Pig In Provence Pa: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France – A Food Memoir of Making a Life Through Provençale Cuisine and Community - Softcover

Brennan, Georgeanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156033240 ISBN 13: 9780156033244

Verlag: Harvest, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Georgeanne Brennan moved to Provence in 1970, seeking a simpler life. She set off on her many adventures in Provençale cuisine by tracking down a herd of goats, a cool workshop, some rennet, and the lost art of making fresh goat cheese. From this first effort throughout her time in Provence, Brennan transformed from novice fromagère to renowned, James Beard Foundation Award–winning cookbook author and food writer.

A Pig in Provence is the story of how Georgeanne Brennan fell in love with Provence. But it’s also the story of making a life beyond the well-trodden path and the story of how food can unite a community. In loving detail, Brennan tells of the herders who maintain a centuries-old grazing route, of the community feast that brings a town to one table, and of the daily rhythms and joys of living by the cycles of food and nature.

Sprinkled with recipes that offer samples of Brennan’s Provençale cooking, A Pig in Provence is a food memoir that urges you to savor every morsel.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

GEORGEANNE BRENNAN is the author of numerous cooking and gardening books, and the recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award and the IACP/Julie Child Cookbook Award for her writing. She lives in northern California and Provence, where she has a seasonal cooking school.

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"You can almost smell the lavender as you follow Brennan's love affair with the province that became her second home and shaped [her] culinary persona. Brennan is a talented storyteller." -- San Francisco Chronicle

 

Amid the quirks and charms of the French countryside, Georgeanne Brennan began her life in Provence with the not-so-simple task of tracking down a herd of goats and the lost recipe for making cheese from their milk. From odd out-of-towner to truffle hunter and community feaster, from novice fromagère to celebrated chef and cookbook author, she learned the traditional ways of one small village-- savoring the richness of food, nature and la vie provençale.

 

"Fascinating... Brennan revels equally in the preparation and consumption of the regional cuisine? You can almost hear her lips smacking." The New York Times Book Review

"Georgeanne Brennan's romance with Provence continues to deepen, and the result of her long residence there is an intimacy with local people, food, and folkways. I would love to pull up a chair to her table." -- Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

 

GEORGEANNE BRENNAN is the author of numerous cooking and gardening books, and the recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award and the IACP/Julie Child Cookbook Award for her writing. She lives in northern California and Provence, where she has a seasonal cooking school.

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Chapter 1

A Personal History of Goat Cheese

The first goats. Lassie dies. Advice from Mme. Rillier.

Reinette gives birth. Farmstead cheese for sale.

 

“How much are they?” Donald asked as we stood in the heart of a stone barn in the hinterlands of Provence, surrounded by horned animals whose eyes were focused, unblinking, on us. Ethel, our three-year-old daughter, held my hand. The animals pushed against me, nuzzling my thighs and nibbling at the edge of my jacket. In the faint light cast by the single lightbulb suspended from the ceiling, I could see the dark mass of goats stretching toward the recesses of the barn and feel their slow but steady pressure as they pushed closer and closer. My nostrils filled with their pungent odor and the fragrance of the fresh hay on the barn floor, with the faintly damp, earthy aroma of the floor itself, and with the scent of all the animals that had preceded them in the ancient barn. The heat of their bodies intensified the smell, and although it was a cold November day, the barn was warm and cozy. Its earthy aromas were homey and comforting.

 

        “Eh, ma foi. It’s hard to decide. How many do you want? They’re all pregnant. They were with the buck in September and October. They’ll kid in February and March.” The shepherd, a woman, leaned heavily on her cane, making her look older. She was dressed in layers of black, including black cotton stockings, the kind you see in movies set in prewar France, her only color a dark blue parka and a gold cross at her throat. A black wool scarf tied under her chin covered her hair.

 

        We wanted to have enough goats to make a living. Our calculations, based on the University of California and USDA pamphlets we’d brought with us when we moved to Provence a month before, were that a good goat would give a gallon of milk a day and a gallon would make nearly a pound of cheese. French friends had told us that we could make a living with the cheese produced from the milk of twenty to thirty goats.

 

        “Why are you selling them?” I asked.

 

        “Oh, I’m getting too old to keep so many. I have more than thirty.” She looked around, then pointed at a large, sleek goat, russet and white. “I can sell you that one. Look at her. She’s a beauty. Reinette, the little queen, I call her. She’s a good milker, about four years old. Always has twins too.”

 

        She moved across the barn and grabbed the goat by one horn, put her cane under her arm, and pulled back the goat’s lips. “Take a look. See how good her teeth are. She’s still young.”

 

        Reinette was released with a slap on her flank and went over to another goat standing aloof from the others. This one had a shaggy, blackish brown coat and scarred black horns that swept back high over her head.

 

        “This is Lassie. She’s la chef, but getting old like me.”

 

        I expected the woman to cackle, but she didn’t. Instead she sighed and said, “She’s getting challenged by some of the younger goats now, but she’ll be good for a few more years.”

 

        Donald walked over to the goat and stroked her head. She stared at him with her yellow eyes and inky-black pupils.“What others are you selling?”

 

        “Mmm. I could sell...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harvest
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0156033240
• ISBN 13: 9780156033244
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: HarperCollins Publishers, Product Safety Manager; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; HarperCollins, Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper; Dublin 1; D01 C9W8; Irland