Peasant Origins?

[oraklet]

oh, it was meant as a summary.

"So the peasants had from 1792 on wards to develope their cuisine so that it could be picked up by chefs in the mid-nineteenth century?"...

...is not necessarily implied. of course haute cuisine as well as grande mere must be the outcome of several sources:

beheaded employers

relatively wealthy middle class

farmers cuisine (not peasants.) - or did independant farmers not exist in pre-revolution france? of not, plotniskiism faces a grave challenge.

whichever way you turn it, there's the problem of explaining what caused c. grande mere. my head is spinning

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam - So I went to see my most trusted resource on these things, Nach Waxman at Kitchen Arts & Letters. He was most kind to lend me his own personal copy of Alan Davidson's "A Kipper with my Tea" and I will print an excerpt from the chapter "The Harlot of Marseille."

"The early French cookery books were more concerned with dishes suitable for the well-to-do than with the homely fare of fisherman; and writing about the regional dishes of France didn't really start until the Nineteenth Century. So I was not surprised that the description of the dish did not date back further. Indeed, it is probably safe to say that the first relevent published recipe of, is that given by Jourdain Le Cointe in his "La Cuisine de Sante." This recipe, along with much other pertinent information, was kindly brought to my attention by Philip and Mary Hyman. It is not only for bouillabaisse, but represents a sort of proto-bouillabaisse. Le Cointe called it "Matelotte de Poisson," and it reads as follows, in translation:

"Most of the fisherman of the coast of Languedoc and Provence, when they have removed from their nets all the large fish destined for sale, are wont to use thr fry, gobies, and other little fish to make excellent and reknowned 'matelottes."

On the very banks of the river where the fisherman disembark. their wives light a clear fire and place on it a cauldron half full of good wine and an equal quantity of fresh water. They throw in small white onions, chopped parsely, bay leaves, a large clove of garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg and sometimes a couple of spoonfuls of olive oil. They boil all this together and, when their husbands arrive, they empty all the little fish from the nets into the boiling liquid, then continue cooking for half an hour, checking that the fish are only covered by wine and that the amount of broth is not too great. When the fish are cooked, they take them out, reduce the sauce and put it over their 'matelotte," which is really good, delicate and wholesome."

Davidson goes onto say;

This is recognisable , but there was no tomato (then a rarity, certainly not something that fisherman's wives would have had to hand); no saffron (expensive): the olive oil (also expensive at that time) is optional; and the cooking of the very small fish seems unduly long. We are not quite there yet, and we have not met the name bouillabaisse.

Indeed, according to Le Petit Robert, the best French dictionary for this purpose, the first recorded use of the word bouillabaisse in print was nearly 50 years later in 1837. In fact, they seem to have overlooked "Le Cuisinier Durand" (1830) which gave two recipes under that name. Durand's recipe was followed quite quickly by another, in Le Cuisinier Meridionale (1839 anonymous.)

(I've omitted both recipes but here is the punchline which Adam will find so interesting.)

It is commonly said when a recipe appears in print it has already been in existence for some time. This is a logical notion and can often be shown to be correct (sounds like a Plotnickiism to me (emphasis added by writer .)) But in this instance it may be true in one sense (people were already making a dish like those described in the two recipes) but not in another (such a dish already existed under the name bouillabaisse.) The fact is there seems to be no earlier mention of bouillabaisse. And it is surely significant that when the first Provencal restaurant in Paris, Les Freres Provencaux, opened in the early years of the nineteenth century, there was no listing of bouillabaisse on it's menu. Where did the name come from?"

I will stop printing the excerpt but save to say it goes into an extensive discussion of the origins of the word. But in the process of his research, Davidson finds recipes that use the phrase bouillabaisse but cointain no fish. One uses spinach and one potatoes. And that the term bouillabaisse, which arguably means to boil lowered down, as in put the pot directly on the fire to make it boil more quickly and rapidly, seems to be a common method of cooking that was attached to a particluar dish. So you can have a bouillabaisse of anything (method of cooking) or a boullabaisse (a type of fish soup/stew.) Is this the same as Fat Guy's once brilliant question of how "Appetizing" came to be called by that name?

