Modern Living: The French Confection

Henri Gault and Christian Millau have much in common. Both are 44-year-old Sunday cooks and year-round gourmets—curiously slight of paunch considering their present trade—who once worked as reporters on the now defunct Paris Presse. The solidest bond between the two is the joy they share in debunking the culinary canons of their fellow Frenchmen. They condone serving red wine with fish, accept Israelite gras as only "slightly inferior" to the product of Strasbourg and advise housewives to shorten the cooking hours of those long, loving, simmering stews. They have even dared to...