Customer Reviews

Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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This is another excellent book by Joan Nathan, and really worth owning! We've enjoyed several Algerian and Moroccan salads and vegetable dishes, and I intend to try many more dishes. The book covers way more than couscous and kugel, and it's really something special and worth having.

Riding in the car, heard an interview on the radio, in which Joan Nathan talked about having matah balls made with bone marrow, and I pulled over and ordered the book even though I didn't know if the recipe was in it!

It's an interesting cookbook, but more valuable to me as a history book. The intersection of North African, Jewish and French culture is well explored in the text and is a great read.

The recipes are pretty well dispersed, one supposes a fairly accurate array of what French Jews cook at home - but this is maybe a little different than French/Jewish cuisine? A lot of the recipes are easily found in other sources, and don't require any adaptation to make them kosher, or are not too far afield from what could be found, or inspired by, in a good vegetarian cookbook - like quiche without lardons, celeriac remoulade, or Roquefort souffle.

The North African recipes are the most interesting, but so far the versions I've tried from this book are less lively than the ones in my Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian cookbooks - and have not needed any modifications to be kosher.

So - its more a "living room" historical and cultural book for me - and an excellent one in that respect - rather than a manual I'll use in the kitchen.

Joan Nathan tells great stories and ties them into her wonderful-sounding recipes. I'm looking forward to tying them very soon. In the meantime, they seem to be accurately presented and with sufficiently specific directions to make them easy to prepare. But be sure you're strong enough to hold the book -- it's heavy -- and its printed on very heavy and substantial paper! Lots of great history!

I love all the stories and photos about the cooks whose recipes the author used. It makes for a very personalized cookbook.

Some of the recipes can't be found anywhere else and I'm excited to try more recipes for Jewish dishes that are quite different from the expected American-Jewish staples.

More details about the book and some of the recipes are at boldlygosolo dot com, December 6 post.

My copy came this morning (Sat. Oct 30) and I've read the intro and much of the boxed text. It has lots of interesting summaries of the Jewish experience in France for 200 years -- the recipes look good too. I was surprised at what a beautiful book it is: color photos, nice layout. Glad I didn't get it on a Kindle. But the pages have normal edges.

I really enjoyed reading the stories about the Jews in France and the recipes look great (I just received it and have not cooked from the book yet) but I can tell that the recipes are good since I'm an experienced cook/baker, etc. and can tell generally whether a recipe will come out good or not just by looking at it. Nice pictures throughout also though not quite at the artistic level of Martha Stewart's books (which no one else has even come close anyway, to be fair to this author).

This book combines my two great loves - French food and Jewish food, so thank you!

My copy also has the normal machine cut edge -- which I like better actually than the fancy edge because it's easier to find a recipe in a hurry.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I have recommended it highly to over half a dozen people as so much more than a cookbook. It has history, context, geography, cooking tips and is a truly fascinating look at both French and Jewish history, culture and food ways. I have savored every story and have only made one recipe yet, but it was amazingly delicious. She makes this amazing cuisine both enticing and accessible. I look forward to reading more of her books. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ms. Nathans has created a truly beautiful book that cannot be reasonably called just a cookbook. Her travels and research into Jewish cuisine in France made me long to return for another trip and follow her footsteps! Her recipes are so descriptive that you just want to make all them right away. But it is her history of Jewish life, history and cuisine in France that is so fascinating that I just sat down and went through the book in one sitting. This is the work of an artist who knows her craft and knows how to tell a story. Even if you don't keep kosher, these recipes will please you.

-Marsey

Baltimore, MD

This is a gem of a cookbook; thoroughly researched - and thoroughly delicious. Very happy to have this book as part of my cookbook collection.

If you are looking for a new approach to kosher cooking - for instance, seeking to re-invent some of the Eastern European classics that predominate Jewish cooking in the US - this book should prove to be inspired. This is, in part, due to the fact there is a larger Sephardic presence in many of the recipes presented. However, given that the village of Ashkenaz is in Alsace, France, the book does demonstrate that the cooking descent of European-descended Jew is richer than most imagine.

I was very pleasantly surprised at this history/cookbook from Joan Nathan. I have been a Joan Nathan fan for many years and have many of her cookbooks. I will try many of these recipes and have already earmarked so many interesting ones. As you go through the cookbook there are pages with the recipes of individual peoples Jewish French History and the recipes they had. People who immigrated from North Africa, and the Mediterranaen and how they influenced French Jewish cooking. I am very happy I ordered this cookbook and besides cooking learned a history lesson.