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Bread loaf 2

Cheese + Flour + Yeast + Salt + Eggs = The Ancient Mystery of Bread

March 22, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

To contemplate bread even more, please go my previous post, Panis Gravis, or, Bread, Endless Nurturer. I’ve baked bread for years and years. In fact, except for the odd hamburger bun, my family never eats “boughten bread,” as my mother-in-law called it. In a time when “carbohydrate” evokes images reminiscent of horror films, singing the merits of bread may seem like advocating for the return of feudalism. But, in spite of all the denial of bread as a food in […]

Categories: Baking, Bread, Cheese, Cooking, Eggs, Photography, Russia • Tags: Acharuli khachapuri, Baking, Bread, Celiac Disease, Demeter, Gluten intolerance, M. F. K., Persephone, Republic of Georgia

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Fence 2

Foods for a Funeral and a Farewell

March 8, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

What to make of the lavish feasts that come after a funeral? When I attended my first funeral, at age 27, I cried a lot, even though I didn’t know the  deceased, my sister-in-law’s father. My grandparents all died before I turned 20 and lived 1250 miles away. Living as my family did on a poor college professor’s salary, attending funerals wasn’t going to happen. Add to that my mother’s extreme reluctance to even speak of her own mortality and […]

Categories: American Cooking, Cakes, Cookbooks, Cookies, Cooking, Desserts, Norway, Photography, Pies--Sweet, Reference, Southern Food • Tags: American Cooking, Death, Dying, Funerals, Norway, Southern Food, Wisconsin. Southern cooking

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Bread and jam 1

The Little Red Hen had a Point: The Tao of Baking Bread

November 18, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Categories: Baking, Bread, Cooking, Photography • Tags: Baking, Bread, Photography

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Photo credit: C. Bertelsen

Ode to the Great Pumpkin [Pie]: Speak, Memory*

October 18, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye, What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? ~ John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Pumpkin,” 1850 Some people moan and descend straight into mourning with the first frost. Not me. You’ll find me in my kitchen, with clanging pans and steaming windows, eager to put aside the perpetual salads and raw cucumbers of summer. Yesterday afternoon, I baked my first pumpkin pie of the season. Yes, I confess: I basically […]

Categories: American Cooking, England, Food writing, Photography, Pies--Sweet, Pumpkin • Tags: John Greenleaf Whittier, Libby's, Photography, Pie, Pumpkin, Southern cooking

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Peaches 2

How Cooking Transforms the Aching Soul

September 12, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Living today’s hurry-up-run-run-run-faster-faster-text-text lifestyle tends to blunt contact with more earthy things, like cooking. The act of cooking offers something that the stiffest drink or most potent tranquilizer cannot. Dare I say it out loud? It’s even better than sex, in a way. Especially when chocolate is involved, but that’s another story … . For me, cooking offers a glimpse of the spiritual, but it’s also a calming and mindful activity. After all, I must be in the present moment […]

Categories: American Cooking, Cooking, Food writing, France, French Cooking, Peaches, Photography, Pies--Sweet • Tags: Cooking, La Cucina, Lily Prior, Meditations, Peaches, Photography, Pies, Spirituality

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France HUGE baguette old picture

Telling Stories, About French Bread

August 24, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Even years later, long after someone took this photo, I can see this young boy – I’ll call him Jacques –  standing in the street, lugging his heavy basket made of tree branches, no doubt the same ones that Jacques’s father might use on the poor boy’s legs if he doesn’t sell all the bread that day. Look at his shoes, it’s hard to tell, but is one of the soles higher than the other? And his toes, poking out […]

Categories: Bread, France, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Bread, Elliott Erwitt, France, French Cooking, Photography

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Macarons 3

Macarons – Food of Dreams and Fairy Tales

July 11, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Macarons. Truly an example of “Don’t try this at home.” But how I longed to recreate the taste and the crunch of the macarons I greedily ate as often as I could, when I passed that fairy-tale bakery on the Rue de Rivoli, close to the Hotel de Ville metro stop: Maison Georges Larnicol. Although they’re kissing cousins of a sorts, modern French macarons don’t much resemble American macaroons. The extra “O” has nothing to do with it. Macarons likely […]

Categories: Book Reviews, Cookbooks, Cookies, Cooking, Desserts, French Cooking, Uncategorized • Tags: Bérengère Abraham, Cookbooks, France, French Cooking, Macarons

