French Provincial Cooking

690 Pages·2008·4.7 MB·English

by  Elizabeth David

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Foreword

French Cooking in England
The Cookery of the French Provinces
Batterie de Cuisine - Kitchen Equipment
Cooking Terms and Processes
Les Aromates, etc. - Herbs, spices, condiments, etc., used in French cookery
Weights and Measures
Les Sauces - Sauces
Les Hors-d’œuvre et les Salades - Hors-d’œuvre and salads
Les Potages - Soups
Les Œufs, et les Hors-d’œuvre Chauds - Eggs, cheese dishes and hot hors-
d’œuvre
La Charcuterie - Pâtés and terrines, sausages, ham dishes and other pork
products
Les Légumes - Vegetables
Le Poisson - Fish
Les Coquillages et les Crustacés - Shell-fish and crustacea
Les Viandes - Meat
Plats composés de Viandes diverses, Cassoulets, etc. - Composite meat dishes, ...
Les Volailles et le Gibier - Poultry and game
Les Restes - The left-overs
Les Desserts - Sweet dishes

Cookery books
Bibliography
Index
FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE
FRENCH PROVINCIAL COOKING
Elizabeth David discovered her taste for good food and wine when she lived
with a French family while studying history and literature at the Sorbonne. A
few years after her return to England she made up her mind to learn to cook so
that she could reproduce for herself and her friends some of the food that she had
come to appreciate in France. Subsequently, Mrs David lived and kept house in
France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and India, as well as in England. She found not only
the practical side but also the literature of cookery of absorbing interest and
studied it throughout her life.

Her first book, Mediterranean Food, appeared in 1950. French Country Cooking
followed in 1951, Italian Food, after a year of research in Italy, in 1954, Summer
Cooking in 1955 and French Provincial Cooking in 1960. These books and a
stream of often provocative articles in magazines and newspapers changed the
outlook of English cooks forever.

In her later works she explored the traditions of English cooking (Spices, Salt
and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, 1970) and with English Bread and Yeast
Cookery (1977) became the champion of a long overdue movement for good
bread. An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (1984) is a selection of articles first
written for the Spectator, Vogue, Nova and a range of other journals. The
posthumously published Harvest of the Cold Months (1994) is a fascinating
historical account of aspects of food preservation, the world-wide ice-trade and
the early days of refrigeration. South Wind Through the Kitchen, an anthology of
recipes and articles from Mrs David’s nine books, selected by her family and
friends and by the chefs and writers she inspired, was published in 1997, and
acts as a reminder of what made Elizabeth David one of the most influential and
loved of English food writers.

In 1973 her contribution to the gastronomic arts was recognized with the award
of the first André Simon memorial prize. An OBE followed in 1976, and in 1977
she was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole. English Bread and
Yeast Cookery won Elizabeth David the 1977 Glenfiddich Writer of the Year
award. The universities of Essex and Bristol conferred honorary doctorates on
her in 1979 and 1988 respectively. In 1982 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature and in 1986 was awarded a CBE. Elizabeth David died in
1992.

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First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1960
First published in the United States of America by
Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1962
Published in Penguin Books (U.K.) 1964
Published in Penguin Books (U.S.A.) 1964
Published with revisions 1967, 1970
This edition with a new foreword by Julia Child
published in Penguin Books (U.S.A.) 1999

10

Copyright Elizabeth David, 1960, 1962, 1967, 1970 Foreword copyright Julia Child, 1999 All rights
reserved
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To
P. H.
with love
Acknowledgements
So many people have helped me in so many ways with the compiling and the
production of this book—some with advice and material, others with technical
assistance, typing, indexing, proof-reading—that the acknowledgements which I
should like to make to all these friends would fill a number of pages.
But I have only a limited space, so I must restrict myself, first of all, to
thanking Miss Audrey Withers, for so many years editor of Vogue, for making it
possible for me to go to France on several journeys to collect material for
cookery articles subsequently published in the magazine. It is these articles, with
a number published in House and Garden between 1956 and 1959, which form
the nucleus of this book.
Other material and recipes republished here first appeared in The Sunday
Times, Harper’s Bazaar, The Wine and Food Society Quarterly, Harrods Food
News and Wine, edited by T. A. Layton.
M. André Simon very kindly gave me permission to reprint an article by Mrs.
Belloc Lowndes which first appeared in The Wine and Food Society Quarterly,
and Messrs. A. D. Peters to include an extract from Marcel Boulestin’s Myself,
My Two Countries, published by Cassell & Co. Messrs. Martin Secker &
Warburg have also kindly allowed me to reprint a passage from Maurice
Goudeket’s Close to Colette, and Mr. Vivian Rowe has generously permitted me
to reproduce an excerpt from Return to Normandy, published by Messrs. Evans
Brothers.
Lastly, it would be ungrateful of me to miss this opportunity of thanking my
friend Doreen Thornton for driving me, with much patience and care, on many
rather arduous journeys around and across France in search of good food and
interesting regional recipes.