Product Description

Plats du Jour was first published in 1957. `Long before this book was
thought of,' wrote the authors, `we had separately evolved a system of
cooking by which a variety of dishes was replaced by a single plat du jour
accompanied, as a rule, by a green salad, a respectable cheese, and fruit
in season, and, wherever possible, by a bottle of wine. This conception of
a meal underlies this book.' It appeared at a time when dishes such as
pasta, risotto, soupe aux poireaux et aux haricots or mackerel au vin blanc
were still considered outlandish.

Plats du Jour was one of Jane Grigson's favourite books: if ever she
saw one in a jumble sale she bought it to give as a present. For, as the
well-known food historian, Alan Davidson, wrote, `it is a very good book
indeed. Its principal ingredients, the knowledge and amiable enthusiasm of
the authors, have given it a lasting value.' And he pointed out that it is
a very original cookery book, written in unpretentious language, in an
unprescriptive, relaxed way by two cooks with whom it is easy to identify.
(They were also running a small business during the two years they were
writing Plats du Jour). The delightful and eye-catching jacket which is
now the Persephone endpaper was designed by David Gentleman, who was 25 and
had just left the Royal College of Art. He has written in his book Art
Work: `My illustrations were based on drawings and watercolours made in
Provence, Burgundy and Italy... They were not wholly Mediterranean. The
cuts of meat were drawn in two butchers' shops, one in Essex and the other
in the meat-preparing room at Harrods, underneath the Food Hall. The front
cover shows a table at the start of a meal, while the back cover shows the
tail end of it, with only the debris and the sleeping cats left. I had come
across plenty of precedents for this before-and-after approach: strip
cartoons, medieval chests and illuminations, and paintings such as
Uccello's great narrative scenes from the Old Testament.' David Gentleman
believes that `Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd's admirable and practical
Plats du Jour [is] every bit as good as Elizabeth David' and many will
agree with him. In fact, in terms of sales and influence it was Patience
Gray and Primrose Boyd who were the pioneers in introducing English cooks
to French everyday cookery. Plats du Jour sold 50,000 copies in the first
few months after publication and 100,000 in the next three years, an
astonishing amount at the time. It was only in the 1960s that Elizabeth
David started to become a symbol of the transformation of English
middle-class eating habits. Before that Plats du Jour was the favourite and
influential French cookery book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101554 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Period charm and classic cuisine
"or, foreign food", is the subtitle of this book. It was published in Britain in 1957, when foreign food was, well, foreign to the insular British, who still had vivid memories of post-war rationing. Elizabeth David had burst onto the scene seven years earlier with Mediterranean Food, a book which unforgettably celebrates the vivid flavours and colours of southern Europe and has become part of our culinary heritage. Despite this, Plats du Jour is a voice from another age -- an age where the words pasta, risotto, and paella were still considered sufficiently foreign to be italicised, where the authors felt the need to explain, "Pizza is a dish made with leavened bread."

To me, this sense of the exotic is part of the period charm of this book, which is further enhanced by the beautiful, intricately detailed drawings of David Gentleman. But period charm on its own does not a cookbook make. I adore reading Alice B Toklas but rarely cook any of her dishes. Plats du Jour on the other hand is resolutely practical. The authors introduce it by saying, "In this book we have tried to set down the recipes for a number of dishes of foreign origin, in the belief that English people may be stimulated to interpret them". It sounds stuffy, but knowing British lack of familiarity with "foreign food", the authors describe in great detail exactly how to go about making a daube or a goulash, to the extent of describing what kind of pot to cook it in. Their enjoyment of cooking comes across in the recipes, and even if you think you know all the classic dishes you'll find a refreshing return to basic values here. No lemongrass, no sundried tomatoes, no rocket leaves, no shavings of Parmesan ... These are utterly simple dishes that I turn to over and over again -- an Italian way of roasting lamb that makes even the dullest frozen joint delectable, the classic French lamb recipe gigot aux haricots, a lovely bland and soothing dish of chicken, saffron sauce, and rice.

If you're a novice cook seeking to learn about classic European cooking without spending an arm and a leg on equipment and ingredients, and all day in the kitchen, this is a better place to start than Elizabeth David. The dishes are chosen to be substantial main courses, requiring no accompaniment other than a salad, cheese, and fruit. And by their very nature as rustic, homely food, they are not difficult to make.

The chapters on store cupboard ingredients and wine (both requiring trips to specialist shops in Soho) are largely irrelevant now that every supermarket stocks these things. But the book includes, daringly, a chapter on wild fungi, widely enjoyed in mainland Europe but still, over 40 years later, considered risky "foreign food" in Britain. Some things don't change ...

a seminal book
I bought the original paperback which has now all but disintegrated. After a year in France as a student it took me back to the culinary wonders of the Massif Central while we were still suffering the rigours of post-war shortages. I thought the names of the authors were a joke. Years late I found they were genuine - so English but so right. Several hundred cook-books later this is still one of my favourites - an incomparable introduction to food that tastes as it should. She is now out there with "the sculptor" writing as magically as ever. Without peer.