Sauce Madère 2 cups brown sauce (you can use prepared demi-glace like that sold by D’Artagnan ) 2 T. good Madeira Cook down the brown sauce for 20 minutes over medium heat. Add the Madeira, raise the heat, and cook rapidly; the sauce should look syrupy and lightly coat a metal spoon. Serve with beef or … More The Cardinal and the Chef
True, the British colonized the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria, but for all practical purposes, like a roll of the dice, West Africa fell to the French. And it wasn’t an easy roll of the dice, either. Carton after carton of documents from the late 1800s arrive at my assigned reading space in the … More The Creation of French Africa: Officialdom at Work
As Tolstoy wrote, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” and that is never truer when it comes to family reunions. There’s something rather poignant about pictures of family reunions – they chronicle the passing of time and people. But they don’t reveal the tensions and tight lips … More Family Reunions: The Real and the Ideal
An army marches on its stomach. ~~Napoleon Bonaparte~~ And Napoleon Bonaparte would know. He, like Adolph Hitler in another time, tried unsuccessfully to conquer Russia. What he fed his soldiers in large part depended upon the invention of a Mr. Nicolas Appert, who invented a [relatively] safe way to preserve food by canning, or sealing … More Feeding France’s Grande Armée: A Pictorial Tribute for Memorial Day
I love culinary traditions … and usually I don’t mind cooking all the foods associated with upholding those traditions. Like Thanksgiving dinner, for example. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole (from scratch, mind you), pumpkin pie with whipped cream (crust handmade just prior to baking), and sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows). … More No Partridges, Just Thirteen Desserts: French Christmas Culinary Traditions
Click on the image to “attend” a gorgeous exposition of the history of medieval French cuisine: Be sure to click on the images in order to start the slide shows, chock full of paintings depicting culinary life during the Middle Ages.
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
The creativity, wit, and wisdom of food bloggers never ceases to amaze me. And so today, I simply must let you know about some new, to me anyway, blogs (and bloggers) that I’ve run across lately. Here are two that provide gorgeous pictures, along with commentary and a bit of food history: “An English Kitchen,” … More Curl Up with a Nice Food Blog …