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The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
The author shares French- and American-style recipes as well as memories of her experiences in France with Gertrude Stein
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
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1760 people want to read
About the author
Alice B. Toklas
14 books49 followersPeople remember American writer Alice Babette Toklas as the domestic partner of Gertrude Stein; her works include cookbooks and a volume of memoirs.
She joined as a member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Born to a Polish army officer in a middle-class Jewish family, she attended schools in San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time, she also studied music at the University of Washington.
She arrived in Paris and met on 8 September 1907.
Together, they hosted a salon that attracted expatriates, such as Ernest Miller Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Niven Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque.
Toklas, a background figure, acted as confidante, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer and chiefly living in the shadow until she published in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice Babette Toklas , bestselling book.
Source: Wikipedia
She joined as a member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Born to a Polish army officer in a middle-class Jewish family, she attended schools in San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time, she also studied music at the University of Washington.
She arrived in Paris and met on 8 September 1907.
Together, they hosted a salon that attracted expatriates, such as Ernest Miller Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Niven Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque.
Toklas, a background figure, acted as confidante, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer and chiefly living in the shadow until she published in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice Babette Toklas , bestselling book.
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
April 2, 2022
3.5 stars
Yes this really is primarily a cookbook with some reminiscences thrown in. It was written after her partner, Gertrude Stein’s, death. Food was clearly very important in their lives and it is written with great passion. Contributory to that may be that Toklas had jaundice when she wrote it and was on a strict diet. Most of the recipes are French because that is where Toklas and Stein spent most of their time. But there are some thrown in from the US and a sprinkling from most other European countries and a few from further afield. Toklas collected recipes all her life and this was her passion.
The arrangement of the recipes is idiosyncratic to say the least, with the order being more of when they were tried and cooked as Toklas takes the reader through the years. There are lots of asides about the various people they knew and places they visited; bit of a restaurant tour of France in the first forty years of the twentieth century. The tone can be waspish and rather dismissive and French cuisine is always the benchmark;
“The French never add Tabasco, ketchup or Worcestershire sauce, nor do they eat any of the innumerable kinds of pickles, nor do they accompany a meat course with radishes, olives or salted nuts”
The recipes are often complex and time consuming requiring oceans of cream and acres of butter. There is a recipe for a leg of lamb which requires the cook to inject the meat with orange juice twice a day for a week whilst it is being marinaded. It seems that most things that moved were eaten. There is even a recipe for Larks which begins, “Place 2 dozen plucked larks in an oven with 6 rashers of Parma smoked ham …”! Of course, the most famous recipe in the book is in the chapter which is recipes contributed by friends; Hashish Fudge, with the recommendation that two pieces are enough and a batch will cause great hilarity at any party. Incidentally, the fudge (more accurately a brownie), has its own facebook page!
The chapter on servants illustrates why the cooking could be so extravagant, as for most of their time together Stein and Toklas employed a cook/housekeeper. There are interesting recollections throughout the book of their friends (famous and less famous). The chapter on the Nazi occupation is interesting. Being both Jewish and lesbian, Stein and Toklas cannot have been very comfortable in Nazi occupied France.
It is an interesting read; the range of recipes is broad. There are plenty of vegetable recipes and a wide range of puddings, some good wit and a fascinating account of Toklas’s life with Stein. It won’t be to everyone’s taste and for me parts of it grated (maintaining the culinary theme), but it’s great fun as well.
Yes this really is primarily a cookbook with some reminiscences thrown in. It was written after her partner, Gertrude Stein’s, death. Food was clearly very important in their lives and it is written with great passion. Contributory to that may be that Toklas had jaundice when she wrote it and was on a strict diet. Most of the recipes are French because that is where Toklas and Stein spent most of their time. But there are some thrown in from the US and a sprinkling from most other European countries and a few from further afield. Toklas collected recipes all her life and this was her passion.
The arrangement of the recipes is idiosyncratic to say the least, with the order being more of when they were tried and cooked as Toklas takes the reader through the years. There are lots of asides about the various people they knew and places they visited; bit of a restaurant tour of France in the first forty years of the twentieth century. The tone can be waspish and rather dismissive and French cuisine is always the benchmark;
“The French never add Tabasco, ketchup or Worcestershire sauce, nor do they eat any of the innumerable kinds of pickles, nor do they accompany a meat course with radishes, olives or salted nuts”
The recipes are often complex and time consuming requiring oceans of cream and acres of butter. There is a recipe for a leg of lamb which requires the cook to inject the meat with orange juice twice a day for a week whilst it is being marinaded. It seems that most things that moved were eaten. There is even a recipe for Larks which begins, “Place 2 dozen plucked larks in an oven with 6 rashers of Parma smoked ham …”! Of course, the most famous recipe in the book is in the chapter which is recipes contributed by friends; Hashish Fudge, with the recommendation that two pieces are enough and a batch will cause great hilarity at any party. Incidentally, the fudge (more accurately a brownie), has its own facebook page!
