A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine

by Susan Pinkard

Modern French habits of cooking, eating, and drinking were born in the Ancien Regime, radically breaking with culinary traditions that originated in antiquity and creating a new aesthetic. This new culinary culture saw food and wine as important links between human beings and nature. Authentic foodstuffs and simple preparations became the hallmarks of the modern style. Pinkard traces the roots and development of this culinary revolution to many different historical trends, including changes in material culture, social transformations, medical theory and practice, and the Enlightenment. Pinkard illuminates the complex cultural meaning of food in her history of the new French cooking from its origins in the 1650s through the emergence of cuisine bourgeoise and the original nouvelle cuisine in the decades before 1789. This book also discusses the evolution of culinary techniques and includes historical recipes adapted for today's kitchens.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Food, France, Food and Drink, Cookbooks, Research

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very academic book in structure but it's still a fairly straightforward read as it discusses the evolution of food in France from the medieval period up to the Revolution. The emphasis is on French cooking savory dishes in particular, drawing on the works of several important chefs and cookbook authors of the era and their methods for cooking signature sauces, meats, and vegetables. Breads and preserved foods such as cheese are not expounded on, but there is a fascinating chapter on alcohol that addresses not only flavor but storage issues for brandy, wine, and champagne. The back of the book features a large section of very detailed recipes by the aforementioned major French cookbook authors, rewritten and thoroughly-tested for modern cooking.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

full of interesting information; the prose is not especially lively.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a VERY readable, informative, and interesting book about food and the rise of French cuisine.

I was amazed to find that there is nothing new under the sun; as far back as 460 B.C. Hippocrates was saying that, "Patients who had fallen ill could be cured by foods..."

"Ideas about the role of food and cooking in maintaining health and curing disease that originated in ancient Greece continued to shape culinary practices on the cusp of modernity."

In the fourth century, vegatables became linked with the monastic practice of abstinence from meat. As late as 1650, vegatables were still associated with penance and it wasn't until the 1700;s that vegetables began to claim serious attention. "The sweet potato acquired a reputation as an aphrodisiac and booster of male fertility," while in contrast the common potato was mostly ignored until the eighteenth century.

By the mid 1700's, the idea of "simplicity as the definitive principle of good cooking (as opposed to variety) was a concept born of the Enlightenment." and Rousseau had a lot he wanted to say about that!

These are but a minute portion of fascinating facts told in an engaging way about the revolution of taste through the ages.

There are chapters about wine and the once despised champagne, the duality of artifice and simplicity in the kitchen, and last of all are some easy to follow recipes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author has made it easy for today's cook to follow them.

A really enjoyable read for the lover of good food packed with interesting information.

[Harlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enlightening (hah!) and comprehensive history of how French cuisine changed radically from a sweet-and-sour melange of flavors, ala modern Indian or Mexican cuisine, to dishes that focus on the actual flavor of actual primary ingredients, supported by sauces, as we know today. I was struck by the cyclic nature of culinary change, as cooks develop techniques to build ever-more-elaborate dishes, trading off with counter-acting forces pushing for simplicity, locality, and subtlety. Those forces can be seen more recently in the rise of nouveau cuisine in the 1970s, a term recycled from a similar (if more drastic) change during the time period reviewed in this book. And they can also be seen in the tension between the current two wings of the food movement, the Modernist wing and the Locavore/Slow Food wing. [return][return]Pinkard writes history very well, and manages to cover her remarkably intensive research into several hundred years of French names, cookbooks, and techniques in a comprehensible manner, while successfully stepping back from time to time for context and to describe larger trends.

[Pancha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book starts with an overview of Medieval cooking and the theory of food as medicine, then segues into the two major "revolutions" in French cuisine. It mostly focuses on the kitchens of the well-off, but the author does note what food was like for the lower classes in a few chapters, especially when food variety for them was going down in a sharp contrast to food variety going up for the rich. Includes some recipes in the back, and very thorough descriptions of the various foods in the text. Also very briefly touches on the difference between French and British cooking at the time, and how some flavor combos were similar/possibly came from Persia and other areas in the Middle East.

A good read if you enjoy food history.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is nothing to shout about (although the author's voice starts to come out a little bit in the second half of the book), and about 1 of every 3 chapters is deadly boring--these being the chapters that go too far afield from the main topic. But said topic is so fascinating that it carried my interest the whole way through.

[Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

MMmmm. Food. I love cooking and it's always great to learn new dishes. This book is more about the history and less about actual recipes. If you are looking to learn to cook french dishes, look elsewhere; however, if you intend to educate yourself on the history of French cuisine, this is a great book to checkout.

[Liane]

Loved t. Shed light on how our tastes evolved, and helps one understand the impact of what we put in out mouths impacts other things we choose to show taste.

[Mills College Library]

394.12094 P6553 2009