Customer Reviews

French Farmhouse Cookbook

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

`The French Farmhouse Cookbook' is not a book which should be bought if all you want is recipes. This is especially true if you have two or more books of French recipes by, for example, Julia Child, Richard Olney, or Patricia Wells. This is not to say these recipes are not good. They are very good. It's just that a mere mortal needs so many recipes for green salads, roasted chickens, pistu soup, and poached fish with aioli. One fact that keeps down excessive redundancy is the fact that unlike the three luminaries mentioned above, Ms. Loomis is based in Normandy rather than in Provence. Therefore, butter will be the star of many dishes rather than olive oil.

The primary charm and value of the book is in the stories surrounding how the author, Susan Herrmann Loomis acquired the recipes and her background on the French farms. As the ever-present blurb from Alice Waters says, this is a cookbook `that expresses accurately the milieu of its recipes'. If you need any additional blessing on the book's authenticity, see the sincerely written Foreword by Patricia Wells.

The book is divided by the origin of the produce and the occasions for eating in the life of a French farm family. The first chapter of recipes gives the French take on the meze tradition. Since the whole of the Mediterranean world from Spain to Turkey takes a mid-afternoon break with tapas or Mezes or what have you, why should we expect the queen of Mediterranean cuisine to be any different (I reserve the role of king for the Italians). In this chapter, we see that chestnuts are not exclusively a northern Italian specialty. Gascony, among other provinces also claims chestnuts as an important food. My most interesting discovery is a recipe for anchoiade, a Provencal spread akin to tapenade made from anchovies. Yum.

The second chapter is devoted to soup. This chapter and the third chapter on salads will be most familiar to any readers of French cookbooks. The fourth chapter on dairy includes the obligatory recipe for an omelet. The variations on omelets are most interesting. The most valuable recipe may be for fromage blanc (white cheese) which is to the French countryside what yogurt is to the eastern Mediterranean.

The fifth chapter does chicken, and it is not limited to roasted chicken. The most interesting recipe is `Poule au Pot' where an old hen is stuffed with meats and vegetables and stewed, accompanied with vegetables to add taste to the broth, followed by additional vegetables to serve as a side dish. If nothing else, this recipe shows that complex preparations are not the invention of men in tall hats and bad attitudes. The chapter includes a fair number of duck and rabbit recipes as well.

The sixth chapter on the pasture is devoted to beef. True to the French love of the long braise, the headline recipe in this chapter is a daube, which is characterized by a very long marinade in wine followed by cooking without searing the meat, or at least that is what I thought until I read this recipe from Provence. That's why I read a lot of cookbooks. No one writer has the full story.

The seventh chapter is on fish. As expected, salt cod occupies the most prominent role in these recipes. You also encounter pibales, tiny eels from the Basque region that I have not seen mentioned since I read a cookbook from Daniel Boulud. The eighth chapter is devoted to vegetables, one of my favorite subjects, as one can easily afford to buy vegetables for eight to ten veggie dishes a week, while stretching two or three meat dishes over the same period. As expected, the favorite techniques for preparation are the gratin, the braise, and the puree. The favorite ingredients are the eggplant, broccoli, potatoes, and green beans. One important dish from the Basque region is the Piperade, a dish of heavily cooked vegetables and cured ham, sometimes with eggs. Like it's sister dish, the Provencal ratatouille and many others, the French always seem to cook the bejesus out of their vegetables.

The ninth chapter is all about artisinal bread, primarily sourdough bread made with `Le Levain', a starter which lives and breathes from week to week. One landmark in my culinary education was when I discovered that sourdough is not unique to San Francisco. That benighted city may have something truly unique in the world of artisinal breads, but Europe has been doing bread with natural yeasts for centuries. One can do worse than starting your artisinal bread exposure with this chapter. It includes recipes for my favorite olive bread, an interesting change from the olive bread of Rhodes. The chapter also covers savory tarts, one of my truly favorite French inventions. The tenth chapter is on sweets, primarily the kind eaten when their English brothers would be taking tea.

The last chapter has the recipes that always make me yearn for a true pantry that would stay naturally cool the year around. The stars of the chapter are jellies, jams, preserves, and marmalades. The sidebar on the contents of a French Farm Pantry is one of the most realistic I have seen, as it contains nothing which will not last several months without mechanical refrigeration or freezing. One unusual type of preparation in this chapter is in the recipes for flavored wines. More common are the recipes for flavored vinegars.

Aside from a wealth of lore, the book adds to our culinary French by providing many `astuce' or tips on dish preparations.

Highly recommended to cookbook readers of all stripes. Many recipes are easy, some, like daubes, breads, and Poule au Pot and its cousins are involved. This book is great culinary entertainment and information.

I received this cookbook at my Bridal Shower. I had never heard of the author before, but began to read the cookbook as a book. I was most impressed by the contents.