But what I gleen from all of this is, that a BB is based on a peasant fish soup/stew dish that preceded what we call a proper bouillabaisse. How it got it's name, or how it became fancified is a phenomenon of the modern restaurant or the middle class home of the 19th century. And that period coincides with the codification of the cuisine, and that some of these terms must have been caused by the codification, or by restaurants naming dishes, which in large part was due to the fact that they were trying to sell printed books to middle class homes, or good meals to an affluent customer. Which brings us to the very point of how marketing still works today, in that there is a need to concisely and uniquely express every item. And to offer a Plotnickiism to end this all, I would assume that this example will be a common one, where a peasant dish was "titled" and possibly refined for purposes of communication so it could be consumed by a different class than the ones it originates with.

[Sandra Levine]

Hey, that Clifford Wright site is interesting too.

But he doesn't include eGullet as one of his links!

[John Whiting]

as i see it, john whiting has been at one time levelheaded and knowing.

When was that?!

Steve, your quote from Davidson's book was so interesting that I've ordered a used copy through Abe. (He has lots.)

[Steve Plotnicki]

"1) peasants in france were in a poor state up till the revolution. at this time, france was the center of grande cuisine (or whatever it should be called)."

Oraklet - I was always of the understanding that the French revolution took place because the peasants and commoners were getting a raw deal from the monarchy. The royals were coming onto what commoners felt were "their land" and poaching game etc. Whether they actually owned the land, or had some type of sharecropping or landlease type of agreement I don't know. But I do remember reading somewhere that they were unhappy with the split, and that is one of the main things that propelled the revolution forward. To the contrary in Britain there wasn't an uprising against the enclosure laws. For some reasons the Brits who had traditionally farmed the land on a sharecropping arrangement queued up to live in the slums of the big cities without kitchens.

[Steve Plotnicki]

John - Well I have the good fortune of living right around the corner from KA&L. So when I went in yesterday, I asked about a book on the origins of cuisine other than Elizabeth Luard. I was surprised to see Nach so stumped by that question. But when I narrowed it to cassoulet and bouillabaisse, after a few minutes of what I would describe as heavy thinking, he conjured up the Davidson and gave me his copy signed by Davidson. I've been treating it like it's the original copy of the Guttenberg Bible! Now who is Abe because I would like a copy of the book myself?

[Adam Balic]

Steve - wow, actual emperical evidence! . I have read Alan Davidson's comments on BB before (he is one of my very favourite food writers, especially on fish), and they are mentioned in that link I first posted. So, it boils down to this: peasants in the area had a vaguely similar dish, called something else, which is very similar to almost everybodies else fish soup in the med (look at the Basque fish soup, to see a more "primative" version). An unknown Chef in the 19th. C. starts cooking BB, which is unlike any other fish soup. Who do you think deserves the credit for this one? Why not say that is was a dish invented in the 19th C., rather then get all misty eyed about these peasants. Must get that book.

[polly]

Would not peasants have used broad beans, rather then haricots? Is that dish the ancestor or is a Spanish white bean stew the ancestor?

Just as a side note, Robert Courtine (named by Paula Wolfert as a 'french food authority'), says that broad beans were in fact used in cassoulet before white beans were cultivated in France.

[oraklet]

been doing some work and had a cup of semi-espresso. feel better now. ready for the challenge.

ok, let's take a look at demographics. in the spirit of plotniskiism, i do not know the exact figures, so i'll have to rely of what i remember from diverse sources.

france england

1748:

nobility,very wealthy landowners 2% 2%

armed forces 5% 5%

industrial workers 1% 2%

peasants, fishermen 76% 25%

independant farmers 2% 40%

capitalists, bourgeois 2% 8%

petits bourgeois 4% 12%

state bureaucrats, church 8% 3%

1788:

nobility,very wealthy landowners 2% 2%

armed forces 5% 5%

industrial workers 5% 10%

peasants, fishermen 70% 60%

capitalists, bourgeois 4% 10%

petits bourgeois 6% 15%

state bureaucrats, church 8% 3%

1828:

nobility,very wealthy landowners 1% 2%

armed forces 8% 5%

industrial workers 8% 18%

peasants, fishermen 10% 42%

independant farmers 42% ?

capitalists, bourgeois 8% 12%

petits bourgeois 11% 18%

state bureaucrats, church 12% 3%

now, this is kind of guesswork. but the relative figures can't be all that wrong, and they tell a story of very different social developments. as well as different wealth distribution. add this to all the wonderful facts presented on various threads, and the background of cuisine grande mere is explained. as well, i think, as its excellence.

