Simple French Food

by Richard Olney, James Beard (Foreword), Patricia Wells (Introduction)

Simple French Food
"For twenty years Richard Olney's Simple French Food has been one of my greatest sources of inspiration for cooking at Chez Panisse." --Alice Waters

"I know this book almost by heart. It is a classic of honest French cooking and good writing. Buy it, read it, eat it." --Lydie Marshall

"I need this new edition badly because Simple French Food is the most dog-eared, falling-apart book in my library. Here it is newly bound to enrich one's life." --Kermit Lynch, author of Adventures on the Wine Route

"Simple French Food has the most marvelous French food to appear in print since Elisabeth David's French Provincial Cooking.... The book's greatest virtue is that the author...really teaches you to cook French in a way I've never seen before. Here you acquire the methods, the tour de main, the tricks that are the heart and essence of French food, unforgettable once acquired in this book because of their logical, well-explained presentation." --Nika Hazelton, The New York Times

"I am unable to find an ad equate adjective to express my enthusiasm.... I find Simple French Food marvelous. I have never read a book on French cuisine that has so excited and absorbed me." --Simone Beck

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, France, Reference, 20th Century

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Richard Olney was an American painter, cook, food writer, editor, and memoirist, best known for known for his books of French country cooking.

Olney lived in a house above the village of Solliès-Toucas in Provence, France, for most of his adult life, where he wrote many classic and influential cookbooks of French country cooking. He had first moved to France in 1951, to Paris, where he was close friends with (and painted many of) the American and English bohemian expatriate set, including James Baldwin, filmmaker Kenneth Anger, painter John Craxton, poet John Ashbery, and composer Ned Rorem.

He was also friends with Elizabeth David.

Reviews

[Larry Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK - I'm really conflicted as to how to rate this one. It's a delight to read. Olney is strongly opinionated, perhaps even a bit of a crank.

The recipe content is anything but simple - it's full of homemade aspics (veal knuckle anyone?) and fancy terrines - but the writing is great fun to read. His rant about pâté had me laughing out loud.

As for his basic techniques, especially for eggs, the degree to which his commandments align with Cook's Illustrated's is uncanny.

I'm not really through with this book. but that's not the point. You can pick this up, read any chapter or recipe introduction and thoroughly enjoy it. I probably won't ever cook anything from it, but that doesn't diminish my enjoyment.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Bittman writes, "If you want to learn your way around the French kitchen, Richard Olney is probably the best English-speaking guide there has ever been." Bittman goes on to say, "...(from Olney) you’ll learn what matters the most: that taking fresh, local, seasonal ingredients and treating them simply is the best way to prepare and enjoy food."

“The important thing,” Olney said, “is that the food taste good.” I don't think we can ask for more than that.

What recipes did I bookmark? I've tried nothing yet, but these are some of the recipes I'm most eager to try:

Gâteau de Crespèus (Cold Omelet Loaf)

Brouillade de Tomates au Basilic (Eggs Scrambled with Tomato and Basil)

Breton Chowder

Gratin Dauphinois (Scalloped Potatoes)

Gratin de Crepes Farcies aux Êpinards (Spinach-Stuffed Crêpes)

Pâte à l’Huile d’Olive (Provençal Pastry)

Tarte aux Pommes (Apple Tart)

[Amy Farnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has ruined me for all other cookbooks. One of the quotes on the jacket calls it “honest”. I didn’t really understand how a cookbook could be honest until I read it. To begin with, he is hilariously frank, especially when describing opinions different from his own. The man has VERY strong opinions about ingredients and preparation methods. But he trains that critical eye back on himself, highlighting parts of his recipes that may be distasteful or problem for some people. In one recipe, he admits that a dough may be hard to mix and provides detailed instructions for how to hold the spoon to keep your arm from tiring. In several recipes, he offers alternatives for preparation methods suitable for guests and day to day home cooking. He suggests ways to anticipate whether your guests will even like the food based on their other tastes.
All in all, I’ve never read a cookbook that is comparable in its vivid and visceral portrayal of the total cooking experience in each recipe. His recipes are not just lists of ingredients and minimalist instructions! He manages to convey the look and feel of the ingredients that are you are cooking, the questions that may cross your mind while you do it, and the rationale behind his preparation suggestions in a way that transports you into his kitchen. And all of that with no photos and a handful of scientific-looking drawings!
Wonderful book.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love food writing, and cookbooks, and this is now one of my favorites. "Simple" means not the sauce-obsessed high French cuisine of cities and fine restaurants in the 1950s and 60s. He does not mean "for beginner cooks," though dedicated beginners can learn a lot here too. He assumes you already know your way around a kitchen. Although there are many good recipes (and some too obscure for me to make, though interesting to read about), he also assert all his well-developed idiosyncratic opinions, and describes many techniques and loose ways of throwing certain categories of dishes together, in addition to plenty of good anecdotes and talk about ingredients.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love cookbooks, but try to keep them off my Goodreads lists unless they're worth reading beyond the utility of finding recipes. Olney's classic is one. Every recipe is lush and a pleasure to read. The description for Omelette a la Lyonnaise is worth the price of admission alone: "...a morning meal of hearty and attractively vulgar preparations washed down with a cool abundance of Beaujolais, vibrant in its tender youth".

