Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men: 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men. Len Deighton
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children attended the primary school in Plascassier. It was a joyful time. Our neighbours were welcoming and kind and, in the village school, the head teacher – M. Guglielmero – his staff and the helpers were saintly. Surrounding this lovely old building there were fields of jasmine, grown for the perfume industry in nearby Grasse. Each morning the head stood at the entrance and greeted each and every arriving pupil personally. No child was ever late; the pupils were keen to learn; the teaching was excellent; even better from our point of view, no one there could speak English. ‘Yes, of course; just like circus people,’ said the imperturbable headmaster when my mother-in-law asked if he could find room for two little boys who could speak no French. He separated the boys into different classes and assigned to each, a companion who would proudly guide and instruct his foreigner. M. Guglielmero employed professional skills at which I still marvel. The two assigned companions were not the students from the top of the class; they were the school’s most popular boys. With these two lively extroverts to guide them, my sons had instant membership of the whole school, and made friends for life. In this amiable environment they learned to speak French indistinguishable from that of local children. To complete the perfection, staff and children all sat together at lunch and enjoyed the same good French cooking. No wonder the French education system is the best, and most effective, in the world.
We all acquired the vocabulary and attempted the techniques of French cooking. It affected our tastes and our kitchen skills ever after. Nowadays my wife and my sons have left me behind in their expertise. They are more precise and careful than I am, and cooking is at its best when measured and monitored. My sons have taken my interest in the chemistry and physics of cooking and pursued it far beyond my own knowledge. Precision scales and thermometers are as essential to them as wooden spoons and sharp knives. This brings me to the question: why this book is called French Cooking for Men. My answer is that when I tell men that it is important to remember that you can open an oven and hold your hand inside when the air is at 300º F but if you put your hand into boiling water (only 212º F) you will be severely burned, men are likely to nod and say ‘yes’. But when I tell ladies this they are likely to reply: ‘OK, Len. But where’s the recipe?’
No, I’m only kidding. The real motive is the hope that the ladies will want to know what I am telling the blokes.
L.D.
TABLE DES MATIERES
L’Art culinaire. Applying heat to food, or if you’ll pardon the word, cooking
Les Fromages. Cheeses: buying them, serving them and eating them
Les Corps gras. Various kinds of fats to do different jobs
La Cuisine française et le froid. Those that cook and store away …
Le Lexique et le menu. French and English culinary words.
Le Menu. Planning it and reading it.
La Batterie de cuisine. Pots and pans and serving dishes with drawings of them
La Carte des sauces. A complete description of French sauces in chart form
Le Garde-Manger. Beans, rice and pasta
50 Cookstrips. Basic French cooking in 50 simple lessons
COOKSTRIPS Nos 1–50
7 Fumet de Poisson au VinBlanc