I Know How to Cook

by Ginette Mathiot, translated by Clotilde Dusoulier
Phaidon, 976 pp., $45

Ginette Mathiot’s Je Sais Cuisiner has justly been compared to Joy of Cooking. It is big, comprehensive, and classic. First published in the 1930s, it was an essential tome for every French housewife. A new English translation, by Clotilde Dusoulier, makes this book accessible to American home cooks for the first time. In it you will find recipes for virtually every French dish you could possibly imagine and a few you probably never even dreamed of. There are nearly 30 pages devoted to eggs, and it includes recipes for virtually every kind of meat, from chicken, beef, and lamb to venison, rabbit, and squab. There are recipes for stuffed artichoke hearts and braised endive with cream. The sheer volume of the more than 1,400 recipes borders on encyclopedic.

Americans may be surprised to find that these are not Julia Child’s leisurely recipes. Rather, they are simple, practical, and designed for a true everyday cook with an interest in feeding a family. Most can be prepared in the space of an hour or two. But even though the recipes have been updated to suit modern cooking trends, and quantities have been adapted for the American kitchen, some of the recipes and directions feel a little spare. The recipe for onion soup, for instance, asks for nothing more than onions, stock, butter, flour, salt and pepper but would probably benefit from a few extra ingredients to deepen the flavor. Inexperienced cooks may find themselves frustrated over the lack of exposition, while those with more know-how may want to enhance the recipes to suit their tastes. But fundamentally, this is an excellent reference guide to French cooking that will be handy in every home kitchen.

This article appears in May 28 • 2010.

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Rachel Feit is an archaeologist by trade who worked her way through college in kitchens in Chicago and Austin before discovering that dishing up words was more satisfying that dishing up meals. She has been writing about food and restaurants for The Austin Chronicle for more than a decade, but still loves to cook.