The chapter on servants illustrates why the cooking could be so extravagant, as for most of their time together Stein and Toklas employed a cook/housekeeper. There are interesting recollections throughout the book of their friends (famous and less famous). The chapter on the Nazi occupation is interesting. Being both Jewish and lesbian, Stein and Toklas cannot have been very comfortable in Nazi occupied France.
It is an interesting read; the range of recipes is broad. There are plenty of vegetable recipes and a wide range of puddings, some good wit and a fascinating account of Toklas’s life with Stein. It won’t be to everyone’s taste and for me parts of it grated (maintaining the culinary theme), but it’s great fun as well.
July 14, 2015
Best book ever. The recipes are basically impossible, but that's immaterial.
February 4, 2015
This book always reminds me of one of my (late) godmothers who would pick up her glass of pre-dinner sherry and start reminiscing how she had ‘discovered’ the young and (then) unknown Daniel Day Lewis.
In Paris, in 1908, after moving in with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas began to develop a knowledgeable passion for the fine cooking of France. This scintillating literary memoir of a recipe book is one result of that.
That, in a nutshell, is to me the prime delight of this book. Alice writes in a very matter of fact style. She remembers buying two hams and hundreds of cigarettes immediately after the1906 San Francisco earthquake, whilst that city was still burning. She recalls the challenge of catering to Picasso’s strict diet, Zeppelin raids, cooking during the Occupation in WW2. Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder number amongst the multitude of characters who pass affectionately through her pages.
And the recipes read well. Very well. To my shame I have never cooked any; principally because so very many require copious quantities of butter, cream, and egg yolk. After all, this IS French cooking; and THAT’S why it tastes so good. Yet Alice’s writing is so good that one can derive great pleasure simply by reading and tasting ‘in the mind’. Zero calories, and very, very, satisfying too. Perhaps I ought to design and market a meal-less training course as the new post-Christmas diet? Would I get anyone to part with their money?
However, there is ONE (infamous) recipe that I leave well alone. That is the infamous Haschich Fudge, given towards the back of the book, in the section of “Recipes From Friends.” Exactly what manner of a friend was Brian Gysen, I wonder? The unfortunate editor of this book (at Michael Joseph) was entirely and blissfully unaware that the principle ingredient, canibis sativa [sic], is otherwise known as marijuana. Unaware, of course, until after this book had been published. That recipe has now gone down in the annals of folklore. I last heard Press mention of it some six or seven years ago when UK sufferers of multiple sclerosis were lobbying for cannabis to be legalised for medical usage.
Read this book for that frisson if you wish; but your prime reason for reading this book should be to experience, learn from, and replicate the warmth, love, and good fellowship of the circle of friends who are inevitably drawn to surround a good and sociable cook.
In Paris, in 1908, after moving in with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas began to develop a knowledgeable passion for the fine cooking of France. This scintillating literary memoir of a recipe book is one result of that.
That, in a nutshell, is to me the prime delight of this book. Alice writes in a very matter of fact style. She remembers buying two hams and hundreds of cigarettes immediately after the1906 San Francisco earthquake, whilst that city was still burning. She recalls the challenge of catering to Picasso’s strict diet, Zeppelin raids, cooking during the Occupation in WW2. Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder number amongst the multitude of characters who pass affectionately through her pages.
And the recipes read well. Very well. To my shame I have never cooked any; principally because so very many require copious quantities of butter, cream, and egg yolk. After all, this IS French cooking; and THAT’S why it tastes so good. Yet Alice’s writing is so good that one can derive great pleasure simply by reading and tasting ‘in the mind’. Zero calories, and very, very, satisfying too. Perhaps I ought to design and market a meal-less training course as the new post-Christmas diet? Would I get anyone to part with their money?
However, there is ONE (infamous) recipe that I leave well alone. That is the infamous Haschich Fudge, given towards the back of the book, in the section of “Recipes From Friends.” Exactly what manner of a friend was Brian Gysen, I wonder? The unfortunate editor of this book (at Michael Joseph) was entirely and blissfully unaware that the principle ingredient, canibis sativa [sic], is otherwise known as marijuana. Unaware, of course, until after this book had been published. That recipe has now gone down in the annals of folklore. I last heard Press mention of it some six or seven years ago when UK sufferers of multiple sclerosis were lobbying for cannabis to be legalised for medical usage.
Read this book for that frisson if you wish; but your prime reason for reading this book should be to experience, learn from, and replicate the warmth, love, and good fellowship of the circle of friends who are inevitably drawn to surround a good and sociable cook.
May 28, 2023
Cranky Old Lady Confession: yes, this is a long gripe about an INTRODUCTION written 35 years ago for a book published in 1954.
