I generally find french cooking to be overly fatty and fussy. My folks had Mastering the Art of French Cooking in their book shelf, so I was aware of it from an early age. When we were in Monterey, so I would have been around 17, my dad made a meal out of Bistro by Patricia Wells, basque chicken and potato leek soup. One of my strongest food memories. I remember getting up the next day and finishing off the cold leftover soup, and vinegar-y bell peppers/onions with bread for breakfast. Fast forward to being in San Diego for master's degree, I read Mastering quite a bit, a lamb moussaka was one of the best things I made. I was always put off by soup recipes, where they'd make a soup base out of interesting things, then strain away all solids and throw them out. Also peeling and trimming/shaping vegetables. These activities struck me as being wasteful. So there are some french influences in my cooking, but I've always been a little distrustful.
In 2011 my ex's friend + french boyfriend visited. Super fun. We ate, and talked about food while we ate, and planned our next meal before the current one was done. Felt really good to share food with people so interested in it.
Lately I'm eating less and less meat and cheese, flirting with going vegan, but doubt I ever will. Also dealing with animals in the garden makes me non-vegan... Anyway I got a little vegan french cookbook, Tres Green, Tres Clean, Tres Chic. I haven't made that much from it, but it's inspiring. Though still quite fussy :)
A while ago Bill Buford wrote a fantastic book about learning to cook in Italy, called Heat. His latest book is about french cooking, called Dirt. It really ramps up the fatty (butter everywhere; quite a few people in the book die of diet related issues in their 40s/50s) and the fussy (haute cuisine kitchen) but I loved it. Maybe it's because it allowed me to live vicariously with food that for sure I know I'll never cook or eat. But there also was some accessible food. And I really identified with how obsessed people were with food. The book started off a little rocky for me as he didn't seem too modern with sharing parenting responsibilities. Then when the family moved to France he started off trying to get into kitchens based on his literary/journalistic bona fides, it seemed disrespectful. The book turned around for me once he started interning with Bob the baker. Learning about the pride Bob took was inspiring, I also liked his focus on ingredient quality, for instance he got his flour from specific small farmers in a specific region of France. After that Buford attended the Paul Bocuse culinary school, paying his dues both literally and figuratively, and got into a haute cuisine kitchen. What a strange social dynamic, I'd read elsewhere (I think in Pepin's book, the Apprentice) about how abusive people can be. Super interesting if a little uncomfortable. The rest of the book concerned little anecdotes from the 5 years the family lived in Lyon. Charming. Oh, one last thing. There was a recurring theme of linking the cooking of Italy and France. It's a trope of food historians that the Medici's brought chefs from Italy to France during the renaissance. The french apparently don't acknowledge this, I found that kinda funny! One interesting tidbit was that the french word 'ragout' begat the italian word 'ragu' and not vice versa. Perhaps this is too in the weeds but I find food history super interesting.
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