French Provincial Cooking

I might deeply enjoy this book, if I could read it. The recipes may be wonderful, if only the measurements were legible. This "Penguin Classics" paperback has many pages on which measurements such as "1/4" or "1/2" have been reduced to a dense blob of ink. Still, during my first read I found characters entirely dropped out on another page. Since I'm starting to age just a little, I asked my teenager to have a look. She too saw measurements as blobs and commented that the typeface was uncomfortable to read. On those pages I could manage to read, Elizabeth's prose seemed conversationally lengthy or even "chatty"; one could imagine a talkative person dictating the book's content and then going to press. But if the text was physically comfortable for the eyes I might enjoy the discussion tremendously as a leisure read. Instead, in the form that it's printed, I'm finding the purchase to be a disappointment.

The truly remarkable thing about Elizabeth David was not so much that she could write enthralling and compelling cookbooks ("Mediterranean Food", "French Provincial Cooking", "Italian Cooking"), but that she transformed a glum, drab post-war England by the beauty of her prose and her ability to evoke the sunshine and brilliant colours of the mediterranean. And, further north, the simple beauty of cuisine bourgeoise, home cooking french style.It was this book that got me started on a lifetime of home cooking. Like all great cookbooks, it can be read and savored without cooking at all. Her ability to evoke time and place is startling -- for example, her recipe for little courgette souffles is wrapped in the story of how she first enjoyed them. Of course, this was in a small country restaurant where the proprietor used his own recipe to make them for her. She talks vividly about La Mere Poulard and her Mont St. Michel omelettes, for which she offers the original recipe. Roughly translated from the french, it reads: "Monsieur, I get some good eggs, I put them in a bowl and beat vigorously. Then I put them into a pan with good butter and stir constantly. I will be very happy if this recipe gives you pleasure".I remember, over 30 years ago, the first time I made her recipe for pork chops "to taste like wild boar". They do indeed, and very good they are. Her recipes for classics like Cassoulet, and Bouillabaisse are vivid and provide the cultural context as well as precise directions. Her description of a bouillabaisse on the beach makes you want to catch the next plane there.She explains the environment of her recipes, their milieu, and their progenitors so that you get right inside the whole theory and practice of french cooking. This is not haute cuisine, though it is not always simple to execute. But her sympathy for the process of cooking and her ability to describe it precisely prefigured writers like Richard Olney and Alice Waters, who owe her, as do we all, a great debt.In any case, she is directly responsible for the appalling culinary assaults I have perpetrated on family and friends for longer than I care to remember. I still use the book, though most of its pages are now stored directly in my memory.

This book is unequaled, engrossing, superlative. It remains, despite the four decades since its publication, the finest book on authentic French cooking in the English language. To that extent, it is uncompromising - a quality not likely to endear it to the timid or fadish american cook - but never daunting. The sheer sensuous beauty of the food evoked in these pages is a loving, prolonged essay on one of the glories of western civilization.

While living in France, I was given this book (written by a English woman) by my sister, who lived in London. I have worn out the pages from constant use. These recipes are so authentic and so easy! (which is unusual for many french recipes). I am ordering another copy for the next 20 years!