Читать книгу Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men: 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men - Len Deighton - Страница 9

My mother – who was once a professional cook – encouraged me to help her in the kitchen from the time when I was very small. To her I owe everything. We encouraged our own sons in the same way.

During six years studying art I spent most of my vacation time working in the kitchens of good restaurants. I’ve never ceased to be interested in cooking, and in the skill that contributes to the success of a great French restaurant, which does not always mean a restaurant in France.

The importance of French cookery is not only due to the taste, texture and appearance of the resulting dishes, but also to the systematic way in which generations of cooks have ordered and classified their knowledge.

This book is not a recipe book, it’s a carefully planned course that has taught many men and women to cook in the French style. If you work your way through this book, you will be qualified to cook for a good traditional country restaurant in France. Or to start one! The first half of the book consists of lessons in theory, from choosing a saucepan and a cheese to pronouncing and translating a French menu. The second half of the book contains fifty practical cooking lessons in easy to follow cookstrip form. Each lesson illustrates a technique, a process or a category of dish. Most recipes have been chosen because they also provide the cook with dozens – in some cases hundreds – of variations, for instance soufflé, crêpes and mousse.

This is not a ‘creative cookery’ course; there are no concoctions of mine here. This book is the result of years of watching, and talking with, fine chefs and trying out their recipes. Here I have explained them as simply as possible. In order to fit a complete course of cookery into one slim volume I have assumed that you are intelligent and interested in cooking. No more than this is needed.

You may feel that some of my distinctions are dogmatic. Cooks are seldom dogmatic, feeling – rightly – more interested in results than in rules. But distinctions exist so that the reasoning behind the methods is easily understood and remembered. Obviously it doesn’t affect me if you fry the ingredients of a daube or a blanquette, but ask me why this is not called braiser and fricasser and I’d have no answer.

This, then, is Basic French Cooking. I can only tell you the rules of the game; you are the best judge of when to stick to them.

Len Deighton 1996