The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book summary

Given that the French are known for having strong opinions and for enjoying spirited debate, it might not surprise you to find yourself in an argument about what exactly French cooking is. To someone from Alsace Lorraine, a region in the north-east famous for succulent salt pork and creamy cheese, the best example of French cuisine might be Alice’s recipe for Quiche de Nancy, a rich, eggy tart filled with cubed ham and cream.

For someone from Burgundy wine country, bœuf Bourguignon is without a doubt the archetypal French dish, made with dry red Burgundy wine. Without the right wine, there’s little point attempting the dish at all. 

When you find yourself entertaining the greatest artistic luminaries of your generation, be sure to make careful note of what you serve them, and how it was received. Your notes may become entertaining reading for future generations, and perhaps even the emblem of a cultural movement.

As Alice grew accustomed to life in Paris, she grew more adventurous with what she served. One day when the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso was over for lunch, she decided to get Cubist with a poached fish. After coating it with mayonnaise, she decorated it with tomato paste, sieved egg yolks, and finely chopped green herbs. Picasso was impressed, says Alice, but commented that it really should have been served to Matisse instead. 

If you wanted to eat meat in wartime France, it was sometimes necessary to kill animals. Not just cause an animal’s death, but actually kill it with your bare hands – or sometimes a knife. Facts, however unpleasant, are facts. Before any cooking begins, of meat dishes anyway, crime must be committed. 

The only way to learn to do something is to do it. Alice’s first victim was a spirited carp, delivered in a covered basket by a fisherman who was in too much of a rush to tell her how to dispatch it. Judging the fish too vigorous to submit to a blow to the head, she realized her only option was to sever the base of its vertebral column. A sharp knife did the trick in an instant, but Alice needed to sit down and smoke several cigarettes to recover her strength.

When Alice first moved to Paris, she was interested in food, but not in doing any cooking herself. That all changed when she moved in with Gertrude Stein. Living with Gertrude helped develop Alice’s cooking ability, but also her skill in managing a staffed kitchen. 

Life in Paris in those days was so inexpensive that the vast majority of expats had household staff. It was customary for the cook to take Sunday afternoon and evening off. As a great artist, Gertrude Stein couldn’t be bothered with cooking, so Sunday dinner planning and prep fell to Alice. As Alice gained confidence, she began writing down her recipes. But for the most part, these weren’t so she could make them again. The recipes were so Alice could assign her cooks to make the dishes Gertrude liked best. 

Living as an expat in France in the first part of the 20th century seems pretty dreamy. Life in Paris was cheap enough to spend years making art, and there were lots of clever, attractive people milling about, waiting to be asked to dinner. There was only one problem with Alice and Gertrude’s stimulating life on the cutting edge of the Parisian avant garde. France was continually plagued by German invasions. 

The first world war presented an opportunity for adventure. Gertrude and Alice volunteered to make deliveries for the American Fund for French Wounded in their Ford Model T, nicknamed Aunt Pauline. One wonders about the efficacy of the womens’ labors. Alice reports that Gertrude was a responsible, if not experienced, driver: she knew how to do everything except go in reverse.