and now i'll leave it to the worthy academicians to pluck me apart

edit: this came out as a mess. i hope it can be dechyphered

bouillabaisse = bouillir a baisse (-feu)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam - The best you are going to be able to get me to say (and I believe that in substance I have been saying this all along) is that these dishes are all based on peasant dishes. And that the reason they were codified and upgraded in the 19th century has to do with their tasting good in the first place. It is really at the source of this debate (actually all these debates) which is the contention by Plotnicki that in order for anything to be fanicified in the 19th century, it had to taste good to begin with. But P'ism takes it one step further and says, if it wasn't upgraded, then the inference drawn should be that it *didn't taste good to begin with* or to be fair, didn't have the requisite complexity to be used as a springboard for what became 19th century middle class cooking. And the best piece of evidence in that regard is the way that the Brits switched to French chefs in the mid 19th century. And why would they do that if a)British chefs were good and b) the source cuisine was up to it. And isn't it true that since they didn't we should draw the inference that the source cuisine left something to be desired?

I also believe that in this context you are correct about peasant cuisine being refined by the middle classses of the 19th century, including the naming of dishes, and then being sent back down to the peasant classes in their bourgois form. In fact yesterday Nach was telling me that there is a professor of Anthropology at the Univ. of Chicago who has plotted much of that theory out.

[Adam Balic]

Crikey, I agree with everything you said! Except this bit "But P'ism takes it one step further and says, if it wasn't upgraded, then the inference drawn should be that it *didn't taste good to begin with* or to be fair, didn't have the requisite complexity to be used as a springboard for what became 19th century middle class cooking.", that bit is rubbish . If it ain't broke, then don't fix it, could be appied here in some specific cases I think. But this isn't important.

I agree that there is a certain class of cuisine that is based on some types peasant food (eg. one pot cooking items are a good bet), but instead of putting the emphasis on the peasant cooking, more recognition should be given to the people that developed this food into the form that we enjoy now.

Oh, I think that the English employed French Chefs because there was a sudden opening in the market for them.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"that bit is rubbish . If it ain't broke, then don't fix it, could be appied here in some specific cases I think. But this isn't important."

No I think this is at the heart of the debate because what we haven't been able to agree on was whether British peasant cuisine was as good as French peasant cuisine. I say the inference needs to be drawn that it wasn't. And I say the biggest piece of evidence isn't that the Brits employed French chefs because they were employable, it's that the British *preferred* the French dishes those chefs prepared over British cuisine. Clearly they could have told those chefs to make bubble and squeek instead of something French. But that isn't what happened. There could be only one reason that the British accepted French cooking. It tasted better. And if French cuisine of the 19th century is based on what were originally peasant dishes, one should logically conclude that "tastes better" be extended to peasant cuisine as well.

[oraklet]

right, during the early romantic era, peasants were a la mode. so, some kind of influence from their simple cuisine would be felt in the higher circles. one of many reasons for grande cuisine developing into haute cuisine. and we shouldn't forget moliere's play, "the bourgeois wishing to be a nobleman" or what ever it is called in english. shows, perhaps, yet another reason. finally, cuisine grande mere seems like a mix of haute and farmers/peasants/fishermens cuisines.

it went both ways, class wise. which is the same as saying that hardcore p-ism must be revised.

[Adam Balic]

"that bit is rubbish  . If it ain't broke, then don't fix it, could be appied here in some specific cases I think. But this isn't important."

No I think this is at the heart of the debate because what we haven't been able to agree on was whether British peasant cuisine was as good as French peasant cuisine. I say the inference needs to be drawn that it wasn't. And I say the biggest piece of evidence isn't that the Brits employed French chefs because they were employable, it's that the British *preferred* the French dishes those chefs prepared over British cuisine. Clearly they could have told those chefs to make bubble and squeek instead of something French. But that isn't what happened. There could be only one reason that the British accepted French cooking. It tasted better. And if French cuisine of the 19th century is based on what were originally peasant dishes, one should logically conclude that "tastes better" be extended to peasant cuisine as well.

"I say the inference needs to be drawn.....", sure that's your opinion.

Steve - I won't enter this debate unless you can show me that the French chefs employed by the English during the 19th C. were actually making food based on to a substatial extent on French peasant cooking. I'm sure there are specific exaples of this, but for the most part I think that you will find that the majority of the food they were making was based on another culinary tradition.

