A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France by Georgeanne Brennan

Imagine a pregnant sow, majestic, stately and heavy with fourteen pink piglets. Similarly, Georgeanne Brennan’s book is slow-paced, but filled with delicious writing. First published in 2007, A Pig in Provence captures the pace and rhythms of life in Provence to perfection, and through the episodes Brennan describes, manages to immerse the reader in the culture and daily life of the south of France.

Brennan’s book traces her life in Provence from her first impressions as a fresh-faced university graduate turned first-time farmer eking out a living selling homemade goat cheeses. In eight chapters, she takes us through rituals like the jour du cochon (the day the family pig is killed), seasonal events like the gathering of the wild mushrooms, and the annual trek of shepherds herding their sheep to greener pastures.

We feel a sense of intimacy with Brennan as we are both inducted into the mysteries of a culture centered on the relationship between field and table. Heavy with detail, each episode reads like a Steinbeck short story. We share her first experiences – struggling to make goat cheese, her first sip of bouillabaisse (a rich fish soup whose origins are hotly disputed), cooking and eating sheep’s feet. Her writing’s steady pace is like the interminable march of the seasons and of time. Reading her book is like listening to stories by the fireplace at the feet of a grandmother in her rocking chair.

Georgeanne Brennan is a James Beard Award winner and has been a finalist numerous times. In 2000, she opened her own cooking vacation school in Provence to share the Provencal way of life with the wider world. For a week, participants gather and cook from the kitchen garden, gather wild herbs and mushrooms, and enjoy the good food and simple pleasures in the south of France.

This book is definitely going on my bookshelf. I might not be referring to it for its recipes (there are only eight, one per chapter), but I will definitely re-read it for a short vacation in Provence.

Rating: 4.5/5

In Search of Perfection, by Heston Blumenthal

Sleekly bound in black, Heston Blumenthal’s book, In Search of Perfection, promises a scientific and clinical look into an ambiguous and darkly emotional area – the perfect comfort food. Covering classic dishes such as pizza, Spaghetti Bolognese, the steak, bangers and mash, this book aims to reveal their most intimate secrets: why do we love them? what do we love about them? Potatoes are tested for their dry matter percentage, chickens are , and fish flesh is poked and flaked apart in search of perfection.

Blumenthal is certainly someone who knows his stuff. His restaurant, the Fat Duck, was voted Best Restaurant in the World in 2005 by fellow chefs. In later years, he has been an annual runner up, losing narrowly to Ferran Adria’s El Bulli. His restaurant is world famous for its scientific approach and experimental style of cooking.

In his search for perfection, I feel Blumenthal goes a little too far. His travels to New York and Italy are fine: his interviews with pizza chefs and flour mill owners are filled with feeling and good humor. I appreciate how rich, vivid and detailed his writing is. I could taste the sweet red ripeness of tomatoes, smell the aroma of roasting cocoa beans and feel the juicy steak-ness as I turned the pages.

However, when he returns to his lab to fry potatoes and modify his oven, we begin to lose interest. His techniques, while interesting, are at best only partially relevant to the home chef without his equipment or obsession with perfection.

Few of us will taste-test 8 different varieties of potatoes to find the best chipper, the best mashed potato or the best Pommes de Puree. Even fewer will attempt to make ice-cream by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. In his recipes, there is even a section titled ‘Special Equipment You Will Need’.

The more adventurous, however, might want to fry their chips twice, first at a lower temperature, then at a higher one, to get better chips. Others might slow-roast their chicken to perfection. Perhaps you might be inspired to make your own pizza. This book certainly isn’t short on good ideas.

In his defense, the book’s title is In Search of Perfection. His techniques might not be relevant to you and me, but how many of us can claim to be close to perfection?

In short, while it is a good read, I’m not going to put this book on my bookshelf. Some of his techniques are useful to take note of, but this isn’t a book that I would refer to over and over again for inspiration.

Rating: 3/5