The French have been producing and selling cookbooks for over 600 years—since before the advent of the printing press. Walk into any general-interest bookstore in France and you’ll find a cookbook section, often close to the entrance where it’s easy for the customers to find. Magazine kiosks around the country will have at least a dozen cooking-related magazines on display. Tourist shops in small, out-of-the-way villages will have a couple of cookbooks featuring the local cuisine. On cable television there are two channels devoted to food in addition to the programs broadcast over the airwaves. French school children are given instruction on how to appreciate food. Department stores have a food department. With all this interest in food in France, it’s amazing that there is only one bookstore devoted to just selling cookbooks.

That store, Librairie Gourmande, is located in Paris’s 5th arrondissement, a block and a half from the Seine. The space is compact, the aisles tight, and the books stacked from floor to ceiling—a classic old-style bookstore. And if you see a book you might be interested in, snatch it up right away because it may be the only one on the shelf. There is some order to the books, but the shelves are not labeled by subject. Just ask one of the workers and you’ll be directed to the area you are interested.

Please note: Since this interview, Librairie Gourmande has been sold to a new owner and the store has moved across the Seine. Also, one of the two food channels available in 2005 has ceased broadcasting.

In the midst of all the chaos, answering questions in French and English for employees and customers alike, helping customers with their purchases, dealing with problems on the phone, and conversing with visitors with an interest in cookbooks is Amy Prévost, proprietor of Librairie Gourmande. Born in the United States and raised in Monaco, Mme. Prévost easily switches between French and English as required. Spend an hour in Librairie Gourmande and you’ll become exhausted just watching her at the helm.

On May 24th, 2005, Mme. Prévost agreed to sit down for an interview. The following is that interview (with the interruptions left out).

à la carte: How did you come to be the owner of Librairie Gourmande?

Mme. Prévost: It was really accidental. I had worked in bookstores before. I’m married and have three children, and I live in the same building as the store. I met Geneviève [Baudon], the previous owner of the store, and have known her for many years. When she decided to retire, I decided to buy the store.

à la carte: So, what is the history of the store?

Mme. Prévost: This store has been here for about 20 years. Geneviève had started as a bookiniste selling cookbooks down by the Seine before she opened the store.

à la carte: How do you choose which books to sell?

Mme. Prévost: I tend to go more towards newer books. And I have a preference for professional books, which I stock up on more, but the store really has all types of books.

à la carte: When you say newer books, are you referring to those that have been recently written and published as opposed to earlier books that have new printings?

Mme. Prévost: I was very disappointed, for example, because Larousse decided to discontinue La Bonne cuisine de Mme. de Saint-Ange—that’s a reference book. It sells well. It’s a book we sell all the time. Larousse said we were the only bookstore selling it. Maybe it’s because FNAC doesn’t sell it. We asked the representative, “How can you do this? This is a reference book.” [NB: the day following this interview, Larousse announced that there would be a new printing of the book.]

à la carte: So when it’s a new edition, you consider the book a new book?

Mme. Prévost: Yes. For example, you can get a Mme. de Saint-Ange that dates from the 1950s or the 1920s, and I do buy them, but I always want to have the new edition available that’s one-third the price so that everyone can have access to it.

à la carte: Do you find it more difficult to operate a brick-and-mortar-type store in the age of the Internet? Has the Internet affected you much?

Mme. Prévost: We have a web site and I try my best to keep up with it. We have a lot of our books listed on the site. Plus, we have a newsletter that most of our clients receive. For some of our clients our web site has a few shortcomings, like we don’t list the book publisher. This is a problem for some clients.

à la carte: So is the Internet a significant portion of your business?

Mme. Prévost: Yes, it’s a good thing. We have customers abroad. They can look at what books we have to offer and then place their order.

à la carte: Are there other cookbook-only stores in France?

Mme. Prévost: There are other stores that have large cookbook sections, and I hear that the one at FNAC is growing, but I believe we are the only store selling cookbooks exclusively.

à la carte: In France, how do books get from the publisher to the bookstore? Do you buy from a distributor?

Mme. Prévost: Sometimes. Sometimes I buy directly from the publisher.