To get the obvious out of the way, The Alice B Toklas Cookbook is wonderful. I want all of her dishes, one after the other, never mind that the rest of the country would then be out of eggs, cream and butter for the next five or six years. I wouldn’t care, having succumbed to a massive coronary just after the last luscious bite.
I used to have a first edition paperback of Ms. Toklas’s infamous recipes and memories. The little yellow jacketed book was worn and fraying from regular re-reading, and by the time I somehow lost it, I knew it so well (the war chapters especially, from the opening “In the beginning, like camels, we lived on our past” on through the myriad of ways to prepare crayfish when that’s all you can get), I didn’t hurry to find another copy. But finding this 1984 edition at Goodwill not long ago, and for only a dollah, AND an introduction written by MFK Fisher, happy book-dance and sold.
Then I read the introduction and was reminded of this: decades ago I worked for a print publication and became friendly with its very engaging food columnist, initially over a shared love of MFK Fisher. When he landed an interview with her, and not just an interview but lunch at her house, I extracted vows to Tell All afterwards. When he came back to NY, I grabbed him – so?? Lunch? Anecdotes?– he sighed, and half-smiled, and said, “So … Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is an absolute bitch.”
From the start of the Alice B. Toklas forward, Fisher is primarily interested in only two things; her obsession over Ms. Toklas’ looks (by the third paragraph she’s already described her as a “small, ugly woman”) and the bitter affront Fisher took at not being personally introduced at the sad end of Alice’s life. She goes off on a wild tear about how she knew Ms Toklas so well from reading her, and should have been afforded a face to face. Instead of focusing on Toklas’ life – her passion for cooking, gardening, her homemaking for Gertrude – the introduction is used to first detail how Janet Flanner, an “elderly writer” who had the temerity to be living in the Parisian hotel room Fisher wanted for herself, “refused to include me (Fisher’s italics), even vicariously, when she went several times a week to the clinic where Alice B. Toklas lay like a sightless, speechless vegetable.” (Personally, when thinking of vegetables and Alice B. Toklas, I'll go with her delectable sounding artichoke recipes). Fisher even snipes that daily she bought Ms. Toklas’ favourite pastries to be brought along as gifts, “and watched Janet pretend that she was not going to eat the little treats herself.”
Then there are 2 pages focused on Alice’s appearance, ‘her nose big or even huge’, ‘her strong black moustache” and her ‘almost offensive’ choice of footwear. Fisher finally gets to the writing of the cookbook, but has to point out that as Ms. Toklas was ill with hepatitis at the time, ‘her naturally sallow face turned pumpkin-yellow.’
Fisher does, ultimately, praise the book, calling it abundantly satisfying, but not before taking a few jabs at certain passages. The ‘Recipes from Friends’ couldn’t have been written by the author, with their ‘much distorted recipes’, and Alice’s ‘lyrical directions’ for concocting her famous Hash Brownies Fisher contends were actually the work of a friend, not Alice herself.
It’s Alice herself who wrote the real introduction to her work, and all that need be included. She writes of her equal love for America and for France, her adopted home, and how their differences in approach to cooking and to dining inspired the cookbook. “I wrote it for America, but it will be pleasant if the ideas in it, besides surviving the Atlantic, manage to cross the Channel and find acceptance in British kitchens too.” Having been translated into multiple languages, The Alice B. Toklas cookbook is still in print 65 years after it first appeared. Fisher’s snakelike introduction fades to nothing, while in these pages Toklas, even from her sickbed, is cooking, entertaining, remembering, loving and very much alive.
So Fooey to you Mary Frances (although I still love How to Cook a Wolf, but count yourself lucky nobody will ever ask me to write an introduction for it.)
STARS AWARDED - Alice B. Toklas: 20, MFK -8
To get the obvious out of the way, The Alice B Toklas Cookbook is wonderful. I want all of her dishes, one after the other, never mind that the rest of the country would then be out of eggs, cream and butter for the next five or six years. I wouldn’t care, having succumbed to a massive coronary just after the last luscious bite.
I used to have a first edition paperback of Ms. Toklas’s infamous recipes and memories. The little yellow jacketed book was worn and fraying from regular re-reading, and by the time I somehow lost it, I knew it so well (the war chapters especially, from the opening “In the beginning, like camels, we lived on our past” on through the myriad of ways to prepare crayfish when that’s all you can get), I didn’t hurry to find another copy. But finding this 1984 edition at Goodwill not long ago, and for only a dollah, AND an introduction written by MFK Fisher, happy book-dance and sold.
Then I read the introduction and was reminded of this: decades ago I worked for a print publication and became friendly with its very engaging food columnist, initially over a shared love of MFK Fisher. When he landed an interview with her, and not just an interview but lunch at her house, I extracted vows to Tell All afterwards. When he came back to NY, I grabbed him – so?? Lunch? Anecdotes?– he sighed, and half-smiled, and said, “So … Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is an absolute bitch.”
