If you haven’t already done so I strongly urge you to get yourself to a cinema screening the fabulous new hit movie ‘Julie and Julia’, starring the ever fabulous Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. The Streep part of the film provides an hilarious and enjoyable account of Julia Child’s life in 1950s Paris, her determination with Le Cordon Bleu and finally the success of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking was an ambitious cook book publication which made a significant contribution to the evolution of American meals. The book was a joint contribution from American Julia Child and her French colleagues, Simone Beck (Simca) and Louisette Bertholle. It offered an elaborate level of information on French cuisine and a positive and meticulous approach towards cooking.
Bertholle and Simca had dreamed up the idea of producing an authentic French cookbook for American home cooks. On the recommendation of a publisher, they consorted with Julia Child to help interpret the book for American housewives, the domestic realities of who were governed, at the time, by a largely unenthusiastic tendency toward cooking and a reliance on supermarkets for most food supplies.Child saw herself as ‘Chef-Hostess’ and her goal for the book was to haul American homemakers from the despair of their casseroles to the joys of cooking French cuisine - definitive French food – “La Veritable Cuisine Francaise.” Arguably these authors set the bench mark in modern food media for the careful representation and delivery of food knowledge and a positive disposition toward cooking, which Julia Child continued in her various cooking series for television in the 1960s.
In the Forward of Mastering the Art, the authors identified their readers (cooks of servantless households) and acknowledged the constraints imposed by the modern world, (one’s budget, one’s girth, one’s offspring and any other number of matters) that may well interfere with what should be the “enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat.” This was a book produced for modern American women with the undertaking that given the correct circumstances anyone could revise what and how they cooked.
The premise of the book was that anyone could learn to cook in the French manner given the correct instruction. The authors’ commitment to interpreting ‘real French cooking’ relied upon lengthy, pedantic instruction in technique, which, although much revised by Child, remained complicated for most readers. This became a sticking point that Child defended when she discovered a book of shortcuts titled Cuisine d’urgence, where, in her mind, every element of technique had been sacrificed and thus every possibility of reproducing fine French food and honoring tradition had been abandoned
None the less, Child and her colleagues were no luddites and they embraced any modern innovation in technique that produced the right results. Child was dismissive of her French friends’ concern on the American reliance on ingredients from supermarkets by arguing that, like anywhere, one just needed to know where to shop and how to shop in season. Of far greater concern was the American attitude towards cooking, which had been greatly influenced by the advertising campaigns of convenience food companies. These campaigns were decidedly dismissive and almost contemptuous of any woman’s commitment to taking time in the kitchen with food.
Most of the work fell the way of Simca and Child, who while determined to carefully tweak the recipes to make them work in an American 1960s domestic environment, they garnished any departure from tradition with full accounts in the book as to how and why, maintaining the core identity of the recipes. This necessary tempering of purity with practicality resulted in experimentations with many ingredients, the most famous of which was the replacement of wine with vermouth.
Generally overwhelmed myself by the complicated mode of instruction given in Mastering the Art I am happy to recommend a recipe from the ‘Fruit Flan’ section of ‘Desserts and Cakes’, Volume 1, for a Cherry Clafouti, which our family routinely cook and enjoy. In the scheme of things it could be categorized as Une Recette d’Urgence (an emergency recipe), of the best variety. Some things do get lost in the translation, but nevertheless …
Cherry Clafouti
Cherry Clafouti, is described as a simple, traditional family dessert prepared by peasant families in the Limousin region of France during cherry season. This classic, rustic looking dish is very simple to prepare and delicious to eat. Essentially it is a pancake batter, poured over the fruit, arranged in a fire-proof dish and baked in the oven. Its appearance is that of a tart and it is usually eaten warm.
For 6 – 8 people
Ingredients
- 400g tin of pitted cherries or 350g fresh, sweet black cherries in season, pitted (stones removed).
- 250ml milk
- 60g (1/3 cup) sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 60g (1/2 cup) sifted plain flour
- Icing sugar in a shaker
Equipment
- An electric blender, otherwise a wooden spoon and a bowl
- A 1.5 – 2 litre capacity flan or pie dish, about 3.5cm deep
- An asbestos or heat proof mat (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180c
- Lightly grease the flan or pie dish with butter
- Drain tinned cherries into a colander or strainer
- Place the ingredients into a blender in order of the milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and sifted flour and blend at high speed for 1 minute. Alternatively place the dry ingredients in a bowl and slowly incorporate the eggs, milk and vanilla with a wooden spoon.
- (OPTIONAL, I rarely bother) Place an asbestos or heatproof mat over the heat source on your stove top to protect your flame proof baking dish from cracking. Pour a 1cm layer of the batter into the baking dish. Place over moderate heat for a minute or two so that a film of batter sets on the base. Remove from the heat.
- Spread the cherries over the base of the dish and pour the batter over the fruit.
- Place in the middle of a preheated oven and bake for about 1 hour. The clafouti is cooked when it is browned and a butter knife inserted into it comes away clean. The clafouti may rise slightly while cooking but will collapse as it cools.
- Just before serving, shake or sift icing sugar onto the clafouti.
Bon Appetit!
