The Cook and the Gardener : A Year of Recipes and Writings for the French Countryside (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Kate Gridley (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Cook and the Gardener is Amanda Hesser's first book. From the opening lines of its introduction, her literary gifts are as evident as her passion for good food. Since this work combines recipes with her essays about Monsieur Milbert (the gardener at the Chateau du Fey in Burgundy, where Hesser worked as the cook), readers get to enjoy both of her talents.

Hesser worked hard to get M. Milbert to talk with her. She shares the careful, deliberate way she wooed him, sometimes by bringing freshly baked bread to his less mobile wife, sometimes by holding back questions she wanted to ask, just to win his tolerance of her presence. Crusty, surly, and tradition-bound, he is the quintessential French peasant. Fortunately, Hesser--who is respectful and patient even when M. Milbert's stubborn ways exasperated her--knows he is an almost-vanished breed. None of his children, or anyone else, is likely to work as he has, continuing to live mainly off the land for nearly 60 years.

Each chapter covers a month, starting with March, when the nearly 400-year-old walled garden comes to life. Hesser talks about the garden, how she used the bounty gathered by M. Milbert, and muses on life in and around Burgundy. In September, "the rains seemed to clean off and illuminate the plants' colors ... everything seemed to wake up, as after a hot, cranky nap." The final tomatoes are harvested, as are the green and butter beans, with Milbert sneakily keeping the best for himself. Hesser visits a neighbor's Portuguese-style garden, as exuberant and vivid as Milbert's is restrained and disciplined. She cooks sautéed red snapper with tomatoes, fennel, and vermouth; makes a profound Tomato Consommé; and slow roasts tomatoes into meltingly tender mounds.

Sepia drawings by Kate Gridley add to the low-key charm of this information-packed work. (It even includes a history of purslane going back to the Middle Ages.)

The knowledge and maturity of this work belie Hesser's youth. Not yet 30 at the time of writing, she's a wise cook worth following. --Dana Jacobi

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who have been pining for a new literary cookbook need look no further. The cook of the title is the author, a staff reporter for the "Dining In/Dining Out" section of the New York Times. The gardener is a crusty, irascible French country gardener of considerable age and vast experience. Hesser met M. Milbert when she began cooking for Anne Willan, founder of the cooking school La Varenne, at Willan's estate in Burgundy, France, where Milbert and his wife were caretakers, a job they took on after selling their small farm. With respect and grace, Hesser describes her encounters with Milbert in his domain, the estate's one-acre garden, tracing four seasons' worth of interwoven gardening and cooking. Beginning in spring, Hesser makes use of what's freshest in such recipes as Early Carrots with Tarragon Beurre Blanc, Warm Roasted Shallots with Balsamic Vinegar and Braised Lamb with Garlic, Asparagus and Peas. Summer recipes range from Sauteed Duck with Artichokes to Zucchini-Lemon Soup, Striped Bass and Fennel and Seared Tomatoes with Olive Oil and Sage. In similar fashion, recipes for the fall and winter months make use of the seasons' offerings: Red Beets with Shallots and Sage, Pear-and-Almond Tart and White Sausages with Turnips and Butternut Squash. Like Milbert's approach to growing herbs, fruits and vegetables, Hesser's recipes follow the traditional French country techniques and are neither fussy nor marked by shortcuts. Seamlessly including basics?e.g., pastry doughs, stocks (one for each season), preserves and mayonnaises?in the introductions to the seasons, Hesser delivers a solid grounding for beginning cooks as well; or at least for those whose interest is in preparing food with fresh ingredients (and who don't need to learn how to cook broccoli, which apparently Milbert didn't grow). Hesser's voice, as she carefully earns Milbert's trust, becoming finally in his words, la petite jardiniere, is as sure and convincing as is her hand in the kitchen. Cooks who pick from Hesser's 200 month-by-month recipes will easily imagine themselves at least momentarily transported to the French countryside.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; Later prt. edition (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393046680
• ISBN-13: 978-0393046687
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #64,152 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unusually Charming Read, April 6, 2000

By A Customer

Now this is an unusually charming read! Ms. Hesser gives us insight into a nearly lost world, that of food lovingly, knowledgeably, and patiently produced over changing seasons and then carefully prepared to celebrate and enhance delghtful flavors she learns are coaxed from the earth - information presented in the most charming of stories. The chateau's diverse two acre walled garden was designed to supply all the produce for the estate in earlier centuries and now supplies herself as chateau chef. Ms. Hesser allows us inside her own journey of discovery as she comes to appreciate the art of gardening from Monsieur Milbert, the aging estate gardener, new joy in the seasons and nature, and a newfound connectedness to the origins of the food she is trained to enhance. Here, gardeners will find knowledge your great grandmother knew; old and tried tips and tricks about everything from orchards and vines to mice and radishes and planting with the moon. Cooks will also find an excess of tips and tricks not seen elsewhere. Readers will find a rich story of country life, past and present, a fascinating character in Monsieur Milbert, and a young chef who discovers new richness in her life and work. The mind, heart and senses are expanded here. Those looking for just recipes - though they are good - will be disappointed for this is a story to be read and savored. (by the way, she usually replaces excess butter and cream with olive oil, etc. but granola diet this is not) Who will like this book? Those who love to eat and cook, those who love to garden, those who love history and lost ways of doing things, those who love journeys, professional chefs, Francophiles, real readers, and those us who are yearning for refreshment of the spirit, depth, connectedness, and joy in life. I cannot wait for her next book! Meanwhile this will sit, worth the price, treasured on my shelf to be reread through the years. This is also a book for special gift giving.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to a delightful Genre. A foodie must read., April 9, 2004

