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The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book summary

Name: The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
Rating: 4.1 (15 reviews)
Author: Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas

Traditional French recipes and a window into the Parisian avant garde

4.1 (15 ratings)

19 mins

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Cook Books

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The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
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What’s in it for me? A vivid snapshot of how the Parisian avant garde wined and dined.

Alice B. Toklas is a name that rings out in a few, wildly different communities. She is well-known in the literary world primarily as the life partner of Gertrude Stein, the writer and art collector. They lived together in Paris from 1910 through the Second World War, and hosted an artist’s salon frequented by luminaries of the Parisian art world: Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her table became renowned for its culinary delights, drawing from French tradition, colonial influences, and her own Californian roots.

The cookbook that she published in 1954 is the source of her fame in an entirely different community. The recipe she includes for “haschich fudge,”which she cheekily recommends serving at Ladies’ Bridge Club, became a breakaway hit as the counterculture of the 1960s gained momentum. Experimentalists were so thrilled by the recipe that Alice B. Toklas’s name became synonymous with cannabis edibles.

The Alice B. Toklas cookbook includes recipes, some of which you’ll encounter here. (They’re available in full at the end of the Blinks.) But it’s also a recollection of her time in France as a carefree expat, steeped in the sensual pleasures of art, cooking, and good company.

In these Blinks, you’ll learn:

the one simple dish you should ask someone to make when interviewing potential kitchen staff;
the best way to kill a vigorous carp; and
what dish to serve a guest you wish to insult.

Becoming a gourmet French chef.

France is a famously artistic culture. People all over the world adore French literature, painting, and fashion – but none more so than the French themselves. Part of the reason French art is so good is because the French approach it with gravity, respect, and intelligence. And no art, arguably, is more important to the French than that of the kitchen.

Respect is a key concept when it comes to French cooking. In order to successfully cook French food, reverence for tradition is paramount. Despite how labor-intensive French cooking can be, French cooks sniff at American shortcuts. What was once said about their Bourbon kings remains true of French cooks: they learn nothing, and they forget nothing.

French cooking can be persnickety. Even a simple potato salad has its own set of rules. The salad is to be served surrounded by chicory. The substitution of any other green is inconceivable. If chicory is unavailable, the dish must not be attempted.

Similarly, French food requires deep respect for the unique charms of each ingredient. Seasonal French produce is of excellent quality, and French recipes are designed to make each one sing. Even common root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and leeks – the asparagus of the poor – are transformed into jewels by high quality olive oil, butter, and discreet use of herbs.

On the subject of butter, the French look facts in the face. Fat is delicious, and French butter is high quality. Therefore it is used copiously in French dishes, to marry flavors together. There can be no substitute.

The home kitchen has traditionally been the domain of women. But French men are as enthusiastic as women about food. Both genders’ love of their culture’s food has helped propel French cuisine to its current lofty heights. Alice claims that a husband’s interest in the fruits of the kitchen can raise the standard of cooking in a home, because the wife will be encouraged by his constant gentle criticism to put in a greater effort. The criticism from her own partner, Gertrude, helped develop Alice as a gourmet. Gertrude was often too busy to cook herself– but not too busy to enjoy Alice’s culinary experimentations.

Alice and Gertrude weren’t the only finicky foodies in their milieu. At a lunch party Alice attended, a servant presented each dish for the hostess’s inspection before serving her guests. When presented with a certain aspic of foie gras, the hostess carefully appraised it, then with a brusque hand gesture, dismissed it. The aspic went back to the kitchen, and her guests went without their foie gras. It simply wasn’t good enough.

Perfecting a quintessential French dish.

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.

Serving interesting food to interesting guests.

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.

Becoming a conscious carnivore.

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.

The simple dish that marks a skilled cook.

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.

How to be a foodie under wartime conditions.

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.

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What is The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book about?

The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book (1954) is as much a cookbook as it is a window into the louche world of Parisian expats before World War II. We follow Toklas and her partner, the writer Gertrude Stein, as they traipse all over the country in their Ford Model T, entertaining art luminaries like Picasso and Hemingway, collecting recipes along the way. By cooking Toklas’ recipes, we have the rare opportunity to participate in a long-gone age of carefree sensuality.

Who should read The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book?

Anyone who loves a good, wine-soaked dinner party
Farm-to-table fans
Conscious carnivores

About the Author

Alice B. Toklas is fondly remembered for her role in the Parisian avant garde in the 1920s and 30s, as well as her numerous books and letters. She was the life partner of writer Gertrude Stein, with whom she lived, traveled, and entertained for nearly 40 years.

Categories with The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book

Biography & Memoir Health & Nutrition

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