Customer Reviews

When French Women Cook: A Gastronomic Memoir

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OK I bought this book on a whim. I'm not sure why I bought it over the other dozens of books on french cooking/lifestyle that I read the reviews about. I suspect it was on someone's list and they made it sound appealing. I have read it (parts of it I have reread). I have cooked many recipes from it. The book is appealing.

First, the recipes are wonderful. The saute of wild mushrooms is the best. The browned veal stock took me alot of research on epicurious.com (reviewing other recipes) to fill in the missing steps. Once I experimented with it, I thought it was excellent. I never appreciated the importance of homemade stock until I read this book. Now I have lots of it ready for defrosting. But the book has more to offer than recipes.

This book is perhaps at its best in that it sheds light on a way of life that has passed or is passing. It provides insight into the very different regions and origins of the people of early twentieth century France. I came away with a new appreciation for the people and their cuisine. A very worthwhile investment.

`When French Women Cook' by Madeleine Kamman is one of the very best in a genre which may be called culinary anthropology, a genre closely related to the memoir and the survey of local cuisines, but still a bit different. It is more than a memoir in that it provides many useful recipes serving a much greater purpose than simply illustrations of an event or a point, as you find in, for example, Ruth Reichl's excellent memoirs. They are also a bit less than a full survey of a culinary terroir, as you may find in Paula Wolfert's excellent books, in that they tend to deal with the recipes of a specific group of people. The three other leading examples of this little genre are Patience Gray's `Honey from a Stone', Richard Olney's `Lulu's Provencal Kitchen', and Amanda Hesser's `The Gardner and the Cook'.

Madeleine Kamman is an odd duck in the pantheon of English language writers on French cuisine. She is really a cookbook author of the first order, especially with her excellent text `The New Making of a Cook', but she has always been a bit in the shadow of Julia Child, Elizabeth David, and Richard Olney. According to Child's biographer, there was even a substantial amount of rancor towards Child on Kamman's part, after the success of Child's book and TV shows and before Kamman achieved recognition with her original `The Making of a Cook'.

Like the other three notable books in this genre, this is a cookbook which is meant to be read from cover to cover. It's culinary content and its anecdotal introductions to each of the chapters are all great reading. The book tells the story of eight French women cooks, all of whom Mme. Kamman, who is herself, of French birth, knew before she left France for the United States in 1960 (coincidentally about the same time as Jacques Pepin, another major French culinary import to the US). As Shirley Corriher points out in her new Foreword, by some happy chance, the eight women came from a very diverse collection of French culinary centers. And, this diversity is easily one of the most useful and enjoyable aspects of the book. One sees clearly the difference between the cuisine of Normandy, laden with its apples and butter, and the cuisine of Alsace, for example, with its sauerkraut and sausages, so similar to its German neighbor's cuisine. So, this book becomes a major dissertation on examples of terroir, the French doctrine that is conveniently paraphrased as `What grows together, goes together'.

Ms. Kamman confirms the role of this book by insisting that there are many ingredients to many of these recipes that simply cannot be had in the United States. A major issue, for example is her claim that it is senseless for us to create `crème fraiche' in our kitchens, as there is simply no way we can reproduce the flavor and result obtained from the true French product. How idiosyncratic this position is can be seen from the fact that many cookbooks I have seen which presented French cuisine gives a recipe for `crème fraiche'. Interestingly enough, however, is the fact that Julia Child, in `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' allows that American cream typically doesn't match the butterfat content of the French product, but does allow that one can approximate the product by mixing in a little buttermilk and letting the mix stand for a bit. In Ms. Kamman's favor, she simply tells us to use heavy cream when the recipe calls for `crème fraiche'.

But getting back to the recipes, I find virtually all of them delightful to read and delicious in anticipating my trying them and tasting the results. Since the book's chapters and recipes are organized by person and by region in France, the recipes are not organized for easy location for a good dish for chicken or veal or artichokes. Gratins, my favorite type of dish, for example, appear among the recipes for each of the eight chapters. This being so, it is almost a shame that Mme. Kamman took such great pains to give us a measure of the cost and the difficulty of the recipes, as one will generally not use this book to find quick or cheap recipes. For that, we go to Rachael Ray.

Nevertheless, these recipes are really top drawer in both selection and in the detail with which the author describes the procedures. One thing I really like about the text which may be a little intimidating to some readers is that while Ms. Kamman is very careful in describing things, she does expect a modicum of knowledge about French cooking. Not every French culinary term is translated and you may have to consult her textbook for her preferences on what to put in the `bouquet garni', or even to find out what a `bouquet garni' is.

One of the surest tests of whether or not I like a cookbook is whether I anticipate the recipe for a dish and actually find a recipe for that very dish in the book. This happened as I ran across a gratin recipe for mushrooms and potatoes. This seemed to be such a natural dish that I thought it was inevitable that there should be such a recipe, and there was.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who likes to read about cooking in general.

I first encountered this book through the aisles of my public library. I re-checked it so many times that I had to see if it was still in print. To my happy surprise it was. I love it for the great recipes and the warm and rich memories of a by-gone time; though I did find mention of a place I had travelled to on my honeymoon in 1996--a qaint little town called Annecy, in France. She described her experience much as I had recalled my own happy time there! This book is simply enchanting and everything I've made from it has been a rewarding and deliciously wonderful dining experience. Try the Green Beans Brittany Style or the simple Escarole Salad. Really good!

All the best and very deserved praise for this book has been covered by other reviewers. It is a very usable book even for those relatively new to cooking.
Another really great book on French cooking with great reading is "The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth."

This book is for anyone who has ever wished to learn how to cook at the skirts of a tiny, capable, traditional Grandmother but never got to.
The recipes are complicated, using crazy ingredients and completely not for anyone under the supervision of a cardiologist (every one consumes sticks upon sticks of butter, gobs of heavy cream and is usually wrapped in some sort of pork product.) But the memories are vivid, gorgeous and well worth the trip. I probably won't be roasting a hare anytime soon, or going on a hike to find my own mushrooms, but I love this book. It's a beautiful page from history that should be read by anyone who loves food and family and a splash or two of good French wine.

This book is so beautifully and poetically written that I wanted to go inside each chapter tribute and live each story.

I made the Heavy Cream Brioche, which mixes like a cake mix and bakes in a bundt pan. It was easy and delicious with a cake-like, crispy crust and a rich, tender crumb.

Wonderful cookbook! An absolute joy!

Is it really possible to cook French food? I wonder how hard this recipe book will be...probably impossible. Aren't all French cookbooks a little hard to understand, my last one was...oh well, I have jet lag keeping me awake, I might as well read this somewhat interesting French cookbook my mother set out for me to read on our return from Europe...here goes!

Incredible! Amazing! When can I start cooking this food? I'm going to give this book as Christmas gifts to all my "Reader-Friends" because this isn't just a classy cookbook, this is an old world novel!

You'll never know that French cooking could be so de---liciously-romantic (need I go on?);

possible to cook? - even for the novice (like yourself!);

exciting! - because you can use all the taboo "fat" foods like butter and cream (we all know that butter and cream makes everything taste better), and without gaining weight (!!)...

Yes, you'll never know until you read "When French Women Cook" (similar to reading a classic, century-old-novel) that you too can actually cook this practical, sumptuous food and be known as a gourmet French chef. (well, almost!)

At least you can say you read this fantastic cookbook-novel that inspired you to cook these incredible tasting dishes! I think one should go to Madeleine Kamman's French Cooking School in France to really qualify as a pro French chef.

OK ?...Let's go!...Bonjour!