La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange

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La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange ( French The good kitchen of Madame E. Saint-Ange ) is a classic French cookbook that was first published in 1927 by Larousse . An English translation was published in 2005.

The basic compilation of over 1,300 recipes gave various impulses for comparable recipe collections of the bourgeois French culinary art. Despite its age, the book is still considered an inspiring classic.

background

There is very little information available about the author. Her first name is given as Camille, Evelyn or Marie, her life dates are unknown. The most reliable information seems to be based on her great-grandchildren; therefore her real name was Marie LeCoq Ebrard, and she chose the name of her husband, Saint-Ange Ebrard, in a modified and abbreviated form as a pseudonym. She previously worked for over 20 years (1893–1914) for the bi-weekly magazine Le Pot-au-Feu, published by her husband . Journal de cuisine pratique et d'économie domestique written article on cooking, the benefits of which went into her monumental work.

For decades the book was reissued in hardly changed form. It appeared under different titles in the course of time: in 1927 and 1952 as Le livre de cuisine de Mme E. Saint-Ange. Recettes et méthodes de la bonne cuisine française , 1929 as La bonne cuisine de Mme E. Saint-Ange. Huit cents recettes et cinq cents menus , 1958, 1977 and 1982 as La cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange. Recettes et méthodes de la bonne cuisine française , the reprints from 1995 and 2005 again as La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange . Since the French original edition is no longer available, the book is a sought-after antiquarian rarity.

A long introduction to the cuissons, the cooking techniques, before the individual recipes were described, set the style for French cookbooks and their imitators. The book is more of a thorough textbook than a handy, quick-access collection of recipes. The sometimes quite time-consuming dishes are often explained using a basic recipe that is explained in detail, for example for braised beef, and then refinements are suggested. The representation of the individual work steps for preparing a dish is occasionally distributed over the entire book content. The book is also of interest as a historical representation of the kitchen equipment common at the time. For example, it assumes that people cook on a coal stove and buy sugar in the form of a sugar loaf .

A comment in the French Liberation from 2010 calls the book “the bible of bourgeois cuisine” and raves about the five-page guide on how to properly whip egg whites by hand. The cookbook does not only contain complex recipes; Among other things, it explains the detailed production of scrambled eggs and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using a whisk or mixing spoon during preparation. It also goes into historical aspects of culinary art.

Saint-Ange describes a rather traditional, full-bodied cuisine from northern France with plenty of bacon, cream and butter. As the author of a classic cookbook that combined her portrayal of culinary art with intellectual brilliance and historical aspects, Saint-Ange was also a female role model. Even decades later, Julia Child was amazed at the male-dominated and sometimes even ridiculous secretive French cooking scene.

translation

In the USA, Madeleine Kamman, Julia Child and Paul Aratow were particularly influenced by the book. An English translation was published by Aratow in 2005. Julia Child got to know St. Ange in the immediate post-war period. In her recipe books published between 1960 and 1971, such as Mastering the Art of French Cooking , however, she took into account the significantly better technical equipment in American households. Still, she thought Saint-Ange was the best French cookbook she knew.

Aratow has become known as the co-founder of the well-known Californian restaurant Chez Panisse and the focal point of California cuisine . It took him two years to translate. According to Aratov, Saint-Ange can be “snappy, funny, witty, dominant, ironic and meticulous; it must have been awesome to work with her. "

In the case of the American edition, it was not just the anachronisms already mentioned that caused irritation. The specialist historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton considers the translation too literal and assumes that only those who can cook with Saint-Ange can cook - the instructions are not for beginners. Not only were technical terms translated literally or even incorrectly, the metric measurements were also converted into the American units of measurement, which from a European point of view were absurdly complicated. For Americans, rather shocking recipes such as deep-fried veal's head have not been deleted, the illustrations are sometimes involuntarily funny and not updated any further.

literature

  • Le livre de cuisine de Mme E. Saint-Ange. Recettes et méthodes de la bonne cuisine française. Librairie Larousse, Paris 1927, 1375 pages with 103 illustrations (first edition)
    • Facsimile edition of the first edition: E. Saint-Ange: La bonne cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange. Editions Larousse, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-2-03-560459-0
  • La Cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange. Recettes et méthodes de la bonne cuisine française. Librairie Larousse, Paris 1982. ISBN 2-03-506107-5 , 1183 pages (latest French edition)
  • La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange. The Original Companion for French Home Cooking. Translated and with an Introduction by Paul Aratow. Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley / Toronto 2005, ISBN 978-1-58008-605-9 , 786 pages (English translation)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Barbara Ketcham Wheaton: La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Original Companion for French Home Cooking (Review) . In: Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies . tape 6 , no. 3 , 2006, ISSN  1529-3262 , p. 99-100 , doi : 10.1525 / gfc.2006.6.3.99 .
  2. ↑ Personal entry in the catalog of the Bibliothèque nationale de Françe. Retrieved October 16, 2015 (French).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Amanda Hesser: The Way We Eat: Sauced in Translation. In: The New York Times Magazine. December 11, 2005, accessed September 19, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Jacky Durand: Un sacré goût de vieux. In: Liberation. June 3, 2010, accessed September 19, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Saint-Ange, E., Mme. In: Library of Congress Name Authority File. August 10, 2012, accessed on October 17, 2015 (English, source: E-mail from Marylène Altieri, Curator of Books and Printed Materials, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 4 / 16/2009): “[Saint-Ange's] real name is Marie LeCoq Ebrard; her husband's name was Saint-Ange Ebrard, and she inverted this for her pseudonym; [information] verified by her great-granddaughters. "
  6. ^ Barbara Wheaton: The Endangered Cuisinière Bourgeoise . In: Harlan Walker (Ed.): Disappearing Foods. Studies in Foods and Dishes at Risk. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1994 . Prospect Books, London 1995, ISBN 978-0-907325-62-8 , pp. 224 (English, google.de [accessed October 17, 2015] from Google Books :).
  7. ↑ Amy B. Trubek: Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
  8. ^ Russ Parsons: Madame's main man. In: Los Angeles Times. February 1, 2006, accessed September 19, 2015 .
  9. ↑ a b c Laura Shapiro: Julia Child: A Life. Penguin, London 2010, ISBN 978-0143116448 .
  10. ↑ a b c Tom Jaine: Review: La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E Saint-Ange by Paul Aratow. In: The Guardian. March 18, 2006, accessed September 20, 2015 .
  11. ↑ "She can be snippy, funny, witty, dominant, over your shoulder, fussy - she must have been a blast to be with."