French Provincial Cooking Read Online Free Page B

on Italian food.
    Elizabeth David was now a recognized name, and an authority. When her books started to appear in paperback in 1955, she was reaching an ever-widening audience. British rationing was ending, food shortages were disappearing, and European imports were slowly arriving in English markets. In 1960, after immense research, historical documentation, and on-the-spot verification, the large and authoritative book French Provincial Cooking appeared. Here it is, in your hands, the new edition of a book that appeared nearly forty years ago. It was considered a classic then, and so it still remains.
    The editors have wisely left the text untouched, including her immensely valuable eighteen-page bibliography. Page 228 in my 1966 edition, for instance, starts with a noble recipe for Saucisson Chaud à la Lyonnaise. That same splendid sausage appears on page 228 here in this new edition. It is satisfying to know we are getting the real book here—no modern shortcuts, no modifications, we have it just as she wrote it. Because of the “no touch” decision, however, all the measurements are British, and instead of a pint of water being “a pound the world around,” a pint of British water weighs a pound and a quarter. However, the conversion tables are easy enough to find since you’ll see them on the inside cover.
    Jill Norman, editor, food writer, and custodian of the Elizabeth David archives, writes that before the David books, English cooks were of the opinion that if it was French, it was all fancy Parisian haute cuisine. The discovery that French cooking could be home cooking as well lured many English visitors to France, where they for the first time enjoyed the hearty fare of the French provinces. As a result, Norman notes, vegetable soups enriched with garlic and bacon, meat and poultry stews simmered in wine, open-faced tarts, and other rustic delights were finding their way into British homes. Also because of Elizabeth David’s influence, many enterprising amateurs were opening little restaurants with nothing more than Elizabeth David books to go by.
    The David style is easy, informal, and graceful. It is also very personal. She voices most definitely her opinions and her likes and disagreements. How to make a simple green salad, for instance, and a simple vinaigrette, the proportions for which are not at all 3 parts of oil to 1 part any old vinegar—much too vinegary. They are 3 tablespoons of olive oil totablespoon (if that) of mild red or white wine vinegar. For mashed potatoes, you are to “whisk and whisk with great thoroughness—until your arm aches.” Again on potatoes, she speaks of a saute of potatoes Lyonnaise as being well known “but so seldom properly cooked” that she gives her own recipe, which bears little resemblance to the greasy mixture usually served. Her secret is to cook the onions in a separate pan. Her whole attitude is of careful cooking, la cuisine soignée —indeed the mark of the great French cook.
    For those in this country who are used to rigidly accurate measurements like “cup plus 2 tablespoons,” her “2 slices of white bread, parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper” seem refreshingly casual. How can you give an exact measurement for parsley anyway? While her recipes are a pleasure for those reasonably at ease in the kitchen, they may not be for those who are renderd helpless and whinnying when they have only 1, rather than the 2 tablespoons of tomato paste specified. Her recipes are for the fearless ones who love good food and cooking, as she does, and who are willing to jump in for the excitement, the adventure, and the reward.
    This is a deeply researched and carefully thought-out book, which makes for fine reading and learning. You realize, once you start on a dish, that this is a book for people who really want to cook, written by a person who really is a cook, a person who visualizes your every move. For instance, I made an omelet for lunch today and