What are your favorite French cookbooks, for cooking at home and in France?
I'm thinking about buying Patricia Wells's "The Paris Cookbook" to take to Paris next spring, assuming that it will focus on the kinds of wonderful ingredients I can buy at Paris markets. I already have two of her Provence cookbooks and her new vegetable cookbook, which I like very much for the simplicity of her recipes and her respect for great ingredients.
Are there others I should be considering as well?
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chris,
Don't forget the old standby: Alice B Toklas ! She is a curious cook, doing many midwestern recipes with purely French ingredients, like making a pain de viande (meat loaf) with crème fraîche. We like to make it to wow French friends. Her writings are much much deeper than just recipe-writing.
We also liked - Laura Calder's "French Food At Home", with very practical homecooking French recipes. - Sarah Leah Chases' "Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook".
I use Patricia Wells Bistro cooking all the time, and have introduced French friends to the French version. For cooking of the southwest, Paula Wolfert 'Cooking of the Southwest' and Jeanne Strang 'Goose Fat and Garlic' are good - Strang is easier to follow, but Wolfert is a classic.
Also recently bought Rick Stein's French Odyssey, which has lots of French classics, often updated - really interesting.
And I love Kate Ratliffe's Culinary Journey in Gascony; recipes and stories from my French canal boat' but don't know if it is still available.
I have shelves of other cookbooks, in French or English, and like to offer our neighbours here, some of whom are rather conservative, French dishes with a little difference - last week we took a big step and served our Perigourdin friends corn on the cob, from seeds brought from Canada, grown in our own backyard. One of my favourite memories will always be the very nervous faces of people who have never eaten corn, changing to smiles as they munch along the rows of corn - and then ask for seconds!
The first time I served corn to French friends, they told me corn was pig feed in France! They said the same thing about riz complet - brown rice. That is why I like to serve my friends many of Alice B Toklas's midwestern recipes using French ingredients. They French are so surprised and ... appreciative.
My bible is Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In fact I used it last night to make a marinade for a butterflied leg of lamb that I am grilling tonight.
Posts: 107 | Location: Bridgehampton, NY | Registered: 04 June 2007
One kind of book to avoid if you are going to use it in France is a French cookbook that has been modified in the translation process to substitute ingredients available in the U.S. for the "real" French ingredients (cuts of meat, bacon vs. lardons, sour cream vs. crème fraîche, etc.). I have a several books that do that.
What you want is a book that gives recipes with the ingredients you can actually buy in France. Of course, that will likely be a book in French that uses metric measurements and specifies many ingredients by weight (grams and kilograms) rather than by volume (in cups, pints, etc.). Also be careful if it is a British book, because a British pint is 10 oz., not 8 oz. as in the U.S.
I have quite a few French cookbooks (mainly focusing on Provence) including three Patricia Wells books-- the two on Provence and Bistro Cooking. Some of the cookbooks I like mainly for the photos... like this one: Savoring Provence And I just like reading the recipes, even if I never make them.
But the cookbook that I've probably used the most is this one: My French Kitchen: A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes by Joanne Harris. This is the woman who wrote Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. The book has some absolutely beautiful photos too.
I notice she also now has another cookbook The French Market, which I'll need to order. Both of these are paperback and so could be easier to take with you on a trip.
There are a lot of French recipes in The New Basics, which has a whole section of recipes from the south of France. You could copy those that you like.
And I've gotten some good recipes off this website French Food and Cook. Print off a few and take them, or if you have wireless internet, just access them in your kitchen.
Ken, I hear what you're saying about the ingredients and measurements, but I've managed to do it. I think when you're doing "vacation rental" cooking for a couple of weeks, you want to keep everything fairly simple. You can either print out a small conversion chart (I got mine from The New Basics) for measurements or slip some nested measuring cups and spoons in your suitcase. (Many vacation rentals don't have these anyway... or the scales for weighing.)
I've found it interesting to figure out substitutions, though I agree with you that the cuts of meat are tricky....
