Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook

When I was younger I used to watch Jacques Pepin on public television. With these two years now - lock-down and stuff included - I got to see my friend again. I watched him as a guest chef with Emeril and he did this pork butt salami that was enjoyed by my extended family for years. Now I found out how to make it from this book that was presented on the show.

Jacques Pepin needs no introduction to American cooking enthusiasts. He is probably the most well known TV cooking personality after Julia Child, not counting Emeril, who is probably better known as an entertainer to feedbag eaters who like to watch food being cooked than he is as a chef speaking about and showing cuisine to cooks who like cooking.After living for over thirty years in the USA Pepin still radiates and personifies "French Chef" to many Americans. That more of his professional life has been spent in America than in France, and that his food has become a smooth hybrid of classical French and contemporary American sensibilities, and so would not be seen as really "French" by audiences in France, is beside the point. He brings, in every moment of his being, and in his approach to culture and life, a timeless French appreciation for not only the better but also the more genuine things in life.Pepin's charm and indelible Frenchness are not his only assets. There are many charming people in the world, many of them French, presenting themselves smoothly all the time. What makes Pepin different is his biography and the singular grace, humility, good humor, common sense and perceptive understanding that he has shown in translating the essentials of the classical French cooking in which he was schooled into the world of the America that he immigrated to in the early 1960s.That America, a food-industrial complex wasteland at the time, where home cooking was thought to be "woman's work" or lowly paid labor, and the foods available at grocery stores were depressing, austere, bland and, for the most part, overly processed by a food industry that had only recently turned from mass manufacturing rations for soldiers, was ripe for the encouragement and the example shown by the likes of Child, Beard and Pepin.It's easy to dismiss Pepin as a TV chef, or his food as just "home cooking". But this book shows the richness of his background, the charm and warmth of his family and family story, the charm and rusticity of his many lovely amateur paintings, and the simple human joys of his lifestyle. It conveys, through several essays, his knowledge of food and food culture.The dishes involved are not meant to be fine cuisine but instead everyday fare. That does not make them humble or ordinary. It makes them wonderful expressions of how to bring joy to the table with both everyday elements and a sensibility that appreciates and values that joy being brought to that table, for himself, for his family and for his friends. They are all well worth looking at, and this book, a handsome and lovely book that succeeds in a world of people trying to make lovely and handsome books, is well worth the price and worth having for the inspiration its author brings to the reader.

If you know a serious French cook, I'm sure they know Jaques Pepin. The Book comes in a fabric covered box with gilded lettering. It's full of narrative about the recipes that are interspersed within the text. This is more a book about how the French and in particular Mr. Pepin live their lives with food as an intertwining and important part of life.At the time I bought this book, Amazon had it at the bargain price of $30. I doubt I would have paid $100 or more for it sight unseen.

The pictures are wonderful, but what I like the best is the way that the book shows the connection between the cook and the garden and the forest and the sea. Jacques Pépin is not just someone who knows the kitchen. He knows where the food he cooks comes from and he loves that connection. Julia Child knew that one needed good ingredients, but Jacques goes out into the natural world and gets them. And all with his wry sense of humor.

`Chez Jacques, Traditions and Rituals of a Cook' by Cooking teacher extraordinare, Jacques Pepin is one of those culinary books for which foodie readers pray for, and celebrate when they arrive. As a veteran of very high end professional cooking in France (he was personal chef to French president Charles DeGaulle) and the United States; bourgeoisie American cooking as a research chef for Howard Johnson's; teacher to professional chefs at the French Culinary Institute and author of the very best manual of professional techniques available in English; and penultimate teacher to home cooks (second only to Julia Child) on his PBS cooking shows, Pepin may easily be the most important living teacher of cooking in America.After all that gushing over Pepin's credentials, a brief word of warning is necessary. This is a far more important book on the teaching and the learning about how to cook and about the nature of cooking itself than it is a book of recipes. Thus, if you are reluctant to lie out a premium price for only 100 recipes, check out one of his many other books, especially the delightful `Fast Food My Way' or `Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home'.One of the most endearing insights I get from Pepin's book is that there is simply no perfect way to write a recipe. There are only good approaches for all the various different cookbook audiences. Pepin's own example of this is his contrast between the 7,500 recipes in the `Repertory of Cooking', all of which consist of little more than a few statements giving the principle features of a dish and the recipes in Julia Child's classic `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', where 15 pages are devoted to the recipe for a French baguette (and I suspect that with all this instruction, it will still take the average amateur more than one try to get it right).Another of the great validations I get from Monsieur Jacques is the notion that one does not start experiencing real satisfaction as a cook until you can cook without consulting a recipe. I have been working on the task of enjoying cooking for the last five years, and it seems slow in coming. I don't fully relish the task unless I am making a dish for which I have mastered all the steps and need no list of ingredients in front of me. It is at this point where, according to Pepin, we graduate from following instructions to the task of intently realizing a particular taste.In these and most other regards, Pepin agrees with and even goes beyond the insights in my other favorite books on the nature of cooking, Tom Colicchio's `How to Think Like a Chef' and Daniel Boulud's `Letters to a Young Chef'. Other similar books are Eric Rippert's `Return to Cooking' and Michel Richard's recent `Happy in the Kitchen'. And, the same sentiments with an English accent are in Nigel Slater's `Kitchen Diaries'.In spite of my warning about the price per recipe ratio, I do not want to give the impression that the recipes are in any way an afterthought or less valuable than Pepin's general ideas about cooking. In fact, virtually every recipe reveals some important insights about cooking in general and the dish in particular. In fact, I once classified recipes according to the Julia Child model, the Elizabeth David model, and the Joel Robuchon model. The first two of these Pepin cites himself (see above). But in this book, he actually writes the third kind of recipe, where the most important aspect is why we do certain things in a particular way. My favorite example is his recipe for the Gratin Dauphinois. I simply love potato gratins, yet I always seem to have some problem with them. Either the dairy ingredients curdle or the potatoes don't get cooked through, of both. Pepin's recipe explains virtually everything we need to know about how to avoid these problems.Another dimension to Pepin's recipes is those which give entirely new twists to old standards. A chronic problem with clam chowders, for example is tough clams. Pepin's recipe for this dish literally throws the raw clams into the soup before serving, so they are in just long enough to warm up.The bottom line on the recipes is that these are the dishes Jacques cooks at home, so they are neither fancy nor expensive, and all excellent candidates for dishes to commit to memory.While this is a superb source of both recipes and culinary insights, it is also something of a memoir; although not quite as engaging as a memoir as Pepin's earlier book, `The Apprentice'. It is also something of a gallery of Pepin's own paintings, and this may be the book's Achilles heel. The paintings are virtually all amateurish, especially the larger oil canvases. The illustrated menus and the painted plates have some primitive interest since they have a connection with the art at which Pepin is a true master. Pepin has no illusions and is quite honest about the fact that he is a far, far better cook than he is an artist.This book may not be for everyone who buys cookbooks, but for foodies who love to read about the craft of cooking, this is easily one of the most important recent works in the field.

Jacques Pepin's philosphy about food and cooking are genius. Here is a cookbook where the author actually says 'experiment, try making it a little different'..It is a book filled with the Pepin's favorite recipes for his family. Illustrated with another of his talents: painting, the overall effect is personal and heartfelt. What makes Jacques happy...family, cooking and painting. Probably also gardening and wild edible mushroom hunting. A nice addition to my cooking library.

This book is probably one of his more personal ones with his paintings scattered throughout! This is my first but not my last of his many books! Well worth the price and I'm enjoying many of the recipes!