Mere Brazier, the mother of modern French cooking (Rizzoli)

THERE is not really any doubt that Eugenie Brazier was the greatest of French cooks. Paul Bocuse wrote the preface here. He trained with her. So did Bernard Pacaud of L’Ambroisie in Paris. She had six Michelin stars before anyone else, in fact she probably told Michelin how to grade restaurants. This for my part was a work of love, a translation of the book dictated on her deathbed which includes in her own words an account of her early life when she was put into service as a young child and slowly found her way into the kitchens. The recipes come from her team and are a canon of French cuisine, not at all complicated for the most part, she did not have the kind of ingredients we have today for a start. The true verve of her cooking is found in the stanchions of what she did – her rice, her vinaigrette…

There is a formidable example of modern journalism by way of review here by Katie Baker on the Daily Beast. The restaurant itself is still going (it opened in 1921) under Mathieu Viannay. Bill Buford voted this his best cookbook of all time.