You're absolutely right, Ken, and if I were living in France, I'd love to be serious about it and cook the kinds of magnificent dishes pictured on your blog!
But the truth is, I'll be cooking occasionally for three weeks in a rented apartment. I probably will tuck measuring cups/spoons in the suitcase along with a couple of knives and a cookbook or two. I think I can deal with substitutions, especially since it's very unlikely that I will do any baking.
One of my favorite cookbooks is a little paperback called Cuisine pour toute l'année by Monique Maine. It's here on Amazon.fr but I'm sure you can buy it in any big bookstore in Paris (FNAC, Gibert, etc.).
Sorry to sound like a purist -- I'm not. It's really just a practical thing. The French books will give you the real French cooking, not some American's idea of what it might be or ought to be. French cooking is not necessarily fancy; it just uses good ingredients. My own cooking is a real hodgepodge of French, U.S Southern, Mexican, and so on. I have no training, just a lot of enthusiasm.
One nice book that I have is called Parisian Home Cooking by Michael Roberts (here on Amazon.com) and all the recipes call for American ingredients that I can't get here. It's too bad because the original recipes used French ingredients, but those have been changed for an American audience. I can't do much with it here, but it does give me some good ideas. It's a good read. I don't know if it's out in paperback -- I don't think so.
You might want to try Julia Child's paperback called The French Chef Cookbook -- see it here on Amazon.com. It's probably more useful for ideas than her big Mastering the Art... book is.
There's also a paperback called Cooking with Pomiane that is a French classic -- it's here on Amazon.com. It will give you lots of ideas and recipes.
Another book by Edouard de Pomiane is French Cooking in Ten Minutes (here on Amazon.com) -- it's full of good ideas and easy recipes. It's also just fun to read.
One more: The Paris Café Cookbook by Daniel Young (here on Amazon.com). It doesn't contain as many recipes but gives you information about a lot of cafés and their specialties.
And then of course there is almost anything by Jacques Pépin.
Wow, Ken, thanks! This is a great shopping list! I already have several Jacques Pépin cookbooks and was his "Fast Food My Way" might be a good choice for the kind of casual cooking I'm likely to do, but some of these other names are totally new to me. I'll check them out.
Originally posted by Americana in Parigi: Don't forget the old standby: Alice B Toklas ! She is a curious cook, doing many midwestern recipes with purely French ingredients, like making a pain de viande (meat loaf) with crème fraîche. We like to make it to wow French friends. Her writings are much much deeper than just recipe-writing.
We also liked - Laura Calder's "French Food At Home", with very practical homecooking French recipes. - Sarah Leah Chases' "Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook".
Hi Chris, here's another book you might consider taking to Paris: Simply French, subtitle Patricia Wells presents the cuisine of Joël Robuchon. Here's the Amazon link.
By the way, don't forget the Picard frozen food stores when you are in Paris. They carry very high-quality products.
Originally posted by lesfaye: I would love that recipe for that meatloaf made with Creme Fraiche....please.......
Meat loaf
340 gr (3/4 lb) veal 340 gr pork in a bowl thoroughly mix meats w - 1 cup chopped mushrooms - 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs soaked w whichever wine planned for dinner, pressed dry - 1 egg (raw) - 1 tspn salt - 1/4 tspn pepper - 1 crunched clove garlic - 1 good pinch nutmeg - 4 tbs crème fraîche Mold into oblong loaf around 2 boild eggs place tip to tip Put 4 tbs crème fraîche on earthernware Put 2 tbs crème fraîche on top of loaf Use a fork's tines to make design over loaf top crème fraîche. Bake in preheated 400°F (n°6) oven for 3/4 hour. When done use chicken stock to scrape off loaf adhering to bottom and sides.
Thanks again, Ken! I've been reading the reviews of all of these books on Amazon and moving things in and out of my shopping cart. Since one can never have too many cookbooks, I really can't go wrong, can I?
I do wish there were someplace local to leaf through many of these books. The chain bookstores (sadly, all we have here in Sacramento) have really lousy selections of cookbooks.