From the start of the Alice B. Toklas forward, Fisher is primarily interested in only two things; her obsession over Ms. Toklas’ looks (by the third paragraph she’s already described her as a “small, ugly woman”) and the bitter affront Fisher took at not being personally introduced at the sad end of Alice’s life. She goes off on a wild tear about how she knew Ms Toklas so well from reading her, and should have been afforded a face to face. Instead of focusing on Toklas’ life – her passion for cooking, gardening, her homemaking for Gertrude – the introduction is used to first detail how Janet Flanner, an “elderly writer” who had the temerity to be living in the Parisian hotel room Fisher wanted for herself, “refused to include me (Fisher’s italics), even vicariously, when she went several times a week to the clinic where Alice B. Toklas lay like a sightless, speechless vegetable.” (Personally, when thinking of vegetables and Alice B. Toklas, I'll go with her delectable sounding artichoke recipes). Fisher even snipes that daily she bought Ms. Toklas’ favourite pastries to be brought along as gifts, “and watched Janet pretend that she was not going to eat the little treats herself.”
Then there are 2 pages focused on Alice’s appearance, ‘her nose big or even huge’, ‘her strong black moustache” and her ‘almost offensive’ choice of footwear. Fisher finally gets to the writing of the cookbook, but has to point out that as Ms. Toklas was ill with hepatitis at the time, ‘her naturally sallow face turned pumpkin-yellow.’
Fisher does, ultimately, praise the book, calling it abundantly satisfying, but not before taking a few jabs at certain passages. The ‘Recipes from Friends’ couldn’t have been written by the author, with their ‘much distorted recipes’, and Alice’s ‘lyrical directions’ for concocting her famous Hash Brownies Fisher contends were actually the work of a friend, not Alice herself.
It’s Alice herself who wrote the real introduction to her work, and all that need be included. She writes of her equal love for America and for France, her adopted home, and how their differences in approach to cooking and to dining inspired the cookbook. “I wrote it for America, but it will be pleasant if the ideas in it, besides surviving the Atlantic, manage to cross the Channel and find acceptance in British kitchens too.” Having been translated into multiple languages, The Alice B. Toklas cookbook is still in print 65 years after it first appeared. Fisher’s snakelike introduction fades to nothing, while in these pages Toklas, even from her sickbed, is cooking, entertaining, remembering, loving and very much alive.
So Fooey to you Mary Frances (although I still love How to Cook a Wolf, but count yourself lucky nobody will ever ask me to write an introduction for it.)
STARS AWARDED - Alice B. Toklas: 20, MFK -8
March 18, 2015
MFK Fisher really is insufferable. Reading her introduction, followed by Toklas's friendly, unpretentious book, really just points out what an asshat and classist Fisher was.
That said, Toklas is not much of a writer, and she knows it. She does have great stories, and lived a fascinating life. Ironically, I like it for much the same reason that I liked Fisher's books from the interwar period: it's great context on a complicated time in European history. Having it witnessed and recorded by American ex-pats with unpolitical lives is an interesting way to learn how people were living.
As to the recipes: hello to the butter! There are a few things here I would make, and it was nice to see my idea of bechamel validated. Largely, though, it's of interest as a historical document. It was interesting and a little surprising to read stories in which Stein is famous, as she's so largely forgotten today.
Worth a read, but unlikely to go back, unless it's for a recipe that's since gone out of fashion.
That said, Toklas is not much of a writer, and she knows it. She does have great stories, and lived a fascinating life. Ironically, I like it for much the same reason that I liked Fisher's books from the interwar period: it's great context on a complicated time in European history. Having it witnessed and recorded by American ex-pats with unpolitical lives is an interesting way to learn how people were living.
As to the recipes: hello to the butter! There are a few things here I would make, and it was nice to see my idea of bechamel validated. Largely, though, it's of interest as a historical document. It was interesting and a little surprising to read stories in which Stein is famous, as she's so largely forgotten today.
Worth a read, but unlikely to go back, unless it's for a recipe that's since gone out of fashion.
July 3, 2014
Alice Toklas incontra Gertrude Stein in Francia, verso la fine della II guerra mondiale. Si offrono quindi volontarie per guidare veicoli di rifornimento per ospedali francesi e truppe americane, avendo così la possibilità di girare buona parte della nazione. La Toklas nasconde una piccola biografia di quei giorni in questo interessante libro di cucina.
Le ricette citate sono quasi esclusivamente francesi. Si tratta di piatti assaggiati nelle case in cui sono state ospiti, negli alberghi in cui hanno alloggiato, recuperate dai cuochi che hanno lavorato per loro. Molte per me suonano strane, con accostamenti che mai avrei pensato di fare. L'uso di burro, uova, panna e altri grassi è però così diffuso da farmi alzare il colesterolo per osmosi.