à la carte: In the United States, the standard discount to booksellers is 45% of the cover price. Is it the same in France?

Mme. Prévost: No. In France it depends on the circumstances. Most discounts are negotiated.

à la carte: If you have a book that doesn’t sell, can you return it to the distributor or publisher?

Mme. Prévost: Usually I buy books with the option to return. There are some books that I buy at a large discount that I sell in front of the shop—what we call soldes [to sell at a sale price]—those I can’t return.

à la carte: The store seems quite crowded…

Mme. Prévost: That’s because it’s small…

à la carte: Are there any plans to expand?

Mme. Prévost: I’d love to. Just to have everything available and easy to get to would make everyone happy. There are other sites available, but they are too far from our current location. I want to be right here in this area. This is my neighborhood.

à la carte: Is it possible for you to classify your customers and their interests?

Mme. Prévost: We have a very varied clientele that includes chefs, cuisiniers [cooks], photographers, writers, pastry chefs, designers, manufacturers, etc.

à la carte: Are tourists a large part of your business?

Mme. Prévost: Sure, I have people come in with a page cut out of a magazine from five or six years ago. They’ll say, “I read about this bookstore and I told myself that when I come to Paris I would come to your store.” They’ll flip out the article and there will be Geneviève Baudon, the old owner. They are so pleased to see a cookbook store. I truly appreciate the enthusiasm this store generates. I take pride in keeping the store as I discovered it—full of books!

à la carte: Do you ever host book signings or other marketing events?

Mme. Prévost: Yes, we have done some of these. They are difficult to do. The store is too small. In the past, we have hosted Michel Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, Marc Veyrat… We send out announcements—which cost a lot of money. We get a lot of orders and sell lots of books, but we few people actually come to the store for the signing. I don’t know why. Now I don’t do many of these. If the publisher has an agent presse [press agent] who can make all the arrangements, then that’s fine. But we are a small bookstore and we sometimes can’t fit everything and everyone in.

à la carte: There’re now two food channels on television in France. Has that made any difference in your business?

Mme. Prévost: I have cable and I do see one of them, but no, there has been no effect.

à la carte: You carry some used books in the store. Do you seek used books to sell?

Mme. Prévost: I do. But the process is time consuming. I usually buy people’s book collections. That’s where I get most of my used books. Often a chef will be retiring or moving and will offer us his collection. We’ll look at it and if it’s interesting, we’ll buy it.

à la carte: Looking backwards in time at the cookbooks of France, books by the grand chefs were the majority of the market up to a hundred years ago. Most bookstores today will have a section of books by today’s grand chefs. Do you consider this an important sector of the books you sell?

Mme. Prévost: I think that people are interested in these people and their books. Plus the chefs are quite media savvy. But I don’t think that the recipes are always reproducible by the average reader.

à la carte: Certainly not from Ducasse’s Le Grand Livre de cuisine. These recipes often use exotic or hard to obtain ingredients that require a number of cooks working simultaneously to prepare. But Guy Martin’s Toute la cuisine has very approachable recipes.

Mme. Prévost: All of his books sell very well. They’re all very good. Plus he’s a very nice man, and he makes himself very approachable. There’s a book that came out recently by a young chef who works on television and also has a restaurant. His book sold very well and I’m sure that he’s a very good chef. Then there’s an actor who opened up a restaurant and you know that he’s not the chef, but he’s on the cover of the book. We have the book but it doesn’t really sell that much.

à la carte: So your customers are knowledgeable enough to know the difference between the different quality levels of books?

Mme. Prévost: Some customers like to buy what they hear about in the media, but the really good cookbooks are the ones that withstand the test of time. When I’m asked, I prefer to recommend a classic over a new, trendy book.

à la carte: So when some of your customers come, you have to walk them around?

Mme. Prévost: Some of them require it—they like it. They’ll ask, “What’s new since the last time I was here.” I have to quickly remember their last visit, what new additions we have added since then, and then say, “Let me show you what’s new.”

à la carte: One last question, with all these cookbooks around, do you like to cook?

Mme. Prévost: Yes, I love to cook when I have time.