Also Ken, I just checked and there is a Picard just a few blocks from the apartment we're renting! It will be interesting to try their wares, because I'm not a fan of frozen meals in general.
I love the Alice B Toklas cookbook - and another oldie but goodie is Elizabeth David - French Provincial Cooking, it's almost like a travel book in the exploration of the regions..
Chris, yes, Picard sells frozen meals -- prepared foods -- but also has a very good selection of "raw materials" that are cooking ingredients of high quality. Go for fresh first, but frozen can be very good too.
use chicken stock to scrape off loaf adhering to bottom and sides
Does this mean to deglaze the pan and make a pan sauce?
Alice did not specify. You wrote she sort of wrote in an airy-fairy hippy-dippy way. I did not deglaze, just scraped off sides as though washing , as she said.
Another vote for gold ol Elizabeth David.
And those of you passing through, do look up that cookbook bookshop in the Latin Quarter I listed previously. Great fun. Then you can go half a block down to shop in the Maubert market. Must pack now...
Hmm, I've never seen a recipe that told me how to clean the pan before. I may have to pick up that book just for the airy-fairy hippy-dippy style! And I definitely plan to visit that bookshop next spring, AiP! I'll be staying very nearby.
Chris, she did not exactly say "just scraped off sides as though washing". It was my own airy-fairy hippy-dippy interpretation. She simply did not specify. Maybe because she just had one of her own brownies and did not feel too communicative in earthly languages.
Collecting, reading, and occassionally cooking from cookbooks are some of my passions.
I love Patricia Wells. I really like her most recent book, Vegetable Harvest. As a travel guide, her Province Cookbook is full of interesting addresses for good products and restaurants. She did a book signing and lunch in my city, and it was a real pleasure to meet her. She has such a passion for fresh, simple ingredients. It's my dream to go to her Provence cooking school in Vaison. I better keep buying those lottery tickets.
Last winter I bought Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. The recipes are authentic, detailed and rich. They're perfect comfort food. She had a most amazing recipe for a potato gratin with bleu d'auvergne and cheddar. These would not be the kind of recipes you cook while on holidays.
When in Paris in July we had a spectacular lunch at Cafe Constant and I bought Christian Constant's Everyday French Food. I haven't cooked anything out of it yet. It certainly doesn't reflect my everday food, with an entire section on foie gras, but there are some lovely looking recipes.
My favourite French dessert cookbook is Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. It's written by Dorie Greenspan (I love all her cookbooks). The recipes, although complex, are clearly written and easy to follow, even for the very amateur home baker like me. I tried to go to Pierre Herme's patisserie while in Paris, but, alas, he was closed for his annual holiday.
I love this thread, french food and travel, my two most favourite things.
We have greatly enjoyed "At Home with the French Classics" by Richard Grausman, available here from B&N. His mousse au chocolat recipe is the best and easiest I've seen anywhere.
Posts: 825 | Location: Virginia (but still missing Naples!) | Registered: 05 October 2005
Originally posted by Diva: My friend Susan Loomis of " On Rue Tatin" teaches day classes in Patricia Wells Paris studio!!!
Oh what fun, I loved that book. Unfortunately I will be in Provence and not Paris. But at least I get to a good cooking school in January...I'll be in Florence and will go to Diva's
Posts: 107 | Location: Bridgehampton, NY | Registered: 04 June 2007
And I love Kate Ratliffe's Culinary Journey in Gascony; recipes and stories from my French canal boat' but don't know if it is still available."
Thanks for the kind words Carlux. Yes, my book "A Culinary Journey in Gascony" (Ten Speed Press) is still in print, in a nice new edition (same good food, larger format) and under my original name- Kate Hill.
I use Paula Wolfert, Susan Loomis, Elizabeth David regularly as well the little regional books that appear in every maison de presse. With a simple dictionary and list of ingredients you can't get better than going straight to the source. OH, and of course, the best cookbook of all? My neighbors and market vendors across France. Just ask!