La parte divertente sono le piccole citazioni buttate qua e là come se non fossero importani: Picasso che si emoziona davanti a un piatto di pesce, Mallarmé che passa alle scrittrici un documento autografo con la ricetta della marmellata di cocco, Josephine Baker che oltre a lavorare per il controspionaggio ha tempo per farsi intitolare una crema pasticcera. Ovviamente non manca la citazione dal teatro di Alexandre Dumas padre, che infila ricette anche nelle opere teatrali.
Ribadisco che la lettura rimane in primis quella di un ricettario: ci sono ingredienti, quantità, modi di cottura. Tuttavia è piacevole, e le protagoniste assai golose. Nella seconda metà perde un po' di verve (molte ricette, una dietro l'altra), ma recupera nel finale con un capitolo sul personale di servizio che le ha accompagnate nella loro vita francese e gli incontri con i soldati americani. Certo il punto di vista è assai privilegiato: il loro problema principale non è trovare il cibo, ma trovare gli ingredienti per piatti da gourmet anche durante il razionamento. L'esagerato numero di tartufi che riempiono queste pagine, a volte, è poco dignotoso.
Le ricette citate sono quasi esclusivamente francesi. Si tratta di piatti assaggiati nelle case in cui sono state ospiti, negli alberghi in cui hanno alloggiato, recuperate dai cuochi che hanno lavorato per loro. Molte per me suonano strane, con accostamenti che mai avrei pensato di fare. L'uso di burro, uova, panna e altri grassi è però così diffuso da farmi alzare il colesterolo per osmosi.
La parte divertente sono le piccole citazioni buttate qua e là come se non fossero importani: Picasso che si emoziona davanti a un piatto di pesce, Mallarmé che passa alle scrittrici un documento autografo con la ricetta della marmellata di cocco, Josephine Baker che oltre a lavorare per il controspionaggio ha tempo per farsi intitolare una crema pasticcera. Ovviamente non manca la citazione dal teatro di Alexandre Dumas padre, che infila ricette anche nelle opere teatrali.
Ribadisco che la lettura rimane in primis quella di un ricettario: ci sono ingredienti, quantità, modi di cottura. Tuttavia è piacevole, e le protagoniste assai golose. Nella seconda metà perde un po' di verve (molte ricette, una dietro l'altra), ma recupera nel finale con un capitolo sul personale di servizio che le ha accompagnate nella loro vita francese e gli incontri con i soldati americani. Certo il punto di vista è assai privilegiato: il loro problema principale non è trovare il cibo, ma trovare gli ingredienti per piatti da gourmet anche durante il razionamento. L'esagerato numero di tartufi che riempiono queste pagine, a volte, è poco dignotoso.
June 30, 2025
Erano anni che volevo leggere, lo vedevo sullo scaffale della libreria e non trovavo mai la giusta motivazione per comprarlo. Alla fine mi è apparso tra i consigliati nella mia area personale della biblioteca, e non potevo che prenderlo in prestito.
È un libro che del libro di ricette ha ben poco, racconta la vita quotidiana di due donne, che si amavano molto, immerse nel bel mondo dell' epoca, a cavallo tra le due guerre.
le ricette sono alcune molto semplici, altre elaborate. La Toklas, alla fine , non ha scritto un ricettario, ma un'autobiografia culinaria.
È un libro che del libro di ricette ha ben poco, racconta la vita quotidiana di due donne, che si amavano molto, immerse nel bel mondo dell' epoca, a cavallo tra le due guerre.
le ricette sono alcune molto semplici, altre elaborate. La Toklas, alla fine , non ha scritto un ricettario, ma un'autobiografia culinaria.
February 11, 2021
Absolutely impossible recipes. I love it. She’s hilarious, and I am super thrilled with the existence of cookbook as memoir.
January 13, 2019
Really liked this. Toklas recollects her life with Gertrude Stein through food. By her own admission , Toklas is not an accomplished writer but this really adds to the charm. Not sure, you’d cook any of the food these days.