I'm sure that many of the English preferred the French dishes too. The are stories of black-market trade going on for the pate and terrine that Careme (or was it Escoffier?) was making for the prince regent. The complexity of flavours and textures of these pate blew the poor old pork pies out of the water, but that really doesn't say anything about peasant cooking.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well the basis for hardcore P-ism is that underlying all of this is the way the food tastes. What tastes good becomes dominant because as more people get to sample it, more *knowledgable* opinions prefer it. It is only when that grouping of people decides what is good, that someone bothers to codify it. And the codifications are just the evidence of what people "with a superior vantage point" have already concluded. And if you expound on that theory, then if Dutch, German, British etc. cuisines had the underlying assets that were inherent in French cuisine, then those cuisines as well would have evolved in a similar fashion. But they didn't. And logic seems to say that the reason is that French cooking technique was more complex, and as each country was exposed to it, the native cuisine was deemed inferior (of course this is at the restaurant and high end level of home dining) except for home dining and everyday cuisine.

I think there is another piece of important evidence on this point. It should not go unnoticed that it wasn't until French cuisine had gone through being reinvented at least three times during the last century, and that French technique had been taught to a sufficient number of people around the world, that chefs in countries outside France began to modernize their native cuisines. Whether you point to Gary Rhodes, or the chef who just got three stars in Holland, or the technowiz's in Spain, the modernization of other European cuisines seems to have begun more than 150 years after the French were on that track. If one assume that cultural traditions evolve slowly over time, like interest on the principal in a bank account, working backwards, how much better did the French peasant cuisine have to be once upon a time to end up in such a dominant position? Of course there is the theory that it was a product of the French Revolution. But that seems to be the launch point for what we now call modern cuisine. But shouldn't the inference be drawn that the "matelotte" that Davidson describes as the predcessor for BB tasted better than its fish stew counterparts in other countries, and that is why BB ended up as the number one fish stew in the world?

[Wilfrid]

Part One

I find the arguments here very hard to understand, because I honestly struggle to follow, from sentence to sentence, whether we are discussing peasants in the true sense or ordinary working families, whether we are discussing home cooks or restaurant chefs, and who we are talking about when we say that people "preferred" one cuisine to another.

Let me try to understand some of the statements just made. Tell me if I havem misinterepreted them - which is quite possible:

1.(W)hether British peasant cuisine was as good as French peasant cuisine.

OK, this is not a discussion about middle class cooking, or cooking in the cities, this is about what poor agricultural workers were eating. Are we sure we know what they were typically eating in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in these two countries? I haven't really seen that on the thread, although some of the dishes mentioned here and there might be examples of what they were eating.

2. (T)he Brits employed French chefs.

Well, French and British French-trained chefs began to be employed in hotels, private clubs and restaurants in the second half of the nineteenth century, with quite a large number in place by 1890. I have seen no evidence that they were employed in private homes, except those of the very wealthy. Also, I have seen no evidence that any except the very wealthy were dining in hotels, clubs or French-style restaurants before around the end of the nineteenth century. The middle and lower classes were, of course, frerquenting chophouses and taverns, but not eating French food.

3. (T)he British *preferred* the French dishes those chefs prepared over British cuisine

Now here there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. First, I can quote British author after British author from the 18th and 19th centuries who deplored French cuisine. Second, and this is a very telling point made by Amy Trubek, British clientele of taverns, chophouses, and the like did not start to demand French dishes in those venues. In 19th century Britain, French cuisine steadily became part of grand, aristocratic banquet-style dining (and I cited Queen Victoria's menus), and French hotel dining rooms and restaurants became fashionable in certain influential sectors of society. Fashionable, note. What the people eating French food actually thought of it - as food - is something we haven't yet seen. Anyway, the broad mass of British did not evince any preference for French cuisine in this period - and arguably don't today.

4. Clearly they could have told those chefs to make bubble and squeek instead of something French. But that isn't what happened.

Yes it is - as far as the majority of public dining spaces were concerned, what you characterize as "bubble and squeak" remained on the menu. It came off the menu, if it was ever on it, at many grand banquets and in French-style restaurants.

5. There could be only one reason that the British accepted French cooking. It tasted better.

The British didn't accept French cooking. We are discussing only a very rarified stratum of professional cuisine. French dishes were not being served in British houses, or in most public dining places. To the extent that French cooking became popular within that stratum, there are very obvious reasons for that popularity other than taste - to anyone not pushing a pet theory that is.

6. (I)f French cuisine of the 19th century is based on what were originally peasant dishes

Well, which French cuisine? Adam's right here. If you are talking about the cuisine imported by elements of British society in the 19th century, everything we've seen suggests that it was precisely the opposite of peasant cuisine. It was the grande cuisine of Careme, filtered through his pupils, and simplified throughout the century, and ultimately re-thought by Escoffier.