HI Kate. Wespoke on the phone several years ago, and I knew that you were no longer using the name Ratliffe, but didn't realise the book had been published under Hill.
I still enjoy and use it, and agree that friends and merchants are great for recipes. When we first came to France I took 10 kilos of asparagus up the hill to my neighbour's and we prepared it all for canning (one of the neighbours who actually decided she liked corn on the cob)
Oh yes, of course, I now have it in my memory!(amazing what unlimited rose wine will do to a brain...)Should you get down this way- near Agen, do give me a call and stop by.
I missed the asparagus this year but I am canning sweet tomatoes with a vengance now and look forward to that ducky time in the winter making confit.
And how about Stephanie Alexander's book on the SOuthwest? does anyone have it? It's only a few years old (2002)and she is highly respected in the other hemisphere.
I don't have many but my favorite is Ina Garten's cookbook (forgot the full title). But I'm biased because I just love her style of cooking. Simple but high quality. Love it!
I'm so glad this post was started because I definitely need some really good French cookbooks to add to my collection. I LOVE cookbooks and cooking magazines!
Unfortunately I'm a bit of a packrat so... not so good.
I have alot of books but seem to use certin ones more than others, like Patricia Wells at home in Provence, Pierre Franey, Cooking in France(we have stayed at B&bs after he mentions them here)All The Gastrronique books, Provence, Loire , Normandy,Burgundy, Brittany and have tried the restaurants they mention when possible. I like books by where we've been, Elizebeth Bourgeous of the Mas tourteron(a chef in Provence' Jean Charial of Ousteau de Baumaniere Edward Loubet, formerly at the Moulin de Lourmarin but now at the Bastide de Capelongue(sp?)., Anne Willan's French Regional Cooking, Culanaria France, Taste of Provence, by Carrior, Taste of France by Fresson, The Toklas book when into her hash brownies , And I even have MFK Fisher's book, Provencial cooking she wrote so long ago for Time/Life books. My Latest is Clodilde's Chocolate and Zuccini.
Posts: 1277 | Location: cambridge,ma.usa | Registered: 27 January 2003
Chris, I would take From Julia Child's Kitchen -- I think, though I'm not sure I remember correctly, that Julia said this was HER favorite, and I think it's the most useful of the half dozen of her books that I have. I also love The Way to Cook, and it's now available in paperback.
Aloha, Ann
Posts: 1606 | Location: Sunset Beach (Haleiwa), Hawaii, USA | Registered: 16 September 2001
I do have Stephanie Alexander's Cooking & Travelling in South-West France, but I must say I never think to look there for a recipe. Great pictures, and since she stayed only a few kilometres from where I live, it's particularly interesting. It just seems to me to be a piture book rather than a cookbook. But beautiful - I look at the parking lot in St Julien de Lampon, where she captured people playing boules (or maybe posed them?) and I can hardly believe it's the same place!
Richard Olney- YES! and singingcigale, I agree- the Time-Life Foods of the World series are the thing I regret most having left behind for this wandering life. I did manage to score the MFK Fisher;s Cooking of Provincial France volume and it is one of three books currently on the galley shelf. (The other hundred plus cookbooks are in the Cooking School library.) Beautifully clear and evocative writing, classic recipes and instructive photographs.It's what all cookbooks should do- whet the appetite and then help sate it. oh, the other two books? Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking (1960's) with a foreword by Julia Child and a much-used copy of Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Eating for those tongue heart, liver, pork belly inspirations. That cooking is the sort of country choices we use in SW France and Henderson's wit and beat-poet writing keeps me returning to the little B&W tome.
Julia Child, Patricia Wells, Elizabeth David, Richard Olney, Alice B. Toklas, Fergus Henderson, Paula Wolfert, Stephanie Alexander, M.F.K. Fisher, Ina Garten, Susan Loomis, Richard Grausman, Laura Calder, Sarah Lee Chase, Michael Roberts, Daniel Young...
