Simple French Cooking for English Homes by X. Marcel Boulestin

On ne mange bien que chez-soi

In the traditions of Elizabeth David and Julia Child, with Simple French Cooking for English Homes, Marcel Boulestin brings the best of French cooking to the English table.  In his terms, this is not the food eaten in chichi Hotels or pretentious French restaurants, this is the food of wayside inns and the family home.  As my own lean is likewise, towards the provincial and the homely, I cannot but champion a book that demystifies a cassoulet or a pot of rilletes and spends a lengthy paragraph on the art of an oeuf poché.

Marcel Boulestin does not skimp on the preface, peppered with idiosyncratic literary quotations, which demonstrate his own background as a journalist and translator.  He appears to believe that food should be common parlance of the cultured, not shut behind scullery doors.  Indeed, the preface is followed by a collection of Remarks, one of which, endorsing food’s place in conversation, I particularly liked:

Do not be afraid to talk about food.  Food which is worth eating is worth discussing. And there is the occult power of words which somehow will develop its qualities.

A brief glossary, further quotes, including brilliant Brillat-Savarin on hospitality, and then we are thrown into the recipes.  It is always a pleasure to decipher the French terminology, much like one might rifle through the pages of a Menu, sat at a brasserie in France.  The translations given might even serve to illuminate what that incomprehensible plat du jour indeed was!  A chapter on Soups, including a Pot au Feu, is followed by one on Sauces - a favoured French skill - and then Eggs; Fish; Meat; Pastries and Sweets; and a delightful final chapter Sundries in which Marcel Boulestin amasses the remainder of what he considers vital French food:  Gherkins are here placed alongside Pineapple Wine and the extraordinary, and quite delicious-sounding Crème de Camembert, in which the cheese is steeped in White wine, left over night, beat with butter, reshaped and topped with breadcrumbs. 

Unlike cookbooks of today, rich with lifestyle, colloquialisms and sumptuous photography, those of yesteryear such as this Simple French Cooking…, published in 1923, were manuals in the strictest sense of the term.  Marcel Boulestin does not take any knowledge, or common-sense it seems, for granted.  To the point that the poached egg recipe is followed by one for Oeufs Pochés Béarnaise – Poach your eggs and put them on a stiff béarnaise sauce, for Oeufs Pochés Sauce Tomate – Poach your eggs and cover them with tomato sauce.  And, indeed, for Oeufs Pochés au Maïs – Poach your eggs and put them on a dish of sweetcorn.  But, perhaps this is where the charm of this cookbook lies.  Rife with idiosyncratic whim, it serves also as an efficient culinary reference… particularly astute at capturing those French meals of days yonder.  Although not as rich in anecdote as the books of Elizabeth David, the writing is lucid, the tone eloquent and Marcel Boulestin succinctly renders French food accessible to the English cook.  

Read the full review

…

Simple French Cooking for English Homes

By X. Marcel Boulestin

Introduction by Jill Norman

First Published in 1923

Published by Quadrille Publishing, Classic Voices in Food, 2011

ISBN – 978-1-84400-981-7

…

My thanks to Quadrille for the review copy of this book.