Customer Reviews

Pourcel Brothers Cookbook: Our Recipes from La Compagnie des Comptoirs

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The `Pourcel Brothers Cookbook' by twin brothers Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, the owners of several restaurants in London, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Montpellier and Avignon, France is a reasonably priced ($29.95) oversized volume which has the look of being primarily an advertisement for their restaurants, especially the ones in southern France. It also has the look of a volume destined for a quick trip to the bargain book table, but with one or two good features to redeem it from mediocrity.

The first strong feature of the book is its photography, which benefits from pictures of very nicely designed restaurant interiors in both France and England. The second strong feature is the dual index of recipes, listing all recipes alphabetically by title and by chapter. The third and best feature is the chapter introductions that have very nice little takes on world cuisine.

The biggest single limitation of the book is that it is a restaurant book through and through. What's worse, it is a restaurant book for a two (Michelin) star restaurant, which cannot reach and retain its two stars without offering fine, original examples of French `haute cuisine'. The problem with this is that this is the type of dish that is not easily translated to the home dinner table. This is especially true with the level of competition, at least in American markets, among excellent homegrown restaurant cookbooks by Eric Ripert, Frank Stitt, Patrick O'Connell, Thomas Keller, Rick Tramonto, Bob Kinkead, Todd English, Charlie Trotter, Daniel Boulud, and Michael Romano. And, that doesn't even graze the surface of the Italian and French Bistro cuisines represented, for example, by Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain.

Among other things, the dishes are limited by mixing hard to find ingredients and a relatively large amount of prep work. This latter situation signals recipes that are prepped for dozens of servings at a time. When these dishes are scaled down to a few servings, it means you need to prep a small amount of a lot of ingredients.

The Pourcel cuisine is deeply fusion based with lots of dishes combining ingredients from all over the world. In a provocative essay on modern fusion being a lot like what happened when New World produce was introduced to Europe, the authors justify their dishes by saying they are simply doing the same thing that happened when the galleons brought back tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes back from America.

I suggest that there is a major difference and that the authors' premise has a serious flaw. Tomatoes, peppers, beans, and potatoes took root in European cuisines because they grew easily in Europe, especially around the Mediterranean. We do not see olives and olive oil overrunning Mexican cuisine (going in the opposite direction) because olive trees simply did not grow well in Mexico. So, dishes that mix eggplant and pineapple simply didn't work 300 years ago, because the pineapple did not grow around the Mediterranean.

Unlike most books by Keller, Ripert, and the others, this book offers no great insights into restaurant cooking and dealing with ingredients. The statements they do make, such as their talking up their fusion cuisine simply does not impress me.

If you happen to like collecting restaurant cookbooks, this is better than some, since the French and the English know a thing or two about putting together attractive books, but if you are simply after unusual new recipes, I recommend Fredy Girardet's recent book (`girardet Recipes from a Master of French Cuisine). Girardet is commonly considered the best French chef currently active in the kitchen.