Each recipe gives us a short story to where the recipe originated...location in France, and the family that makes it.

I enjoyed the cookbook immensely as the author lives in France, yet is American, so she can explain how to replace those ingredients that we don't have here in the United States.

Later, I began cooking from the book. Let me tell you, I was getting raving reviews from my fellow co-workers and since, the baby group I joined.

I would recommned this book. Her recipes are easy to read and not complicated at all. Plus, it gives you the feeling that you are somewhere else...far away from your cares...to a more simpler time...the French Countryside!

Though I'd always fancied myself a good cook, I could never make a pie/tart crust,(the dough would tear as I rolled it out, among other frustrations), until this book. Armed with a food processor and this great book, it's a snap.

Having said that, it should be noted the recipes are easy, and a senual delight. Moreover, Ms. Loomis gives one a cultural taste of rural France, which is provocative.

Check out her Italian Farmhouse Cookbook as well. It is luscious.

Simply one of the best recipe books for rural French cooking. The recipes are not terribly difficult, but they do presuppose that you already know basic cooking techniques. For instance, I just recently made the Roast Chicken with Tarragon, and the instructions say to trusse and roast it until its golden brown. While this is not difficult, it does assume you know how to trusse a chicken for roasting.

I have made so many recipes in this cookbook, especially for side dishes. Some of my favorites are Cauliflower and Cream, Green Beans with Onions, and Green Beens with Walnuts.

Like other reviewers, I appreciate the author's anecdotes and sidebars.

I would recommend Julia Child's The Way to Cook as a good companion to this book. It teaches many of the techniques that are needed to successfully execute some of these recipes.

The foods in here are tasty and simple. There are stories, tips and tricks that add so much to the experience of cooking these recipes- you really get a feel for the people of the regions represented. If this book has a shortcoming, it's that the south/central regions of France are a little under represented, but there are TONS of good recipes from the north.

This is one cookbook that I can find recipes easily without bookmarks- how? By the stains and stiffened pages the book has from enduring my ownership!

I served for two years in southwestern France as a Mormon missionary. When I came home to Calgary, Alberta I pined for the simple, fresh, unpretentious food I'd grown used to eating in rural France. Luckily the French Farmhouse Cookbook was first published about four months before I got home, and when I stumbled on it by accident in a bookshop I was overjoyed.

Not only are the recipes authentic and accessible, but the stories Ms. Loomis tells about how food is raised and grown -- how seriously the farmers and growers view their work -- ring absolutely true to my experience living in France. I've never found another North American book so true to real French family food.

Especially useful are recipes for small things that one can take for granted at any supermarket in France -- creme fraiche, sucre vanille, quatre epices, etc. -- but that are hard come by in most US or Canadian stores. You can substitute other ingredients (sour cream for creme fraiche) but it's not quite the same; the effort the author took to include everything needed to reproduce the authentic experience is another reason this is my favorite French cookbook. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The stories about the actual farms and farmers who provide the recipes and ingredients in this wonderful book are fascinating. Nothing is taken for granted, and meals are extensively discussed and savored. Memorable is the story accompanying the recipe for Duck with Prunes in which the cook providing the recipe explains apologetically that the recipe is from another region of France, but "we love it so much, we cook it all the time."
The farmers' pride in the quality of their produce and livestock, and the care with which Susan Herrmann Loomis specifies exactly what kind of oranges, or chickens or asparagus are to be used in each recipe inspire a very unAmerican way of viewing cooking and eating, in which only the finest ingredients are perfectly cooked. The descriptions of the walnut farms, the Bresse chicken farm, the vanishing family farms are evocative of a great foreign film. After reading this book cover to cover, I feel as though I've had a course in French rural culture--with refreshments. Highly recommended!

My French cookbooks usually sit on the shelf untouched because the recipes are too complicated or the ingredients are too difficult to find. This book is totally different and makes French country cooking a pleasure. You must try the daube. The taste was amazing for such an easy recipe.

My wife is French, her sole and all-absorbing passion in life is cooking. She has two armoires filled with cookbooks, including all the classics. This is her favorite. All of the recipes she has made from this book have been exquisite. Two thumbs up, and all eight fingers! This is a must-have!
Bon Appetit!

This is one of the most practical and most referred to book on my cooking shelf. This book is extremely practical because Loomis uses easy-to-find ingredients and the recipees for entrees can be made in 30 minutes or couple of hours (but most of that is waiting time). The instructions are detailed but to the point and tips are delighful. There is also a good diversity in the complexity of the dishes but most are relatively simple, as they were farm-house cooking, meaning either they had to be put together very fast before dinner, or tossed into the oven or stove before doing the days' chores, and to be enjoyed at night after a long stewing/braising/etc. The dishes (esp the basque region dishes) are very flavorful and bring out the best flavors in the ingredient. Highly recommended for enhancing/inspiring your home cooking.