Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet (Modern Library Food)
Ruth Reichl
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN: 0812971930
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A glorious, edible tour of Paris through six decades of writing from Gourmet magazine, edited and introduced by Ruth Reichl
For sixty years the best food writers have been sending dispatches from Paris to Gourmet. Collected here for the first time, their essays create a unique and timeless portrait of the world capital of love and food. When the book begins, just after the war, we are in a hungry city whose chefs struggle to find the eggs and cream they need to re-create the cuisine from before the German occupation. We watch as Paris comes alive again with zinc-topped tables crowded with people drinking café au lait and reveling in crisp baguettes, and the triumphant rebirth of three-star cuisine. In time, nouvelle cuisine is born and sweeps through a newly chic and modern city. It is all here: the old-time bourgeois dinners, the tastemakers of the fashion world, the hero-chefs, and, of course, Paris in all its snobbery and refinement, its inimitable pursuit of the art of fine living. Beautifully written, these dispatches from the past are intimate and immediate, allowing us to watch the month-by-month changes in the world’s most wonderful city. Remembrance of Things Paris is a book for anyone who wants to return to a Paris where a buttery madeleine is waiting around every corner.
Contributors include Louis Diat, Naomi Barry, Joseph Wechsberg, Judith and Evan Jones, Don Dresden, Lillian Langseth-Christensen, Diane Johnson, Michael Lewis, and Jonathan Gold.
faux pas.) With this in mind, Georges’s grandfather gave him a golden key to what would someday be his wine cellar. The christening guests had stood at the font, they had brought gifts, they had admired and complimented—now they were ready to reap their reward. Monseigneur sat between the mère and the marraine and enjoyed himself enormously. After having long since abandoned all hope for a dry and quiet baptism, he smugly regarded his great success with Georges as the reward for some special
pieces (tournedos) 1 tablespoon unsalted butter ½ cup crème fraîche (4 oz) Preheat oven to 450°F. Using a cheese planer or a sharp knife, cut 4 thin slices (4 by 2 inches) from Gruyère. Cook bacon in an ovenproof 10-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat, turning once, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes total, and transfer to a plate. (Do not clean skillet.) Pat veal dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat butter in skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then
folks, they do, at Cartier. Louis Cartier embraced orientalism as a style of jewelry and created beautiful “arabesques” in subdued shades, and under the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes he created polychrome variants in brilliant hues. He was aware of cubism, naturalism, and art deco but was not overwhelmed by any style. Using combinations of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, jade, onyx, and coral and blending platinum with enamel, lapis lazuli, and turquoise, he always showed
swallowed. Everyone, even Hassan the dishwasher, swallowed. There was more swallowing going on in that kitchen than in the dining room. Then, without saying a word, the chef resumed assembling the orders. I exhaled. No comment. That was as good as it got here. And so it was, wordlessly, that afternoon that Gaetan waved me over from the other end of the zinc, and I joined the other young cooks around the pinball machine. ASPARAGUS AND GRUYÈRE TART Serves 8 (lunch main course) Active time: 1¼
era of Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, whose reign gave France the utmost in gracious living. The mayonnaise on a contemporary menu is the same mayonnaise that Cardinal Richelieu devised early in the seventeenth century. Henry IV’Spot-au-feu with a chicken in it, petite marmite Henri IV, dates back a century more. In the time of the Louis—quatorze, quinze, and seize—Paris knew unsurpassed opulence, an endless succession of banquets notable for the quantities of food served and for the exotic and