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August 27, 2024the amt of ham & cream in the salads, let alone in everything else, is astounding. alice b having gout, am i right? funny to see bouillabaisse in a section on "lesser-known french recipes" but i guess that's what living in an era before julia child does to a mf. not making anything that requires 14 truffles anytime soon, but nice comfy bedtime read here a la MFK & laurie colwin
May 31, 2012
Alice B. Toklas was quite the unusual character in American history and literature, and as she was always the secretary-companion to Gertrude Stein, 1907-46, and never an author herself, it is nice to hear her voice in this volume as well as to receive the numerous recipes from both American and French cuisine that she collected during their life together in France. But this is far more than just a cookbook. Toklas was persuaded by friends after Stein’s death to publish a collection of her memoirs and recipes. She protested, insisting that her story had already been told in the wonderful Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. There is some overlap between the autobiography and the cook book in terms of Toklas and Stein’s life together in France, their year-long visit back to America, cooking for artists such as Pablo Picasso, surviving the deprivations of two world wars etc., But the biography was actually written by Stein, not Toklas, whereas the cookbook finally lets Toklas’s words and personality shine through. At its publication in 1954, the book became infamous for its one controversial recipe—Haschich Fudge, which later were known as Alice B. Toklas Brownies. Because the instructions called for ground marijuana along with the sugar, butter, spices and other good things, the recipe was banned from the earlier editions. (More on this recipe later). Toklas’s huge number and variety of recipes were gathered from French people in whose homes they dined, from restaurants they visited all over the country, from various servants who came to cook for them, and from friends and chefs they met while making Stein’s lecture tour of the United States, 1934-35. Toklas shares numerous anecdotes among the recipes, including the stories of the women’s service to soldiers during World War I, hardships from food rationing during both world wars (before the “blessed black market” swung into action), and the bother of having German and Italian army men “billeted upon” them. Housing soldiers and officers had its up side, however. Some of the men shared recipes from their countries, cooked for the ladies, and procured contraband cheese and other treats that they shared. Among the many recipes Toklas includes are how to cook frog’s legs, duck à l’orange, and regional dishes such as quiche, gazpacho, and Alsatian cakes. Poultry, beef, and fish recipes abound as do soups, salads and countless desserts. (These two ladies apparently never worried about calories or cholesterol because these recipes are typically filled with lots of butter, cream, and eggs). As for the infamous fudge—something “anyone could whip up on a rainy day”—Toklas calls it “the food of Paradise—of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradise: it might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR.” (Right). As one of the ingredients is “a bunch or pulverized canibus sativa, she warns that it should be “eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient ” (260). She even gives instructions on how to plant, cultivate, and harvest the guilty herb. In her forward to the book, M.F.K. Fisher notes that she has heard the brownies 1) have absolutely no effect, and 2) are potentially lethal. Actually, the recipe sounds totally yummy—chocolatey and dense with nuts, spices, and dried fruits—and I would like to try it someday (minus the weed). One of Alice’s greatest joys was growing and harvesting her own fresh vegetables. The last chapter of the book is a charming account of her last years with Stein as they tended their garden in their country home at Bilignin in the Rhône-Alps region of France. “The first gathering of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby—how could anything so beautiful be mine?” (266). Lovely recipes for their home-grown vegetables, fruits, and berries follow.
October 11, 2014
I found a paperback copy of the cookbook in Asheville NC for $1.72 plus tax. It was the literary bargain of the year for me. This is not the hard-cover, ergo no introduction by MFK Fisher. But, the recipes are presented in a similar fashion to Fisher's, i.e., there's a story and some follow-up opinions around each of her recipes. Her flirtation with pot brownies is a fable, inspired by the inclusion of a recipe for "hashish brownies". That lone recipe appears in the appendix of recipes from her friends. Some of the recipes are hard to create, because I don't have access to many of the ingredients. The ingredients and amounts seem inexact for some dishes. My favorite recipe is "Godmother's Chicken", which also is inexact. For one, the recipe calls for "one fine chicken" and I've made this dish a dozen times, never knowing whether my chickens met the author's standards. This book is quite autobiographical, too. Toklas shares many of her exploits with her companion Gertrude Stein. Her recollection of their travels around France during WW I, for example, may be burnished with details that did not actually occur, but the stories are charmingly recounted by Miss Toklas.
June 18, 2008
Too bad I can't link to my edition, a small 1960 Anchor Books paperback. Probably one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, though I have never made a thing from it. This summer I swear I will make Scheherezade's Melon. It will mean adding even more useless bottles of liqueurs to my already overstocked bar. No matter--it must be done. I also long to make a Custard Josephine Baker just so I can call it such. This is an utterly charming and absorbing read.
September 7, 2009
Not what I hoped for, but I guess I hoped for too much. MFK Fisher's intro sold Toklas too strongly. More than a cookbook, but generally so circumspect about her life and literature that they might as well not exist. I guess I need to read her autobiography. The chapter on servants is like cocktail quips tossed off without the benefit of cocktails or facial expression. Pitiful. The parts about the wars are very good, and I marked many recipes of interest. When she wrote about something she cared about -- her own cooking or gardening -- she was passionately present.
After being sent a crate of live pigeons along with a note that "Alice is clever and will make something delicious of them," she says, "It is certainly a mistake to allow a reputation for cleverness to be born and spread by loving friends. It is so cheaply acquired and so dearly paid for."
On gardening: "The first gathering of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby -- how could anything so beautiful be mine."
