Tale of two towers

Writer and Frenchgardening.com owner Barbara Wilde was tragically killed yesterday by an avalanche of cookbooks... Yes, that's how my obituary may read if I don't do something soon about the two towers of cookbooks on top of my refrigerator.

Most Paris apartments--even "big" ones like ours--suffer from lack of storage space. After my arrival in Paris, my cookbooks quickly filled up the two kitchen shelves I was able to liberate by deftly eliminating some useless accretions of Denis' bachelorhood. Besides, the shelves are so narrow that I can't put large books on them.



With my first acquisition of a big cookbook in hand, I looked around desperately for a storage spot in the vicinity of the kitchen. My eye lit on the top of the fridge, occupied at the time with a shopping basket full of recycled plastic bags. That got whisked off to the top of the dryer in the laundry room, and the two towers' foundation block was in place.

Now, more than three years later, the towers have grown to dizzying heights. I have had some harrowing moments and potential near-death experiences while trying to pull a book out from the middle of the pile without first removing the books on top of it, which--believe me--would be the prudent thing to do.

Since I'm only one or two book-thicknesses away from not being able to reach the top of the towers without a ladder, it won't be long before we begin our next remodeling project: installation of nice deep shelves the length of the half-wall separating the kitchen from the dining room. Denis proposed that my excess books be banished to the study. I looked at him incredulously, than cannily added how nice it would be to have some room on those shelves for some of his objets d'art that are languishing hidden for lack of space. I simply must have my cookbooks close at hand in the kitchen.

Back in the States, I had bought an enormous antique bookshelf to house my collection. Perhaps the most crucial decision for my move to Paris was which cookbooks to take with me. Since my moving service comprised a couple of extra suitcases, I had to pare my cookbook selection down to the essentials.

Here's what I took: all my Richard Olney books, all my Chez Panisse books; a couple of Deborah Madison's; my entire series of Elizabeth David re-editions which I'd purchased in London many years ago; all my Jane Grigson; Bernard Clayton's pastry book; and all my Paula Wolfert. Now that I list them out, that sounds like a lot, especially when you consider that I took a total of three suitcases for my move. But nevertheless, when I got to Paris I felt bereft without my big bookcase groaning under the weight of all my old friends.

They say nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I where cookbooks are concerned. I'm not sure how many days elapsed after my arrival before I bought my first French cookbook. I don't think it was much over a week before I was browsing the cookbook section of the local FNAC, the giant and enormously popular French multimedia/book chain.



I can't remember now what was the first title I purchased here, but I do remember it wasn't long at all before I invested in the 3-volume Larousse Gastronomique, the absolutely comprehensive encyclopedia of all things food in French. To give you an idea of the all-inclusiveness of the Larousse, consider the ranges of contents printed on the spine of each volume.

Volume One--Abaisse-Emmental; Volume Two--Empanada-Plaisir; Volume Three--Plantagenêt-Zuppa Inglese. An abaisse, for our information, is a dough rolled out on a floured work surface, preferably of marble, to arrive at a thickness appropriate to its purpose--tart, paté, or puff pastry. It also designates a layer of genoise or other cake sliced horizontally on which one will place an embellishment.

Following directly on the heels of this entry is one for abats, or offal, including an incredibly detailed table of the types of abats (18!), their animals of origin, their flavor, consistency, and preparation.



The bracket of Empanada-Plaisir (pleasure) needs no elaboration. Needless to say, the Larousse Gastronomique confirmed my conviction that I had done the right thing in moving to France. These volumes spent many weeks at my bedside and remain good entertainment during lunch, as I've not nearly read everything in them. Incidentally, hundreds of recipes are included on their pages.

I needed these stupefying complete encyclopedias to demystify the bewildering array of new cooking materials and terms confronting me in France. The varieties of fish, the cuts of meat, everything was different here. Before I had the Larousse, I would ask Denis, for example, "What is crépine?" He would just look at me and shrug. My Larousse Gastronomique, on the other hand, has never failed me. It's all there.

French cookbooks, I quickly discovered, are very different in organization from American ones. The ingredients are not always listed out in the way to which we are accustomed, but often incorporated into the body of the text. Amounts are often not specified, especially for, say, the oil for sautéing. It is considered obvious that you can make this judgment for yourself. Or, amounts may be mentioned in just a casual way, such as a "bowl" of this or a "glass" of that. Precise recipes of course use grams and centi- or deciliters, another adjustment for the American cook used to measuring cups.

Judging from the instructions given in most French cookbooks, the authors assume their readers to be more or less confident cooks. Basic techniques are almost never spelled out. That's fine for me at this stage in my life, but I can't help thinking how bewildering that could be for someone just starting out on her kitchen career. Do all French children learn at the knee of their mothers...or aunts, or uncles, or whatever the case may be?

That certainly seems to be the case for those who grew up to be chefs and write cookbooks. This genre almost always is full of reminiscences of the incomparable dishes of mes tantes Alice et Adrienne, ma grandmère Hélène, and so forth. And many if not most French cookbooks are perfused with a nostalgia not only for the past but for the writer's terroir, the region where he is from. This is hardly surprisiing, as the rich diversity of the various regions of France is obviously the cradle of its culinary diversity.

Because of the flourishing existence of thousands of small publishers and independent bookstores in France, it is relatively easy to get a cookbook published. For us lucky cooking readers, this means that there's an amazingly idiosyncratic--and constantly changing--array of cookbooks available. But because most of them are very limited editions, it's always best not to delay if you see a title that interests you. Tomorrow it could be gone.

Of course, I've found it easy to take my own excellent advice in this matter. Hence, my two towers. I suppose every food-obsessed person loves cookbooks. I do know that for me, there is no more delicious sensation than waking up with a cup of coffee and a new cookbook to browse through.

The trouble is that, what with the diversity of both great cookbooks and fantastic ingredients here in Paris, I'm practically in a state of perpetual over-stimulation. The expression "an embarrassment of riches" comes to mind. I have moments when I'm almost paralyzed in deciding what to cook because there are so many tempting alternatives. Or, I'll decide on a recipe, and then when I go to market, I'll find, for example, a new fish that I've read about but never seen before. Of course, I have to buy it. And so it's back to the drawing board. So many recipes for such a short lifetime!

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