here and there

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Madame Benoit cooks at home


Yesterday, I popped into Chapters and then Value Village to see if there were any  classic cookbooks and to my delight I found  a copy of Madame Benoit cooks at home (1978).. for $3.99..It was a Christmas Gift in 1982 and it looks like it has never been  used or read.. I love her books as she writes a little about each recipe as to the origin or history.. In this book she talks about the influences on her life and her cooking career.. Her greatest influence was Doctor de pomaine who worked as a physician at the Institute Pasteur  in  Paris  and also wrote books on cooking where you are seeing and smelling as you follow his recipe. He believed that one needed to understand food chemistry to understand food transformation and what it does to one's body. In the early1900, he also felt as distance between places shorten that we would come to know all the  cuisines of the world. How remarkable a statement that was!  In her introduction shealso talks of the influences of her parents and grandparents in her love of food.

Of note, Madame graduated from Le Cordon Bleu 25 years before Julia Childs
In checking reviews on her books, I came across the following Blog and this particular book.
 
http://backyardfarmsto.blogspot.com/2010/01/canjam-episode-1-citrus-fruit.html

I look forward to reading  this book that is so much more than a cookbook 

1 comment:

Here and There said...

http://backyardfarmsto.blogspot.com/

Just noticed that the link to Backyd farms does not work in my posting!