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valentine-2

Let Me Count the Ways: St. Valentine’s Day 101 (Yes, There’s a French Connection)

February 14, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Remember the old shoeboxes for valentines in your grade school classroom? How you’d decorate your box with all sorts of frou-frous and hope the cute little boy (or the cute little girl) with the dimples would give you a valentine card, one of those mass-produced things? In school, at least, probaly no teacher ever told you why so much was made of Valentine’s Day. Right? In fact, the American way of celebrating St. Valentine’s day really began in the nineteenth […]

Categories: Cakes, Coconuts, Recipes, Southern Food • Tags: Cake, Claudius, Coconut Cake, Cooking, Feast Day Cookbook, Food, Geoffrey Chaucer, History of St. Valentine's Day, Juno Februata, Lupercalia, Recipes, Saint Valentine, St. Valentine's Day, Valentine Cards, Valentine's Day, Valentines

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Christmas Hotel Roanoke 3

SUGARPLUM VISIONS: Christmas Cookies

December 20, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

…visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. ~~Clement C. Moore~~ ” ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” Happy Holidays to all readers and visitors to Gherkins & Tomatoes / Cornichons et Tomates! I will “see” you again on January 2. ‘Tis soon the season to be jolly. And to bake cookies, the sugarplums of today. I’m about to head out to the kitchen to do just that right now. For many Americans, especially those of Northern European descent, Christmas without special […]

Categories: Bibliographies, Christmas, Cookies • Tags: Bibliographies, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Culinary History, Food, Food History, Gingerbread man, Recipes

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Strasbourg in the Cold (Used by permission.)

Bringing Home the Bacon … and the Onions and the Cheese: Tarte Flambée, Flammekueche, or Alsatian Pizza Bread

December 18, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

One cold, rainy day in October, I sat in front of a fireplace in a  small weinstub, or bistro, in Strasbourg, France, listening to my growling stomach. I couldn’t face another round of choucroute, that heavy Alsatian ode of love to the pig and the cabbage. On the greasy menu, fingerprints from previous guests clearly visible on the laminated plastic, one dish stood out: Flammekueche, also known as “Tarte Flambée.” I ordered it. And a bottle of Alsatian Riesling, never […]

Categories: Food writing, French Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Alsace, Bacon, Bread, Cuisine Francaise, Culinary History, Flammekueche, Food, Food History, France, French Cooking, Tarte Flambee

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Ginette Mathiot

Who was Ginette Mathiot? And Why Should You Care?

November 15, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Ginette Mathiot wrote books that bring up long-lost taste memories in France, much as Marcel Proust’s oft-quoted prattle about about madeleines. Only her work proves infinitely more readable and enjoyable. She also basically sticks it to Julia and makes French cooking seem less like a prolonged session at the dentist’s. One of her books, Je Sais Faire la Patisserie, appeared in an English translation on bookshelves on November 5, 2011. It’s a book that just might crack open the mysteries […]

Categories: Book Reviews, Butter, Cookbooks, Cookies, France, French Cooking • Tags: Book Reviews, Chocolate & Zucchini, Clotilde Dusoulier, Cookbooks, Cookies, Dorie Greenspan, France, French cuisine, Ginette Mathiot, Je Sais Cuisiner, Je Sais Faire la Patisserie

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Sunset at Ramadan in Morocco (Used by permission of David Young.)

RAMADAN KARIM — The Fast

July 28, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

(I wrote this several years ago and include it here as a tribute to the Moroccans I knew then and to all the people who will begin fasting for Ramadan starting on Monday, August 1. Note that while Paula Wolfert’s cookbook, Couscous and Other Good from Morocco, seems to be cited everywhere, Kitty Morse — who grew up in Morocco — has also written a number of excellent books on Moroccan cuisine.) Manage with bread and butter until God sends the […]

Categories: Bread, Morocco, Recipes • Tags: Agadir, Ait Baha, Anti-Atlas, Bread, Cooking, Fasting, Food, High Atlas, Morocco, Peace Corps, Ramadan, Recipes

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French cooks BastilleRemainsLarge