Where are the French chefs? Only Cigalechanta has listed any. Jacques Pépin, Pierre Franey. Also Madeleine Kamman among the Franco-Americans might be interesting. And there is Clothilde. What about Paul Bocuse? Alain Ducasse? Alain Senderens? Michel Guérard? Does anybody use any French books? Have any been translated? Sorry if I missed any that have been mentioned.
Authors of some of the standard French books are Monique Maine, Ginette Mathiot, Tante Marie, Renée de Grossouvre, Ali-Bab, Escoffier, Pellaprat, Roger Vergé, Mme Saint-Ange. Are there no translations?
I have a book called French Country Cooking for Americans, by Louis Diat (1946, 1974). I just looked and Diat has many titles on Amazon.com.
I mentiond Clotilde. I have her book. She has another coming out next year on eating and shopping in Paris. I met her at the French Library where we tasted bits of some of the recipes. A vry nice young woman
Posts: 1277 | Location: cambridge,ma.usa | Registered: 27 January 2003
Good question, Ken! That question led me to Amazon.com, where I managed to while away another hour and add a few more items to my already-bulging shopping cart.
I found almost nothing you haven't already mentioned except the books of the famous chefs. I imagine that the normal difficulties of translating the language are nothing compared to the difficulty of making recipes workable outside France considering the differences in measurements, ingredients, and equipment likely to be in the kitchen.
Except for Jacques Pépin, the French chefs' books sound too serious and too complicated for my purpose, which is cooking simple dinners for the two of us in a vacation rental apartment kitchen, with the kind of limited equipment and pantry that implies.
My shopping cart right now has "The Paris Cookbook" by Patricia Wells, "French Food at Home" by Laura Calder, "My French Kitchen" and "The French Market" by Joanne Harris.
I think I will buy two or three of these, then copy selected recipes from them as well as the French cookbooks I already own to make my own little cookbook for the trip.
Looking back over this thread, I can see that I'm going to end up buying several of the others mentioned as well!
I remember when first reading that meatloaf recipe how it was so much like my mother's(born in Italy) But I think she used ricotta and she used pine nuts. As a little girl, I was so elated when she sliced the loaf, the beauty of it the yellow and white of the eggs in the middle surrounded by the pine nuts and whatever else she put in.
Posts: 1277 | Location: cambridge,ma.usa | Registered: 27 January 2003
Does anyone else use food/cook books as travel guides? Mt favorite from my first trip to France over 30 years ago was Waverly Roots' The Food of France...explains regional cooking/history/specialties beautifully. It may seem dated, now that we're all more familiar with French ingredients and styles, but an very interesting read. Richard Olney...yes! Elizabeth David...yes! Patience Gray's classic Honey From a Weed is a wonderful memoir/cookbook for the entire Mediterranean coast from Greece, Italy and Spain mostly, but the south of France fits right in, in terms of ingredirnts, ideas, etc. Patricia Wells always useful/helpful re: locations, market scheds, specialty stores as well as recipes. If you're going to be in Provence, Mereille Johnstons Cuisine of the Sun is nice, but may be out of print. A more contemporary writer, who has lived in France, is Georgeanne Brennan...she has written many many books, and has a cooking school in Provence, so Google her for a complete list, but Potager is one of her first, organized seasonally, and is quite good. Also her French Vegetarian Cookbook... I'm getting a bit carried away, looking at my kitchen shelves, time to stop. BUT, do xerox specific pages, to lighten your load.
Salud
Karen
Posts: 97 | Location: san francisco | Registered: 08 March 2007
You're right, Karen, cookbooks are good travel books too. I always pick up a cookbook or two when we're going to a new region, and read them to get a better sense of the regional cuisine. The ones with beautiful photos are even better.
There are also some travel books, like some of the books about the markets of France, that contain just a few very good recipes.
I have Georgeanne Brennan's Potager, a really beautiful and inspiring book, one of my very favorites. There's another of her gardening books in my Amazon shopping cart. She lives not too far from here and is currently working with organic farmers in the area to market their products.
She also has a village house vacation rental in Provence that I've bookmarked for future consideration.
