French Provincial Cooking

View other editions of French Provincial Cooking.
View books by Elizabeth David.

"Cut a cockrerel into joints".... - Rated
I bought this book on eBay and found myself in proud possession of a hardcover `second edition' reprint from 1965. (I have no idea if the current version is updated or even converted to metric, sorry).
Elizabeth is a darling ! and definitely the first English Domestic Goddess, long before Nigella et al came onto the scene. Her delivery of these many, many regional recipes is neither as school madam-ish as early Delia, nor as infuriatingly chummy as Jamie-the-mockeny-Oliver. She engages us in such a way as to make one really believe that nobody cooks like the French, but at the same time that anyone can recreate this culinary wonderland here in grey old England.
This book is so much more than a list of recipes, it is an adventure in France. Given that, when it was written, France was somewhere most of us had only heard of, this book takes us on a fascinating tour into the psyche of a foreign people.
Buy this book today. Even if you have absolutely no interest in cooking. It really is that rip-roaring a read !

A perfect pot of memories - Rated
I still have my first copy given me in 1975. Its very well thumbed! A great read, written like a recipe journal, in an easy flowing style, with a no nonesense approach to ingredients - only the best and freshest is tolerated, cooked to bring out the best in the ingredients- you get out what you put in - and a ton of butter! A palpable feeling of nostalgia pervades these recipes. Having cooked with fresh ingredients in many countries, I understand completely why ED warns us against attempts to recreate authenticity. It cannot be done. All we can do is turn the pages and let her memories guide us through all our yesterdays....our tongues savouring the memory of perfect carrot soup or pot au feu cooked up 27 years ago on the camping stove in a field in the Dordogne as we watched the sun set,sniffed the dew in the air and.....Ahhh, those were the days.....

Penguin degrades the experience - Rated
I bought this edition to replace our Penguin book from 1964 which had gradually worn into a pile of disconnected pages over decades of loving use. All the inspiring writing is still there, of course, all the no-nonsense, no compromise common sense of Elizabeth David that makes this book an essential for anyone who loves to eat well, cook well, or both. But oh, Penguin, you have chosen the cheapest of thick paper, and the print is woefully smaller than the old edition, on pages that are larger! This looks like a scan of a hardback edition. Juliet Renny's delicate line drawings now appear coarsened. Once upon a time, French Provincial Cooking was mostly for browsing -- you simply could not find all the ingredients. Today you can get everything, so you have the pleasure of cooking authentic French dishes with Elizabeth David's unparalleled expert guidance. Nevertheless, you will still want to settle down and read your way through recipes you plan to make some day and learn what makes them so good, and you might just want to do it with a rather nicer edition than this one. So 4 stars out of 4 for the content and 0 stars out of 1 for the production.

Simply the best - Rated
This is undoubtedly the greatest cookery book ever published in the UK.

Mrs David's passion and knowledge just comes through on every page. The background essays are fascinating, as are the various chapter introductions.

The style is authoritative, even authoritarian in places, but with writing as lucid as this there is hardly any room to quibble about Mrs David's somewhat didactic tone.

This book has been my constant reference point ever since the mid 1980s and it is the basis for virtually everything I cook.

The best cookery book! - Rated
Provided you have a few basic skills, this book is excellent.

The recipes are authentic, imaginative and always go down well with guests. The techniques suggested bring out the flavour of the ingredients to a tee and are transferrable with application of one's own imagination.

The recipes are also not fussy or predicated on knowing your butcher on first name terms.

You could cook from this book for ever.