Bastille Days: Feasting and Fasting in a French Prison

July 13, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

July 14 is La Fête Nationale (The National Celebration), or Bastille Day. Louis XIV, known for his opulent meals at Versailles, didn’t stint when it came to feeding his prisoners in the Bastille. Depending upon rank, the kings of France spent a certain amount of money each day to feed the people incarcerated in the medieval fortress near the center of Paris. Some prisoners actually enjoyed doing time in the Bastille. Of course, it was all about the food. Three squares […]

Categories: France, French Cooking, Peas, Soup • Tags: Bastille, Bastille Day, Cardinal de Rohan, French Revolution, Lettuce, Lettuce and Pea Soup, Louis XIV, Pea and Lettuce Soup, Peas

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French cooks Alexis Soyer Alcide

French Chefs Abroad: Alexis Soyer and His Irish Famine Soup Kitchen

April 26, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

It is to be regretted that men of science do not interest themselves more than they do on a subject of such vast magnitude as this; for I feel confident that the food of a country might be increased at least one-third, if the culinary science was properly developed, instead of its being slighted as it is now. ~~ Alexis Soyer, A Shilling Cookbook (1855) Jamie Oliver’s fight to bring nutritional nirvana to West Virginia might remind you of somebody. […]

Categories: Beef, Chefs, Cooking, England, France, French Cooking, Nutrition, Soup • Tags: Alcide Mirobolant, Alexis Benoît Soyer, Cuisine Francaise, England, Famine Soup, France, French cuisine, Irish Famine, Pendennis, Reform Club, William Makepeace Thackeray

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Breadfruit William Bligh portrait

Breadfruit: Blight of Captain Bligh

April 20, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

When Captain James Cook entrusted thirty-three-year-old William Bligh (at the time a Commanding Lieutenant) with the HM Armed Vessel Bounty in 1787, breadfruit — not adventure — drove what became an infamous voyage. Bligh and his mutinous men sailed to Tahiti (the largest island in French Polynesia) to bring breadfruit trees back to Caribbean in hopes that the fruit would provide adequate food for the slaves working on sugar plantations there. (Bligh later undertook a second voyage as a captain […]

Categories: Agriculture, Cooking, Gardens, Haiti, Local foods, Recipes • Tags: Ahupua'a, Breadfruit, France, French Colonies, Fritters, Haiti, Hawaii, Limahuli Botanical Gardens, Tahiti, William Bligh

Monkfish the Fish Market (Used by permission.)

Monkfish: A Little Love, French-Style

April 18, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I first gazed on his ugly mug in French-influenced Morocco, more precisely at the fish market in Rabat. And like Beauty with the Beast, I fell in love. Sea devil. Crapaud. Baudroie. Lotte. Goosefish. Anglerfish. Poor Man’s Lobster. … It seems his name is Legion (Nomen mihi Legio est, quia multi sumus) … . Monkfish (Lophius piscatorius). Two-thirds of the body is just skull. Tiny triangular-shaped teeth line the rounded jaws that some call “Jaws of Hell,” looking for all the […]

Categories: Fish, Food writing, French Cooking, Recipes, Tomatoes • Tags: Baudroie, Capers, Cuisine Francaise, Food, France, French Cooking, Monkfish, Morocco, Provence, Rabat

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Scenes from La France Profonde

April 8, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Categories: Desserts, France, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Desserts, Fauchon, Food Photography, France, French Cooking, Paris

Panis gravis, or Bread, Endless Nurturer

March 23, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A whole world dwells within each tiny  seed. Of porridge,  of bread, of love it whispers – in all these lies the promise of wheat. With it all comes both the caress of crumbs and the sour stink of brown bread and garlic, the pain of brokenness … and the bitter bread of exile. But yet there’s this … In the beginning, the pure green frenzy of genesis, sprouting skyward. And then, suddenly, fields swaying in the wind, like breakers […]

Categories: Bread, France, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Bread, Cuisine Francaise, Fougasse, France, French Cooking, Meditations, Pain de France

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Water, the Essence of All

March 21, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Begin with a washing of hands, cleansing and purifying, before approaching the stove, as to an altar. Pouring water into a pot, do you remember the source? Rain, clouds, rivers, streams, lakes, oceans … Transformation, from elements and compounds and chaotic matter to life. Essence. Alchemy. In your hands, a cook’s hands, water shape-shifts into magical forms: liquid, gas, solid. Water … Boils, blanches, poaches, simmers, steams, freezes … Water … Becomes soup. Steam … Becomes tamales. Ice … Becomes […]