I want to second the recommendation of Waverly Root's The Food of France book as a great overview of French cuisine, region by region, and as a good travel guide.
Georgeanne Brennan's Savoring France is a beautiful book full of great ideas and recipes. It might be a little heavy for packing however.
Another book about Paris food is the Gourmet Guide to Paris by Jacques-Louis Delpal, Alain Rivière, and Ghristian Sarramon. It's not a cookbook, though. Here it is on Amazon.
In French, there's Les Trésors gourmands de la France by Gilles Pudlowski. It's not recipes but it has chapters on food specialties of regions and towns all over France.
Rather than take along a cookbook, when I always travel with a laptop, I collect recipes by region and try to select according to the season we will be there.
For our imminent two week trip to Avignon, I have collected 50 recipes so far and will probably add another 50 over the next week. When we are there, I'll see dishes on menus at restaurants etc. and I'll then track down the recipes and add them. I collect the recipes by googling "recipes" and not just the region/province but specific towns or parts of a province. For example "recipe carmague" produced: Carmague-Style Mussels
Choose fresh mussels whith shells thightly closed, before cooking. Slightly opened-up mussel shells can only be eaten if the shells tightly close-up when lightly tapped-on. An open-up shell means that mussel is dead and therefore can be toxic; throw it away. Mussels will keep, in a large bowl, covered with a damp cloth, for up to 48 hours, refrigerated. Servings: 4
* Well scrub mussel shells under cold, running water; reserve [do not soak shells in water]. * Chop onion, leeks, fennel or celery stalks, garlic and fennel seeds. * Into a large casserole, heat olive oil over medium heat; add onion mixture for approximately 5 minutes, until leeks are soft. * Do not brown vegetables. * Mix in dry white wine, Pastis and tomatoes. * Salt and pepper, to taste. * Bring to a boil; simmer for 5 minutes. * Mix in mussels, parsley and thyme. * Cover; cook over high heat, until shells open-up, approximately 5 minutes. * Throw away unopened shells. * Using a slotted spoon, remove mussel shells from casserole. * Remove mussels from shells; arrange mussels onto individual plates, or into shell halves, as you would oysters. * If using fresh parsley and thyme, remove sprigs from sauce. * Cook sauce, over high heat, for 5 minutes. * Pour sauce over mussels and serve immediately.
Can't wait to cook this one.
"The 'perfect marriage' of food and wine should allow for infidelity" - Roy Andries de Groot Moderation in Moderation
Lynne, you have to enjoy spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I love doing that, just listening to the radio and washing and chopping vegetables to make a sauce or a stuffing. That's what I'm going this morning.
I think Gavin's got the right idea about traveling with a laptop and collecting recipes to make while in France.
But here's another book anyway: Georgeanne Brennan's Apéritif: Recipes for Simple Pleasures in the French Style. Chris, maybe you have this one. A lot of the book is about apéritif drinks, but there's a 40-page chapter of recipes for the food you have at apéritif time: small plates, or tapas, French-style. Might be good for vacation cooking and eating, when you probably don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.
One of my favorites came out in French in 1989 by Victoire de Montel and a year later translated into English by Deb Roberts. French Country Living: A year in Gascony. It is beautifully photographed showing the life style of these to women's household with a month by month description of whatshould be done in house and garden. followed by the recipes.
Posts: 1277 | Location: cambridge,ma.usa | Registered: 27 January 2003
The web is also one of my fave cookbooks. Before going to a given destination, I also like to find on the web recipes using certain intriguing local ingredients, such as courgette blossoms (the beautiful delicate yellow fleurs de courgette) and cranberry beans (cocos roses) for Provence. Or recipes of razor clams (the long thin kind in Europe, not the round kind in US west coast) for Barcelona, etc. In fact my recipe research is a big - and sooo enjoyable - part of my travel planning.
Downloading recipes from the web also means not having to lug heavy cookbooks in one's luggage !
I may have to pick up that book just for the airy-fairy hippy-dippy style! And I definitely plan to visit that bookshop next spring, AiP! I'll be staying very nearby.
