First published in France in the 1930s, Cooking with Pomiane continues to inspire today's chefs with its inventive simplicity. Edouard de Pomiane turned classic French cuisine on its head, stripping away complicated sauces and arcane techniques to reveal the essence of pure, unadorned good cooking. A food scientist, he offers lucid explanations for why food behaves as it does. Read him and the cream in your gratin dauphinois will never separate, your pot au feu will never be stringy, and your choux pastry will puff to astonishing proportions. Pomiane's great accomplishment was to restore confidence to the cook, and joy to the kitchen. Cooking with Pomiane spills over with amusing stories and more than three hundred superb and streamlined recipes; it is as much a delight to read as it is to cook from. This Modern Library edition is published with an Introduction by the renowned food writer Elizabeth David.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

"Unburdened with excess detail but invariably embodying the vital touch of the artist....I know of no cookery writer who has a greater mastery of the captivating phrase."—Elizabeth David

"To prepare dinner for a friend is to put into the cooking pot all one's affection and good will, all one's gaiety and zest, so that after three hours cooking a waft of happiness escapes from beneath the lid."—Edouard de Pomiane

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

One of the twentieth century's greatest cooking writers, Edouard De Pomiane lectured at the Institut Pasteur and wrote a number of classic books. He died in 1964.

Elizabeth David achieved considerable renown as an essayist, food critic, and cook. Her French Provincial Cooking is unsurpassed, and Jane Grigson has called her "the best food writer of her time."

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page