Elisabeth Luard's Top Book Recommendations

Elisabeth LuardWell, the last book, Goose Fat and Garlic, is about the Languedoc, Gascony and the Dordogne. I go to that area of France like a homing pigeon. That middle bit. I live in Wales but I go there for Christmas! Hooray! And I shall take this book with me. Jeanne Strang is a very clever lady. It’s foie gras, it’s goose, it’s wonderful apples. They have a form of baking that is very like the Turkish filo... (Source)

Elisabeth LuardHe’s an American and you can travel with him. Outsiders always observe and know exactly what’s going on. He goes through all the regions and he writes about the regions and chooses recipes. He’ll tell you about the people, the landscape, the architecture and from that the food. In the Touraine you’ll get woodcuts of a beautiful château and you’ll be told: ‘Touraine is the heartland of France and... (Source)

Elisabeth LuardHe was a Pole and he went on the radio immediately after the Second World War and basically he taught the French housewife how to cook. He was a member of the Institut Pasteur and he was completely, brilliantly hilarious. Cooking in Ten Minutes was written for a bet, and what he says is: ‘First you need to hang your hat on the hook in the hall and put on a kettle of water.’ And he takes it from... (Source)

Elisabeth LuardLa Cuisinière Provençale is basically the re-establishment of the identity of Provence which had pretty much disappeared. It was one of the Languedoc-speaking places and it was pretty much destroyed in the 14th and 15th century, and I think we were quite responsible for it. Anyway, there was a big sweep to bring back language and customs of the Mistral, around the time when the Impressionists... (Source)

Elisabeth LuardDo you know about M F K Fisher? She was an American writer who was working in France in the pre-war years, and she went back to the US and wrote these marvellous stories about life and food and living in Provence, and she is pretty much credited with telling the Americans that they had to shape up and get into the war. She was very influential. We don’t have the same appetite for food writing... (Source)