Categories: Bread, Eggs, Photography, Soup • Tags: Acquacotta, Bread, Meditations, Photography, Soup, Water

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Scenes from La France Profonde

March 18, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Categories: Cakes, France, French Cooking, Photography, Pies--Sweet, Restaurants • Tags: Desserts, France, French Cooking, La Procope, Photographs, Tarts

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john-dory

Cooking with Saint-Pierre (John Dory)

February 23, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

As it fell on a holy-day, And vpon an holy-tide-a, Iohn Dory bought him an ambling nag, To Paris for to ride-a.* ~~ Child Ballad #284A: “John Dory” I first met John Dory at the open-air fish market in Rabat, Morocco. He’s a solitary soul. Doesn’t hang out too much with his own kind. And he goes by many names, John does: Saint-Pierre in France (also Poule de Mer, Sea-Hen, and Dorée), Gall in Catalonia, Gal in the French Midi, […]

Categories: Africa, Fish, France, French Cooking, Morocco, Recipes • Tags: Africa, Ballads, Child Ballads, Cooking, Fish, Food, France, French Cooking, John Dory, Louis Eustache Ude, Morocco, Recipes, St. Perre, The French Cook, William MacGillivray

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Monticello

Thomas Jefferson: The Francophile Who Became the First U.S. “Foodie”

February 21, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Thomas Jefferson. President. Scientist. Writer. Man of many passions, some hidden, some not. In his writings and in his actions, food clearly revealed itself as one of those passions. Above all, Jefferson was a Francophile. From the design of his dining room in his house, Monticello, to the gardens surrounding him in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, from Paris to the White House — Jefferson’s obsession with food and its preparation inspired him to train his African slaves, particularly […]

Categories: American Cooking, Desserts, French Cooking, Recipes, Southern Food, White House • Tags: American Presidents, Cooks, Cuisine Francaise, Etienne Lemaire, Food, France, French Cooking, Fritters, James Hemings, Karen hess, Mary Randolph, Monticello, Southern cooking, The Virginia House-wife, Thomas Jefferson

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chartreuse-green-beans

Chartreuse and the Vallée du Désert: The Elixir of Life

February 16, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

While writing my brief “Gherkins & Tomatoes” blog post, “Cookbooks for a Desert Island, or an Autumn Afternoon,” I thumbed through de Groot’s book once more, swearing I would cook “Green Beans Sautéed in Cream” and “Potato Pancakes of the Mountains.” The price of peace and solitude has been unending struggle. ~~Roy Andries de Groot, The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth Every once in a while, a book speaks to my soul, over and over again. Roy Andries de Groot’s […]

Categories: Book Reviews, French Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Chartreuse, Cooking, Cooks, Cuisine Francaise, Food, France, French Cooking, Recipes, Roy Andries de Groot

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Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party"

FOOD FOR ART’S SAKE: Eating with the Impressionists

February 7, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In celebrating art, the Western world owes a tremendous debt to France. Once a mecca for Impressionist artists and others, France nurtured both their souls and their bellies. And in France, art goes back a long way, back to the time of Cro-Magnon man who left his indelible marks on the dim damp walls of the caves of Lascaux in the Dordogne area of southwestern France.

Categories: Art, Bibliographies, Food Columns, French Cooking, Mushrooms, Pies--Savory, Potatoes, Recipes • Tags: Artists, Claude Monet, Cuisine Francaise, Fish, Food, France, French Cooking, Impressionism, Luncheon of the Boating Party, Mushrooms, Potato, Quiche, Recipes, Salon des Refusés, Shrimp

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Le Creuset

Thinking of Others as You Bite into that Bûche de Noël

December 20, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

David Lebovitz — a whiz of a pastry chef, cookbook author, and food blogger — got me thinking this morning about the meaning of all the glitz and glitter out there, if only I could just get out of my icy driveway. David is giving away a set of Le Creuset cookware, a gift to him from the French cookware company Le Creuset. To sign up for the random drawing, all you have to do is comment on his post […]

Categories: Cakes, Chocolate, Christmas, France, French Cooking • Tags: Bûche de Noël, Charity, Christmas, Cuisine Francaise, David Lebovitz, France, French Cooking, Gateaux, Joyeux Noël, Le Creuset, Partners in Health

