Nadine Williams

Humble Roots to Haute Cuisine

A few years ago, I lost my mother’s recipe book  when I moved house and I still sorely miss it.  Her handwriting, the food spattered on the favourite pages and all those much loved recipes that evoked so many memories of family feasts.   My daughter promptly sent me a big blank book beseeching me to write down  my own recipes.

“Write it all down, mum, because we don’t want to lose your food wisdom,’’ she said.

“Samuel (grandson No. 1) wants you to put in the recipe for the fairy cakes you made for his birthday party.  And Angus (grandson No. 2) wants the recipe for chocolate meringues that you made for his party after Josephine was born in London.’’

My mother was always cooking something in the kitchen, whether soup simmering on the stove, making pasties for a picnic, or stuffing a chicken she had plucked, but it never occurred to me that my daughter had memories of me and my cooking life that she wanted to keep.

I have certainly grown and changed in my cooking style over my life from a distinctly Germanic flavour to a new journey into French cuisine.  Thankfully this has proved to be far more successful than learning the French language.  One of the joys of moving into my husband’s home is that he had a ready supply of French cook books – none of which I could read. However, imagine my delight when I discovered “2000 Favourite French Recipes’’ by Auguste Escoffier, hailed by all the best chefs as “The Master’’,  the finest  French chef of the past 100 years.  Escoffier ruled the kitchens of the Paris Ritz in the early 20th century standardising cooking practices to create today’s haute cuisine. Don’t expect any  “high’’ French cuisine in my blog, but do watch for selected recipes from this amazing cookbook, translated by Marion Howells – and wise words from Escoffier himself, which will give you a very special entrée into French cuisine.    I will share  my own journey into French cooking competence with a variety of recipes from the regions we visited in France – and I will also invite other French chefs who live here or in France, to share their recipes with us.

Bon Appetit!

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