When French Women Cook: A Gastronomic Memoir
by Madeleine Kamman
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Description
As a young woman, Madeleine Kamman developed her passion for food by working in the kitchens of France's most respected regional cooks. She dedicates one chapter to each of these remarkable women, who nourished her appetite for the tradition, rigor, and deeply personal nature of cooking. Her exuberant memoir-originally published over 30 years ago-tells of collecting mussels at the shore, churning butter from the milk of village cows, gathering mushrooms in nearby woods, and then transforming show more them into glorious meals under the tutelage of her beloved mentors. Over 250 recipes for the simple dishes Kamman learned at their sides accompany her evocative reminiscences of a bygone era in rural France. Now in paperback, this classic is required reading for anyone who wants to know more about la cuisine fran aise and the life, times, and tastes of a woman who helped to shape American cooking. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
2023 - ‘70’s Immersion Reading Challenge
When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman (1976; 1982 ed.) 371 pages.
This is part memoir and part cookbook. The recipes are not very practical for cooking in the United States because of the hard to find, nonexistent, or priced right out of my budget ingredients. Trust me! I called around for this or that special ingredient with no luck at all. The recipes are separated by provinces, and each province highlights a special person, time and place for the author during her lifetime. Love the idea! But, I definitely would have appreciated her stories more if I were from France. She was very descriptive of her memories in the different provinces of France while running away from the war in the show more 1940’s and name dropped so many French place names and French names for dishes and cookware, which left me almost completely lost. But, if you are French, you will undoubtedly l-o-v-e this book.
RECIPE TESTED
I did find at least one recipe with common and easy to find ingredients: Basic Stewed Tomatoes for Provençal Dishes (p. 332). 1-star. Very dull! I’m from Southeast Texas. We eat more robust food. I had to add so much more garlic, olive oil, basil, red pepper flakes, and a little Slap Your Mama Cajun Seasoning just to get some flavor in there.
At the beginning of the book, the author does suggest a few basic suitable substitutions to use in French recipes. Apparently, America’s dairy food is crap and we don’t know what we are missing. That was back in the ‘70’s, and I’m sure it’s worse today. They are worthy of noting down here since I won’t be keeping this book in my library of cookbooks.
BUTTER
Stick to AA 93 graded butter. Kamman says some of our butters in the U.S. are absolutely rancid compared to French butters. Unfortunately, our butters don’t show a grade. Go figure!
CRÈME FRAÎCHE
Can’t be made here in U.S. because of the extra crap (preservatives and hormones and the feed fed to cattle) in our dairy milk. As a substitute, just use heavy cream, reduced by cooking down, and blending with a little good quality sour cream and correct taste with a few drops of lemon juice.
SOUR CREAM
Read label! Do not use sour cream with preservatives, stabilizers or added milk solids….if you can find it.
There’s more…but why go on. I give up! Our food is just so adulterated, it is sickening!
More about Madeleine Kamman (1930-2018)
Featured on PBS as a cooking show host: “Madeleine Cooks” (1984-1991). A few of these can be found on YouTube. Interestingly, her and Julia Child were very competitive and had a general dislike for one another. Kamman refused to accept Julia as a true French chef and Julia refused to eat at Madeleine’s 5-star restaurant…and even refused to say her name in public. Julia referred to Madeleine as “that woman”. Ha! Women! show less
When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman (1976; 1982 ed.) 371 pages.
This is part memoir and part cookbook. The recipes are not very practical for cooking in the United States because of the hard to find, nonexistent, or priced right out of my budget ingredients. Trust me! I called around for this or that special ingredient with no luck at all. The recipes are separated by provinces, and each province highlights a special person, time and place for the author during her lifetime. Love the idea! But, I definitely would have appreciated her stories more if I were from France. She was very descriptive of her memories in the different provinces of France while running away from the war in the show more 1940’s and name dropped so many French place names and French names for dishes and cookware, which left me almost completely lost. But, if you are French, you will undoubtedly l-o-v-e this book.
RECIPE TESTED
I did find at least one recipe with common and easy to find ingredients: Basic Stewed Tomatoes for Provençal Dishes (p. 332). 1-star. Very dull! I’m from Southeast Texas. We eat more robust food. I had to add so much more garlic, olive oil, basil, red pepper flakes, and a little Slap Your Mama Cajun Seasoning just to get some flavor in there.
At the beginning of the book, the author does suggest a few basic suitable substitutions to use in French recipes. Apparently, America’s dairy food is crap and we don’t know what we are missing. That was back in the ‘70’s, and I’m sure it’s worse today. They are worthy of noting down here since I won’t be keeping this book in my library of cookbooks.
BUTTER
Stick to AA 93 graded butter. Kamman says some of our butters in the U.S. are absolutely rancid compared to French butters. Unfortunately, our butters don’t show a grade. Go figure!
CRÈME FRAÎCHE
Can’t be made here in U.S. because of the extra crap (preservatives and hormones and the feed fed to cattle) in our dairy milk. As a substitute, just use heavy cream, reduced by cooking down, and blending with a little good quality sour cream and correct taste with a few drops of lemon juice.
SOUR CREAM
Read label! Do not use sour cream with preservatives, stabilizers or added milk solids….if you can find it.
There’s more…but why go on. I give up! Our food is just so adulterated, it is sickening!
More about Madeleine Kamman (1930-2018)
Featured on PBS as a cooking show host: “Madeleine Cooks” (1984-1991). A few of these can be found on YouTube. Interestingly, her and Julia Child were very competitive and had a general dislike for one another. Kamman refused to accept Julia as a true French chef and Julia refused to eat at Madeleine’s 5-star restaurant…and even refused to say her name in public. Julia referred to Madeleine as “that woman”. Ha! Women! show less
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Madeleine Kamman was born Madeleine Marguerite Pin in Courbevoie, France on November 22, 1930. She attended the Sorbonne and studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She was working as a reservations manager in Paris for Swissair when she met her future husband Alan Kamman. They married in 1960 and moved to the Philadelphia area. In 1968, she show more was teaching cooking at home and in adult education classes when she wrote a letter to The New York Times food editor criticizing a recipe for snails provençale on toast that was printed in the newspaper. After moving to Massachusetts, she opened a cooking school and restaurant in Newton Centre. She later taught cooking in Annecy, France and at the Beringer Vineyards in St. Helena, California. She also opened another school and restaurant in Glen, New Hampshire. She wrote several books including The Making of a Cook and When French Women Cook. From 1984 to 1991, she had her own PBS series. She died on July 16, 2018 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Nonfiction, Food & Cooking, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 641.5944 — Applied science & technology Home economics & family management Food, Cooking & Recipes / Meals, Picnics Cooking; cookbooks Ethnic Cookbooks Europe France
- LCC
- TX719 .K27 — Technology Home economics Home economics Cooking
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