[carelessdestiny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't tried any of the recipes, but he writes about the "vulgar, rustic, robust" food so ardently that I have to keep dipping into it. My edition has a detail of a Cezanne still life on the cover which somehow sums up the whole experience of this book

[Art Hare · Rating 5 out of 5]

More cook books should be written like this -Olney really transports you

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is nothing simple about these recipes and detailed explanations. It took me a long time to get past the snobbery and move on through the tediousness.

[Allison Hammerly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up from the library after reading The Gourmands' Way (Justin Spring). I have already gone out and purchased my own copy, not content to just read the library's copy once! Yes, Olney is a bit cantankerous, but in an endearing way, if you ask me. He has high standards. He is passionate. I love his passage about chopping meat by hand vs. buying it ground in the chapter Cold Terrines, Pates, Mousses. He describes the process, insists that he finds it worth the effort, then asks the reader if they are content with something merely decent, or whether they are seeking the sublime. That sure got my attention! I can't promise I will be chopping my meat by hand this weekend, but it certainly got me thinking!

I can't wait for summer farmer's market produce to try out some of his vegetable recipes. Also looking forward to some of the sauces for fish. This book is a wonderful read cover to cover.

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The curmudgeonly writing of a man who would rather teach you to cook than be writing down recipes is widely appreciated. The recipes suffer from the same shortcomings that some whisper about Julia Child - they are from another era and to modern tastes can be quite bland.

If you read the recipe and think it will be bland - go with your instincts! Julia Child stuck with more complex recipes with more ingredients, so she gets away with it better. But this book has a whole section on vegetables prepared simply and I would recommend more modern recipes for this, for example Melissa Clark, such as Dinner in French: My Recipes by Way of France: A Cookbook.

Still I have to give it three stars for being a classic and the baking instructions are okay.

[Mari McR · Rating 2 out of 5]

I pick up and read cookbooks as I peruse bookstores or the local library. Often, after reading them, I copy many recipes because I feel inspired to try them out. Not with Chef Olney's book for two main reasons: (1) It is anything but simple. These are not recipes as much as reflections of food from various regions of France, which have preparations that are challenging to understand if you are a home cook in America. (2) Much of the book is not structured like a recipe book. Monsieur Olney writes considerable prose (2-3 pages) explaining the background of a recipe, for example, followed by half a page of the recipe. In my humble opinion, a refined chef with at least decades of culinary education and formal work experience, preferably with French culinary preparation, is the target audience for this cook book.

[Michael Audet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish more cookbooks were like this: Olney is really not intending you to ever actually cook any of these things, but to carefully read the recipes and take them seriously might change the entire way you think about food.

[theresa chappelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was not impressed with his writing of French food, which I enjoy.

[Mary Lou]

A brief perusal of the recipes defies the title. I beg to differ with the word "Simple."

[Rose Gowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crankiest cook book ever. I love it. I think my husband and I cooked from it once-- a pisaladiere?-- note that simple does not mean easy. Great reading, though. (Also, I am convinced that the Harry Mathews story, Country Cooking, takes its inspiration from Olney.)

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Olney is amongst the best writers in English to translate French food for a non-French audience--this book and Lulu's Provencal Table are must reads for anyone interested in the history of French cuisine

[Betsy Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's just been reissued, and I was pleased to be able to pick up a copy! I'm not so sure I'd call these recipes "simple", but this is a great cookbook to read and the recipes look delicious-I can't wait to try!

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's just say that simple is relative! An interesting book, but not one that I feel the need to buy or copy down recipes from, as I do some cookbooks.