From My Grandmother's Kitchen - Authentic French-Country Home Cooking (Paperback)

In times past, traditional French housekeepers would write down their favorite daily recipes in a special journal, passing down these treasures of family cuisine from mother to daughter. Charlotte de Saint Alban inherited one such journal from her grandmother, an excellent cook. Its contents reveal French cooking and French kitchen life as it really existed during the years 1893 to 1940. These 200 recipes include 70 appetizers, main courses, and side dishes - among them meat croquettes, various pates, salmon mousse, duck with olives, and eggs a la Mirabeau - along with 130 desserts, sweets, preserves, and beverages including an amazingly simple strawberry souffle, madeleines, orange-perfumed meringues, and classic dessert fritters called "Merveilles." Prepared in a household kitchen using much the same equipment familiar to us today, the dishes have been tested and adapted for the modern home kitchen. Not only the updated recipes, but a section of the original journal, with Grandmere's handwritten tips, is perfectly reproduced here. For cookbook collectors and lovers of real French cuisine, this book is a treasure.