Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men: 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men. Len Deighton
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Название: Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men: 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men

Автор: Len Deighton

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Кулинария

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isbn: 9780007524846

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СКАЧАТЬ myself I knew that English cigarettes were a valuable currency in Paris.) To show his pleasure he took me on a conducted tour of the kitchen and went label by label through the bins in the famous wine cellars.

That was my introduction to French Cooking. Over the years I have pursued my interest in this discipline both as cook and as consumer. As an art student in the nineteen fifties, I spent my vacations working in many kitchens large and small and made many good friends among the fraternity of chefs.

When my wife’s parents retired they moved to a village in Provence. We had visited them frequently in Paris, and now our focus moved to the south. This lovely region, like most other parts of France, has its own style of cooking and there were lessons to be learned every day. We rented a house and our children attended the primary school in Plascassier. It was a joyful time. Our neighbours were welcoming and kind and, in the village school, the head teacher – M. Guglielmero – his staff and the helpers were saintly. Surrounding this lovely old building there were fields of jasmine, grown for the perfume industry in nearby Grasse. Each morning the head stood at the entrance and greeted each and every arriving pupil personally. No child was ever late; the pupils were keen to learn; the teaching was excellent; even better from our point of view, no one there could speak English. ‘Yes, of course; just like circus people,’ said the imperturbable headmaster when my mother-in-law asked if he could find room for two little boys who could speak no French. He separated the boys into different classes and assigned to each, a companion who would proudly guide and instruct his foreigner. M. Guglielmero employed professional skills at which I still marvel. The two assigned companions were not the students from the top of the class; they were the school’s most popular boys. With these two lively extroverts to guide them, my sons had instant membership of the whole school, and made friends for life. In this amiable environment they learned to speak French indistinguishable from that of local children. To complete the perfection, staff and children all sat together at lunch and enjoyed the same good French cooking. No wonder the French education system is the best, and most effective, in the world.

We all acquired the vocabulary and attempted the techniques of French cooking. It affected our tastes and our kitchen skills ever after. Nowadays my wife and my sons have left me behind in their expertise. They are more precise and careful than I am, and cooking is at its best when measured and monitored. My sons have taken my interest in the chemistry and physics of cooking and pursued it far beyond my own knowledge. Precision scales and thermometers are as essential to them as wooden spoons and sharp knives. This brings me to the question: why this book is called French Cooking for Men. My answer is that when I tell men that it is important to remember that you can open an oven and hold your hand inside when the air is at 300º F but if you put your hand into boiling water (only 212º F) you will be severely burned, men are likely to nod and say ‘yes’. But when I tell ladies this they are likely to reply: ‘OK, Len. But where’s the recipe?’

No, I’m only kidding. The real motive is the hope that the ladies will want to know what I am telling the blokes.

L.D.