as actors prepare a play. Other mères lyonnaises appear throughout the book as Augoyard captures tastes, sounds, sights, smells, and the stories behind them to finish his series. Interestingly, Catherine Simon, like her main character, serves up a delightful combination of fact and fiction. The result is a delectable reminder that each of the mères lyonnaises created a place where the warmth of a welcoming table was available to one and all. Ann Williams Metropolitan State University of Denver (CO) Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French