“Serve the cèpes toward the end of the salmis service. They marry very well indeed, but the subtlety of each risks being muted by the other’s rich presence. One may, by serving in this way, appreciate them together and enjoy them apart.”
ON THE ESSENTIALS OF MENU PLANNING:
“The only thing to remember is that the palate should be kept fresh, teased, surprised, excited all through a meal. The moment there is danger of fatigue, it must be astonished, or soothed into greater anticipation, until the sublime moment of release when one moves away from the table to relax with coffee and an alcool.”
For those who wish to simply read, imagine, or drool about food, The French Menu Cookbook is an exemplar of evocative, lyrical, and informative food writing. You may read with fascination of dishes of a bygone era, such as woodcock soufflé; calf’s liver with truffled cèpe purée; marinated, rolled boar’s belly hung in the chimney to smoke over smoldering olive wood; pike dumplings; and of “the thrush, whose flesh is as lovely as its song… roasted rare, unemptied but for the gizzard, which may be replaced by a juniper berry.” Discover how to clean a live sea urchin, draw a crayfish, cool your wine, work a drum sieve; learn that the French distinguish three types of skimming of stocks and sauces; and salivate over scrambled eggs with truffles slowly stirred in a bain-marie and venison, spit-roasted over a fruitwood fire. What becomes clear in Olney’s compelling descriptions of these dishes and techniques is that they are pertinently real, not merely part of a past mythology.
Although his influence will probably never be felt as strongly as it was in the ’70s and ’80s, those formative years of California’s awakening to its culinary promise, we should be reminded that it was because of Olney’s intense convictions that chefs everywhere now respect the seasons, plant their own gardens, shop at local farmer’s markets, roast in the fireplace, make from scratch, flower their salads, and that by sensing while cooking, have discovered their art.
Paul Bertolli
February 2002
US TO UK MEASUREMENTCONVERSION CHART
Liquids
| ¼ cup | 2fl oz / 60ml |
| ½ cup | 4fl oz / 125ml |
| ¾ cup | 6fl oz / 175ml |
| 1 cup | 8fl oz / 250ml |
| 1¼ cups | 10fl oz / 300ml |
| 1½ cups | 12fl oz / 350ml |
| 1¾ cups | 14fl oz / 400ml |
| 2 cups | 16fl oz / 475ml |
| 2½ cups | 1 pint / 600ml |
| 3 cups | 1¼ pints / 700ml |
| 4 cups | 1¾ pints / 1 litre |
| 5 cups | 2 pints / 1.25 litres |
Butter, margarine
| ⅛ stick, 1 tbsp | ½ oz / 15g |
| ¼ stick, 2 tbsp | 1 oz / 25g |
| ½ stick, ¼ cup, 4 tbsp | 2 oz / 55g |
| ¾ stick | 3 oz / 85g |
| 1 stick, ½ cup | 4 oz / 115g |
| 2 sticks, 1 cup | 8 oz / 225g |
| 4 sticks, 2 cups | 1lb / 450g |
Granulated and caster (superfine) sugar
| ¼ cup | 1¾ oz / 50g |
| ⅓ cup | 2¼ oz / 60g |
| ½ cup | 3½ oz / 100g |
| ⅔ cup | 4½ oz / 125g |
| ¾ cup | 5 oz / 140g |
| 1 cup | 7 oz / 200g |
Grated cheese (Parmesan or Cheddar)
| ½ cup, grated | 2 oz / 55g |
| 1 cup, grated | 4 oz / 115g |
Flour (plain / all–purpose)
| ¼ cup | 1¼ oz / 35g |
| ⅓ cup | 1¾ oz / 50g |
| ½ cup | 2¾ oz / 75g |
| ⅔ cup | 3½ oz / 100g |
| 1 cup | 5½ oz / 150g |
Quarts
| ¼ quart | 8fl oz / 225ml |
| ½ quart | 6fl oz / 475ml |
| ¾ quart | 1¼ pints / 700ml |
| 1 quart | 1⅔ pints / 950ml |
PREFACE
Until I came to France in 1951, my knowledge of French cooking was mainly academic. I had practiced with a passion what could be gleaned from books—Escoffier, in particular. But the rock on which my church was built was the provincial kitchen of my home in Iowa—not too bad a background, inasmuch as I grew up at a time when eggs were still fresh, Jersey milk was unpasteurized and half cream, chickens were from the back yard, packaged cake mixes and frozen foods were unknown, and garden fruits and vegetables were eaten in their proper seasons. Fortunately for me, my mother, who had eight children to raise and little enthusiasm for cooking, was delighted by my willingness to experiment in the kitchen. Pot roasts, sage-and-onion dressing, and angel-food cakes were more in order at that time than the sort of preparations that occupy me now. But even in those early days I learned to rely on Escoffier for inspiration.
My life in France has been more or less equally divided between Clamart, a Parisian suburb, and Solliès-Toucas, a village in the south of France.
In 1953, Clamart was still a provincial town at the edge of a forest to which a handful of Parisians brought their picnic lunches of a summer Sunday. The bordering cafés recalled, in every detail, the guinguettes of impressionist paintings with their