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Oreilletes

Oreillettes, A Part of Provence’s Thirteen Desserts

December 13, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Fried dough, a universal love. Grease, sugar, what more could you dream of? In the south of France,  when you want fried dough, you’ll get oreillettes. As with any traditional holiday dish, each cook has his or her version. The signature taste with these oreillettes is the orange flower water. In New Orleans, oreillettes come with a splash of rum, possibly because it was available and because orange flower water wasn’t. Oreillettes (English version) 3 eggs 2 T. orange flower […]

Categories: Christmas, Cooking, Desserts, France, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Cuisine Francaise, France, French Cooking, Oreillettes, Provence, Thirteen Desserts, Treize Desserts

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The Provençal Thirteen: Fennel- and Cumin-Scented Sablés

December 10, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In France, you’ll find sablés,  buttery cookies that originated in Normandy. (You know they had all that butter to get rid of there.) Most sablés are sweet. But in Provence, for the famous Thirteen Desserts of Christmas Eve, cooks prefer savory little disks perfumed with fennel and cumin. Cumin? How did cumin get into mix? Apparently cumin arrived in Marseilles in spice shipments during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Originating in the eastern Mediterranean, cumin didn’t have to travel […]

Categories: Baking, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Spices • Tags: Christmas, Cuisine Francaise, France, French Cooking, Provence, Sablés, Thirteen Desserts, Treize Desserts

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Panis focacius, la Gibacié, and la Pompe à l’huîle, Kin Under the Crust, One of the Thirteen

December 6, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Christmas cakes were baking, the famous pompou and fougasse, as they were called, dear to the hearts of the children of old Provence. ~~ Christmas in Legend and Story A Book for Boys and Girls I’ve always loved the “Jacob’s Ladder” look of fougasse. The lacy leaf-like lattice reminds me of the connection between bread and art, with that unspoken tie to pagan sacrifice, manifested in people- and animal-shaped holiday breads and sweets. And, not surprisingly, fougasse is one of the […]

Categories: Bread, Christmas, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Olives • Tags: Bread, Christmas, Cuisine Francaise, Fougasse, France, French Cooking, La pompe à l'huîle, Pain, Treize Desserts

Fougasse mosaic

Idylls of Cuisine, #91

December 4, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Bread, Christmas, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Bread, Food Photograohy, Fougasse, France, French Cooking, Provence, Thirteen Desserts

French Bread of a Different Stripe

November 26, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Categories: Bread, French Cooking, Photography • Tags: Bread, Cuisine française. Pain, France, French bread, French Cooking

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Chartreuse, Another View of Paradise? (Used with permission.)

FRANCE — HOW THE LOVE AFFAIR BEGAN*

November 12, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. ~ Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude ~ “We began our lunch with a half-dozen oysters on the half-shell. I was used to bland osiers from Washington and Massachusetts, which I had never cared much for. But this platter of portugaises had a sensational briny flavor and a smooth texture that was entirely new and surprising. The oysters were served with rounds of pain de seigle, a pale rye bread, with a […]

Categories: French Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Cooking, Cuisine Francaise, Food, France, French Cooking, Recettes, St. Jean Pied de Port

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Dodo bird

Disappearing Act: Will Centuries-Old French Fruits and Veggies Go the Way of the Dodo?

November 11, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

According to an article (in French) recently posted on the ASFS (Association for the Study of Food and Society) discussion list (a great list for people interested in food and culture in all their permutations), 25 — yes, 25 — familiar fruits and vegetables  — many that you might consider quintessentially French —  will soon disappear from France’s agricultural repertoire if recent production  rates  continue. Unfathomable as it is, the stark statistics tell a gloomy story for those of us […]

Categories: Agriculture, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Soup • Tags: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Cooking, France, Parsley, Parsley Root, Persil, Pottage, Soup, Soupe

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scan0001

The [Culinary] Heroes of France

November 10, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

They’re not in the Panthéon in Paris, where France entombs her heroes, but from all the adulation they receive, you’d think they would be. France not only treats its chefs like celebrities or royalty, but the country  sometimes even views these men (usually they’re all men) like gods. Here’s a taunting image by photographer and film director Francis Giacobetti, taken in the 1980s. From left to right: Alain Dutournier, Gérard Boyer, Jean-André Charial, Jean Delaveyne, Roger Vergé, Gérard Antonin, Paul […]