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

`The Cook and the Gardner' by the young culinary journalist who has added a thoroughly enjoyable chronicle of seasonal cooking and gardening to that very small niche of books joining horticulture with gastronomy. The only other recent volume in this very small corner of culinary writing is `The Arrows Cookbook', a work dealing with the vegetable and herb garden attached to a three season Maine restaurant.

Like some other recent books on French life, this book develops a picture of a disappearing phenomenon, the chateau kitchen garden in rural France, tended by a dedicated gardener living on the premises. The chateau and garden is in Burgundy, owned by the renowned Anne Willen, the culinary schoolmistress of La Varenne Pratique. Oddly enough, Madame Willen never appears in this story and her works are cited less frequently than authors with a more historical bent, led by references to works by Elizabeth David. Willen appears primarily as the author's employer. The author's mentor, rather, is the Italian culinary authority, Nancy Harmon Jenkins. It is completely fitting with the antiquity of the context that most references in the book's exceptional bibliography are to works in French and Italian which were published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The cook of the book's title is the author, herself. The gardener of the book is the garrulous, elderly (mid seventies) Monsieur Milbert who, with his wife, occupies the chateau's gatehouse and who works the chateau's traditional walled garden which appears to be a square of 50 meters or more to a side. The author's story begins in early spring and spans four full seasons at the Burgundy chateau kitchen where her `day job' is responsibility for meals served at the chateau for up to sixteen people at a sitting.

Monsieur Milbert on the face of it is a stock Hollywood movie character. He is very slow to warm to the young American interloper, in spite of the fact that they are colleagues in the employ of the same house. Eventually, of course, he begins working with Ms. Hesser and shares with her his thinkings on horticultural matters as she helps him with various tasks to work her way into his good graces. Unlike the Hollywood character, Monsieur Milbert never really breaks from his very, very provincial mindset. The gardener's horticultural practice is the oddest mix of superstition and practical experience. Almost every aspect of planting is governed by phases of the moon. Almost every expectation about future weather is based on a totally unscientific observation of unconnected phenomena. On the other hand, planting, pruning, weeding, and cultivating is based on sound wisdom gained from personal observation and hundreds of years of accumulated experience.

The culinary material in the book is ordered entirely by the season and by the location. In spite of the culinary pedigree of the landlord, the style of cooking appears to be derived less from `haute cuisine' than from `la cuisine Regionale'. The first clue is that there are very few references to drinking wine in the book. The only references to wine are as traditional ingredients to soups and braises. A sure sign that we are in Burgundy and not Provence is the fact that there are simply no recipes or even any references to eggplant.

Each season has its own section and introduction. For each season, there are recipes that are distinctive of the entire season. One of the most novel sets of recipes within this schema is the four seasonal recipes for stock. Spring opens with a stock based on beef bones. Summer contributes a vegetable stock. Autumn weighs in with a poultry stock (with a strict warning to not mix duck parts with other fowl). Winter completes the year with a return to a stock based on beef bones. On the matter of stocks, I am really happy to see Ms. Hesser rail against the stockpot as garbage collector for any odd piece of leftover gristle.

Within each season are three chapters on the three months in that season. Each month is represented by about a dozen recipes. Appropriate to the garden at the center of the story, most recipes are vegetarian and many meat dishes are based on chicken, game fowl, and rabbit. There are virtually no recipes for seafood, although there is some North African influence in the appearance of salt preserved lemons. The chapters also spend a lot of time with the kind of culinary work you would expect in a rural farm kitchen. A lot of space is dedicated to making preserves, pickles, and comfits. True to the very provincial environment, space is also dedicated to unusual fruits such as medlar and persimmon.

This is a culinary work which is meant to be read from cover to cover. If you have your own kitchen garden in US horticultural zones four through seven, you are bound to find the suggestions doubly enriching. If you are tied to a city apartment, you will still find plenty to enjoy. There is much to learn about cooking, but the real gold is in the battle between the French gardener and his neophyte cook comrade against the elements, to harvest truly magnificent seasonal vegetables.

A classic culinary read. Some advanced methods, but lots to learn from.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful story, May 19, 2000

By A Customer

My favorite thing about this book are the stories. As you read about the author's life in the Chateau you really get the feeling that you're there with her. The recipes are lovely, but I find that because she did most of her cooking for large groups of people, and because she had all day to cook, most of the recipies are not very useful for someone who, like me, comes home after a day of work with 30 minutes to an hour to put dinner together. Regardless, the book is very inspirational. I love the emphasis on seasonal produce, and, as I wrote earlier, the stories are great.