After being sent a crate of live pigeons along with a note that "Alice is clever and will make something delicious of them," she says, "It is certainly a mistake to allow a reputation for cleverness to be born and spread by loving friends. It is so cheaply acquired and so dearly paid for."
On gardening: "The first gathering of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby -- how could anything so beautiful be mine."
April 19, 2017
This is less a cookbook than a memory of the people she’s known. She and Gertrude Stein lived in France from 1907 until her death in 1967, and that included both World Wars. But even during the wars, her anecdotes are from the perspective of living under the privations imposed by Germany and saving up for the celebration she knew would be coming when France was finally liberated.
The book is most interesting for its anecdotes; the recipes are interspersed among them. Many of the recipes are simply impracticable nowadays (unless, perhaps, you still live among French farmers) but I do intend to try, at least once, homemade mustard, Greek tarata, and Gypsy goulash.
In the village two of the shopkeepers were to become very useful to me. They said it was their patriotic duty to sell what the Germans forbade. In which case was it not mine to purchase what they offered?
The book is most interesting for its anecdotes; the recipes are interspersed among them. Many of the recipes are simply impracticable nowadays (unless, perhaps, you still live among French farmers) but I do intend to try, at least once, homemade mustard, Greek tarata, and Gypsy goulash.
September 11, 2012
This is really great, partly because it's got a ton of anecdotes and little stories about her artist lesbian ambulance-driver life with Gertrude Stein in France just pre- and during WWII, and partly for the wild prewar French recipes (pheasant stuffed with cottage cheese? 2 gallons of cream and melted butter in everything? lobster and cauliflower salad?!). There are also a bunch of stories from Occupied France, and this image of these ex-pats flowing across the country from place to place, hoarding and swapping food. The story that has most stayed with me is when she watched a German soldier buy a kilo of butter, bite off a corner of it, grimace, and throw it over a wall. She speculates that he didn't know what it was, and wanted to try it, but it wasn't what he expected. A kilo of butter! Such wealth. But nobody touched it after he'd thrown it away.
November 27, 2013
che delizia questo ricettario di alice b. toklas in cui le ricette sono il punto di partenza per raccontare la vita quotidiana in francia (e la vita della inossidabile coppia stein/toklas), parlare di gusto, cercare l'origine di alcuni piatti famosi. per quanto quasi tutti i piatti siano di una pesantezza incredibile (visto il modo di cucinare di oggi) e non sia certo un ricettario per vegetariani- ho letto con piacere le elaborate preparazioni e l'ho trovato un libro incredibilmente piacevole e gustoso, anche per lo stile fresco e semplice dell'autrice
February 28, 2015
Take half a pound of butter, add a cup of cream. This sums up pretty much all the recipes in this interesting cookbook cum memoir by Alice B" Toklas. Living in France in the twenties and thirties meant eating classical cuisine and Alice both supervised the series of cooks who worked in their household or she did the cooking herself.
My arteries were clogging as I was reading. I did not dare try any of the recipes for fear I might drop dead on the spot. Different times...
The memoir part was more interesting than the recipes.
My arteries were clogging as I was reading. I did not dare try any of the recipes for fear I might drop dead on the spot. Different times...
The memoir part was more interesting than the recipes.
October 15, 2012
This is quite possibly my favorite cookbook. It's very personal and it covers the art of french entertaining. I think it's a perfect supplement to Julia Child's Master the Art of French Cooking. You get so much with this book: a great French cookbook, a neat narrative about mid-century Paris, the recipes of countless other celebrities, and the amazing wit of one of the greatest women of the 20th century. It's so funny how bold she is about how good the recipes are.
March 18, 2019
If the only thing you know about The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook is that it contains a recipe for hashish fudge, you're missing a lot. There's a whole world in there, and a delightful woman to describe it for you in language so lush and evocative that you'll feel like you're listening to her tell you all about her amazing life in France in a voice that sounds, as James Merrill described it, "like a viola at dusk". (You'll also swoon over the food.)
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June 26, 2012My recollection is that there were a few recipes I would like to try but that many of them would require adaptation. These are somewhat like medieval recipes in the sense that they don't have the ingredients conveniently listed before the instructions.
August 8, 2013
This older book is more than a cookbook of obsolete recipes, not including the Hashish Brownies. Alice B and her life partner Gertrude travel around Europe in Wartime, visiting the rich and famous and eating at fab restaurants. I say, give it a miss.
January 21, 2017
I liked reading the stories in this cookbook. If you want to make any of the dishes, make sure you have lots of butter, cream, and hog fat !
July 29, 2018
At times, very clever and entertaining. Mostly? The recipes impeded every story and I just got bored, sadly.
January 30, 2019
Nice light read, interesting counterbalance to Stein. Interesting to read Alice in her own words.