Categories: Chefs, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Mushrooms, Recipes • Tags: Appetizers, Chefs, France, French Cooking, Recipes

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Pumkpin frost

Winter’s Leafy Greens: A Romantic History à la Française

November 4, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A few mornings ago, the pumpkins sprawling on my front porch sparkled with frost. And you know what that means. It’s time for some serious rustic cooking. (And I’d like to include a recording right here of someone yelling “Yippee!”) It’s time to turn to the hardy greens of winter, something that French cooks* use instead of the more delicate summer greens like butterhead lettuce or red oak. Somehow, and this might just be me, after September cold salad just […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Greens, Pork, Soup • Tags: Cooking, Cooking White Beans, Greens, La Varenne, Le Cuisinier François, Recipes, Soup, The French Cook

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Mushrooms Andy Warhol cream-of-mushroom-1968

From Velouté to Casserole: A Question of Green Beans, Amandine, and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup

November 1, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I didn’t mean to write about Campbell’s soup. You see, I started out pondering a super French soup recipe, Velouté aux Champignons. Somehow I ended up contemplating Campbell’s canned Cream of Mushroom Soup, definitely not one of Antonin Carême’s sauces mères or Mother Sauces (velouté, espagnole, allemande, béchamel)! Though you could argue that Campbell’s soups play the role of sauces in retro American cooking. If you’ve ever eaten soup from those little red-and-white cans, you’re really taking in one of […]

Categories: American Cooking, Beans, Cooking, French Cooking, Mushrooms, Recipes, Soup • Tags: Campbell Soup Company, Cook with Campbell's, Cream of Mushroom, France, John Dorrance, Joseph A. Campbell, Mother Sauces, Mushroom Soup

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Idylls of Cuisine, #86

October 31, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: France, French Cooking, Photography, Pies--Sweet • Tags: Cherry, France, French Cooking, Jam, Tart

Cooking in French: Soup – Cuisine’s Kindest Course*

October 25, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“The French peasant cuisine is at the basis of the culinary art. By this I mean it is composed of honest elements that la grande cuisine only embellishes.” ~ Alexandre Dumaine A succulent soup provides a glistening gem of daily nourishment during all the seasons of the year, but especially during autumn, that narrow doorway into winter and the dark days of the waning year. I really look forward to autumn for that reason, as well as for the visual […]

Categories: Cooking, French Cooking, Soup • Tags: France, French Cooking, Larousse Gastronomique, Pot-au-feu, Soup, Soups and Stews

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Jack-o-Lantern (Used by permission.)

MORE THAN MEETS THE PIE

October 18, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

    The other day I saw another sign of autumn: a smashed pumpkin lying along the side of the road, pieces scattered like the crumbs in the forest that Hansel Gretel dropped on the way to the witch’s house. Pumpkins deserve more respect.  Think about it. Remember Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman, in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, who bashed poor Ichabod Crane with a carved pumpkin?  And year after year, pumpkins get to strut their stuff only in pies.  […]

Categories: American Cooking, Pumpkin, Recipes, Thanksgiving • Tags: Cooking, Food, Pumpkin, Recipes, Thanksgiving

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Cooking and pot

Is Cooking Necessary?*

October 4, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

No, it’s not. That’s your immediate answer, isn’t it? After all, you’ve got more important things to do, don’t you? Or do you? You can live your life without cooking. You can go to your nearest grocery store and bypass all the technology and knowledge that took your ancestors centuries to refine. You can buy all the ready-made food you could ever eat. You can eat plastic food. And you’d survive, too. But, in spite of all that, well, and […]

Categories: American Cooking, Cooking, Local foods, Locavores, Recipes, Science of cooking • Tags: Community, Cooking, Empowerment, Fast Food, Local foods, Locavores

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Food forms the very essence of life, from the fruit fly to the elephant, with humans in between. So much of what we do revolves around cooking, eating, and the finding of food. Here you'll discover stories, meditations, and photographs celebrating the places that we call home. And, of course, the food that garnishes it all.

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What’s Cookin’ Here

  • A Bare Table is Like an Artist’s Canvas
  • “Stew’s so comforting on a rainy day.” *
  • Singkong, Manioc, Mandioca, Mandió, Tapioca, Yuca: Singing the Praises of Manihot esculenta (Cassava)
  • The Promise of Apple Blossoms

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