Solo travel in France via the Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous cookbook

My friend Joan Nathan has written an amazing cookbook steeped in the traditions of France as well as those of the Jewish culture.

Through connections and introductions, she made her way into the homes of French Jews all over the country and after nearly five years of research came up with 200 recipes and richly detailed stories to go with them.

The book is packed with so much - a sense of the country and its history, French-Jewish recipes, fascinating photos of the cooks and residents who shared their life stories and recipes, and the finished dishes.

For a solo traveler, Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France, Joan's 10th cookbook, provides details that would make any trip to France a richer experience. You could track down some of the establishments she dined in and enjoy them all the more for knowing details about them.

I suspect it would be a tad more difficult to make your way into the many kitchens she was invited to! But what impressed me about Joan's travels was her willingness to travel solo and become a part of these people's lives for a short while.

Joan struck up conversations with many a stranger to accomplish what she did in this book. It's the absolute best way to travel, in my mind.

Here's just a small taste of the delicious writing she offers, as she describes Le Monde des Epices, a food shop on the Rue Francois-Miron near the Marais in Paris.

"Inside, signs written on cracked pieces of pottery label burlap sacks filled with bulgur for tabbouleh and barrels overflowing with homemade preserved lemons from Morocco."

She tells us about the Polish immigrant owner and the shop's history in the postwar years. Next visit to France, it would be a fun goal to make my way to this great-sounding shop. If anyone gets there before I do, write in with your description too.

It's just one of many great vignettes about the foods and people Joan found during her extended visits to France.

Because I've wandered around France a few times, once on my own for a month of French language study at the Alliance Francaise in Paris when I was in my 20's, I found myself smiling at many references.

In "Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous," Joan talks about being in France as a teenager and the "simple pleasure of sinking my teeth into a slightly melted bar of dark chocolate sandwiched into a crackly baguette." Yes! I was introduced to that strange "sandwich," after searching fruitlessly for a chocolate croissant.

I was also delighted to find a recipe for chestnut cream cake, or Gateau a la Creme de Marron. During that month I spent learning French, I discovered chestnut cream and have used it ever since. As difficult as it can be to find here.

I currently have a tube of Clement Faugier brand I found in a specialty store in Washington, D.C. (Calvert Woodley Liquors for those in the know) ready to use on toast, crackers or cookies.

But for me, the greatest find of all in the book is the recipe for nougatine. What I call nougat. Or the Italian torrone. I used to buy nougat in the Metro stations in Paris, from a vendor who put little bags of it on a table. I passed him every day in my commute from the 17th arrondisement to the Alliance Francais on Boulevard Raspail.

He'd set up his table on a landing one flight down from the street, trying to entice passengers bustling past to enter the tunnel toward the train. The nougat was always a little stale and chewy and that's how I learned to love it. (I let candy corn go stale too, so it gets chewy rather than soft. What can I say?)

I'm so thrilled to find a recipe for it, considering I've actually assigned friends to bring me back the Italian version - torrone - from a bakery in Boston. That's how desperate I've been sometimes to get my hands on "the real thing."

Now I need to try my hand at making it myself. This could solve a whole lot of cravings. Thanks Joan!

To purchase a copy of Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous, click the image above. 

Photos: Street vendor, Allan Gerson. La Maison du Couscous restaurant, Joan Nathan.

Comments

[Ayngelina]

I think I listened to her on a podcast, either KCRW or APM. Fascinating about the Jewish culture in France.

[Ellen]

Cool. She's been all over the airwaves and on a lengthy book tour in many cities.