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September 9, 2025(nya svenska utgåvan från 2024)
Uselt förord och nästan lika upprörande är det som brukar vara så bra, nämligen "några ord från översättarna". Hur kan Polaris misshandla en sådan pärla till bok på det här sättet. Emma Hamberg skriver i en helt annan genre, på en annan planet. Boken utspelar sig mestadels i Frankrike, absolut, men den är gay och gammaldags, genuin och fullkomligt passionerad när det gäller mat - Hamberg tycker inte ens att man kan använda recepten som recept, vad är det fråga om.
Toklas var en stenrik galning som lade hela sin tillvaro på att kuska runt med sin livskamrat. Sagda livskamrat var en snäppet mindre stenrik excentriker som behövde skriva för att försörja sig. Alltså blev matlagning och odling av råvaror, för att inte tala om byggandet av själva festerna, Toklas heltidsjobb. Berättat genom 400 recept. Makalöst underhållande, olikt allt som författas idag.
Uselt förord och nästan lika upprörande är det som brukar vara så bra, nämligen "några ord från översättarna". Hur kan Polaris misshandla en sådan pärla till bok på det här sättet. Emma Hamberg skriver i en helt annan genre, på en annan planet. Boken utspelar sig mestadels i Frankrike, absolut, men den är gay och gammaldags, genuin och fullkomligt passionerad när det gäller mat - Hamberg tycker inte ens att man kan använda recepten som recept, vad är det fråga om.
Toklas var en stenrik galning som lade hela sin tillvaro på att kuska runt med sin livskamrat. Sagda livskamrat var en snäppet mindre stenrik excentriker som behövde skriva för att försörja sig. Alltså blev matlagning och odling av råvaror, för att inte tala om byggandet av själva festerna, Toklas heltidsjobb. Berättat genom 400 recept. Makalöst underhållande, olikt allt som författas idag.
March 28, 2020
An interesting book. It is more memoir than cookbook. Alice B. Toklas was the partner to the more well known Gertrude Stein. This book talks about their life together and intersperses it with recipes. There is a chapter devoted to their service in World War I helping with the wounded and bringing supplies. Their life in the '30s and a most poignant chapter about World War II in occupied France.
Some of the reviewers compare her to Julia Child, and point out that Toklas was first. However, I can see why Toklas book was not as famous. Her recipes look and read as if they came from a 3x5 card kept in the kitchen. They can be followed but you need to be a confident cook.
The book was notorious for one recipe - Haschich Fudge (Which anyone can whip up on a rainy day). It was not even her recipe. It was one of the dozens offered by friends. But that one recipe for "pot brownies" made her an icon for the Hippies. See the movie "I love you Alice b. Toklas".
If you are looking for deep character insight this is not the book. It is almost like reading a third person account. But it does give insight into the woman who was the closet to Gertrude Stein and to her world.
Some of the reviewers compare her to Julia Child, and point out that Toklas was first. However, I can see why Toklas book was not as famous. Her recipes look and read as if they came from a 3x5 card kept in the kitchen. They can be followed but you need to be a confident cook.
The book was notorious for one recipe - Haschich Fudge (Which anyone can whip up on a rainy day). It was not even her recipe. It was one of the dozens offered by friends. But that one recipe for "pot brownies" made her an icon for the Hippies. See the movie "I love you Alice b. Toklas".
If you are looking for deep character insight this is not the book. It is almost like reading a third person account. But it does give insight into the woman who was the closet to Gertrude Stein and to her world.
December 30, 2022
I found this book to be quite interesting after reading Salty with the MMDBC. I was interested in learning about someone who lived with Gertrude Stein in France before, during and after WW2. I found the recipes to be quite interesting in the fact that they are not written quite like what I am used to reading. Ms. Toklas’ commentary about cooking, gardening and living was insightful into how they lived their lives during those years.
November 8, 2025
this was a fantastic book
highly recommend if you like food and life and people
don't expect to use the recipes but you'll learn a new vegetable or two
highly recommend if you like food and life and people
don't expect to use the recipes but you'll learn a new vegetable or two
June 22, 2021
This book is so much more than a cookbook!
For 40 years, Alice B Toklas was Gertrude Stein's companion, secretary, partner, friend and love. Together they hosted the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Hemingway, Anderson, Bowles and Fitzgerald. After Stein's death, Toklas wrote this unique memoir that is also a cookbook.
I am not much of a cook, and will likely never make any of these recipes, but the stories that accompanied they were gold
For 40 years, Alice B Toklas was Gertrude Stein's companion, secretary, partner, friend and love. Together they hosted the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Hemingway, Anderson, Bowles and Fitzgerald. After Stein's death, Toklas wrote this unique memoir that is also a cookbook.
I am not much of a cook, and will likely never make any of these recipes, but the stories that accompanied they were gold
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