Samuel Chamberlain

This is a coffee table-sized hefty hardcover book, published in 1952, that explores the full breadth of France with a gastronomical focus. Samuel Chamberlain and his family stayed in inns and ate in restaurants and cafes everywhere, and collected recipes from chefs as they went. The result is pretty extraordinary for then, and now. Food has a lot to do with history and culture, so those are worked in as well--plus, quite a bit about how France is recovering (or not recovering) from World War II. At the time of publication, the scars in Normandy were especially visible. There are black and white photographs and illustrations through (done by the author). The back of the book includes even more recipes, organized by province, that were published by Gourmet Magazine.

As a modern day read... it's something of a slog. The tone is fairly formal, and the book is huge. This is a book best to read in small morsels. Even so, I liked it overall. If I were time-traveling to 1950 France I would totally take this book and have a foodie road trip.… (mais)

If you've ever dreamed of having your personal French cook whipping up delicious meals nightly in your kitchen, this is the book for you. Written almost seventy years ago during World War II, this book evokes a vanished time in France (and also in the United States) and introduces the reader to Clementine, a sturdy Burgundian cook who not only dishes up wonderful meals for an American expatriate family while they live in a little town outside of Paris, but also then follows them to Marblehead, Massachusetts when they are repatriated back home at the outbreak of World War II.

Loaded with descriptions of local markets and the confusion of cultures when country France meets America in the 1940's, this book is a delight to read. It also includes over 150 recipes that any cook worth his or her salt will want to try at home.… (mais)

1st ed. Famous photographer & traveler. His 1st book. Wonderful illustrations by the author. Famous cover & vignettes by Henry Stahlbut. Revised 1988 by daughter Narcisse, AKA Diane Beck.
From KA&L:First released in 1943, at which point Chamberlain was using the pen name Phineas Beck, Clémentine purports to be the account of an American family living in France and the “alert, good-natured little Burgundian woman” who Chamberlain called “the culinary keystone” of their household. While there were, in truth, a succession of cooks who fed and educated his family, in Clémentine Chamberlain melds them into a single character who is eventually transplanted to Massachusetts as the family flees the clouds of war in 1939. There she continues to educate the entire family in good cooking, with the occasional interruption due to New Englander reluctance to indulge in good ingredients. To the original account, the Chamberlain’s daughter Narcisse, by then a cookbook editor of renown, added in 1988 recipes that favored the way Clémentine cooked for the family over her father’s choices of “what she served when guests came to dinner.”… (mais)