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.
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.