Martha Bradley’s The British Housewife (1756) has long fascinated me, for all her detail and precise instructions. And, most of all, for her emphasis on local foods, long before Alice Waters or Michael Pollan were gleams in the eye of God. Of course, the other point I want to make here is this: the English were quite…
Category: French Cooking
The Power and the Glories of Eating Alone
King Louis XIV did it. M. F. K. Fisher did it. The faceless man in Edward Hopper’s painting, “Nighthawks,” did it. Mr. Bean did it, too. And so did I. Daring to eat a proper meal alone in public probably ranks as one of the few acts that cause normally confident people to quiver a…
SLIVERS OF BACON, SWEET ONIONS, AND FRESH CHEESE: TARTE FLAMBÉE, FLAMMEKUECHE, OR ALSATIAN PIZZA BREAD
I just cooked this for dinner tonight, in anticipation of the storm-of-the-decade. Strasbourg in the Cold (Photo Credit: Cyril Bele) 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…
From Velouté to Casserole: A Question of Green Beans, Amandine, and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup
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…
France and America: Why Paris Haunts Us So
It’s been several days now, the media stream moves onward, darting here and there to other news, other disasters. And yet I remain static, stuck, still mulling over the attacks on Paris, mourning the loss of all those lives, as well as the so-very-French joie de vivre. Why does Paris haunt me, and others, so? In the hours and…
Paris, Mon Amour
Paris will always be my first love, at least as far as cities go. I’ve spent many, many days and nights loving Paris, and France, in the company of people I deeply love, as well as on my own. Yet another ode here, yes, among many. I cried when I heard of the mayhem in Paris, not because…
Parsleyed Ham and Kitchen Breezes: The Letters of M. F. K. Fisher and Julia Child
Today is the 20th anniversary of M.F.K. Fisher’s death, so in tribute and at the request of her friend Leo Racicot, I am reposting this, something I wrote last year after attending Barbara Wheaton’s “Reading Historic Cookbooks” seminar at Harvard. Sometimes words, both spoken and written, take on terrible power. Use the wrong word and,…
Vivre en l’Outre-Mer, or, The Trials of Living in French Congo ca. 1923: Part III
Once settled into their bungalow overlooking Stanley Pool in Brazzaville, the Vassals faced the problem of hiring household help, especially a cook. Unlike many Europeans, they found a cook who knew his business, of whom Gabrielle wrote: I am glad, too, to have a change from German cooking.* Our primitive black Matamba is far superior…
Vivre en l’Outre-Mer, or, The Trials of Living in French Congo ca. 1923: Part II
Like many writers of her era, Gabrielle M. Vassal tended not to be very complimentary of Africans in Life in French Congo (1925) and compared them negatively and constantly to the Asians she’d known during her sojourns in Vietnam and China. She recorded her experiences during a trip to Libreville early during her stay in…