7. (O)ne should logically conclude that "tastes better" be extended to peasant cuisine as well.

Since the premise (6.) is false, the conclusion doesn't follow.

Well, that was a lot of time doubtless wasted. Let's have some specific, historical facts, carefully and clearly stated, and lets see what inferences if any we can draw. Or we can just carry on watching Steve press-gang a selection of "facts" which are usually unclear, and when clear turn out to be false, into supporting his idiosyncratic world view.

Part Two

I see there's more. Steve: French cuisine became the pre-eminent professional cuisine in a number of countries during the twentieth century. How do your ramblings explain the countries where that did not happen? Germany, Italy and Spain spring to mind.

[John Whiting]

Just as a side note, Robert Courtine (named by Paula Wolfert as a 'french food authority'), says that broad beans were in fact used in cassoulet before white beans were cultivated in France.

Indeed. He's probably the greatest living French food authority, successor to Curnonsky. And he adds wryly that the fact that haricot beans are now used is proof that there is such a thing as culinary progress. I agree.

Steve, "Abe", along with Alibris, are the two collossal clearing houses for thousands of used book dealers in the US and Britain. Once you've registered yourself and your credit card details, ordering an out-of-print book takes only a few seconds. The URLs are: http://www.alibris.com/ and http://www.abebooks.com/ . But I warn you: if you become addicted, even your sizeable assets may begin to feel the strain!

[Jinmyo]

P'ism takes it one step further and says, if it wasn't upgraded, then the inference drawn should be that it *didn't taste good to begin with* or to be fair, didn't have the requisite complexity to be used as a springboard for what became 19th century middle class cooking.

Piffle.

The upgrading and codification was done by the French so they upgraded and codified French dishes. Not British. Not Italian. Not Egyptian. Not Japanese. French. This means nothing about whether a British or Italian or Egyptian or Japanese dish tasted good or not.

ediot:

Damn. Hypnotised by Plotnickityism.

[Wilfrid]

abe.books is terrific, and does indeed carry the risk that you will find every book you ever wanted on sale there.

John, I had no idea Courtine was still alive. Just to draw the threads together, the article by Gopnik in the current New Yorker food issue is based on an old Courtine cooking game - there's a discussion on the Food Media board.

[Wilfrid]

P'ism takes it one step further and says, if it wasn't upgraded, then the inference drawn should be that it *didn't taste good to begin with* or to be fair, didn't have the requisite complexity to be used as a springboard for what became 19th century middle class cooking.

Piffle.

The upgrading and codification was done by the French so they upgraded and codified French dishes. Not British. Not Italian. Not Egyptian. Not Japanese. French. This means nothing about whether a British or Italian or Egyptian or Japanese dish tasted good or not.

Sigh. I guess Egypt, Japan and the rest just had bad tasting peasant cuisine. That must have been where it all went wrong.

[John Whiting]

The assertion that "French cuisine is the finest in Europe" is on a par with "German/Austrian music is the finest in Europe". A case could be made that there were more great composers in Germany, writing music of extraordinary depth and complexity, than in any other country. But -- and I can't emphasize this too strongly -- this is the sort of assertion that *impoverishes*, not *enriches* the imagination and the palate. It allows you to narrow down the scope of your investigations, secure in the knowledge that you need know little else but what you have determined to be the *best*.

Even if a statistical case could be made for French cuisine offering more great dishes than any other, it would still be true that, as you went down the scale, more and more dishes would rightly intrude from other cuisines, until your list, if it had any validity at all, would become a total cultural integration. It's as ridiculous as drawing up a list of the world's great ingredients, determining what countries they came from, deciding which was in first place, and then refusing to make use of all others.

I am interested in lines of enquiry that *expand*, not *shrink* my horizons!

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - I have to go out so I can't give a detailed response to your terrific (but flawed) analysis . But quickly, whenever I say that the British "preferred" French cuisine to British cuisine, I am describing only those people who were given the choice. That in fact that it might only be the aristocracy and the very wealthy is a function of wealth distribution. But it jives with my theory that an elite (the aristicracy) with a superior vantage point ( a choice between the two) foretold what would at some point become true of more ordinary people. Their choice (the aristocracy that is) foretold what a larger percentage of people in Britain would choose to eat in the future. And it is because of that choice that we have La Tante Clare, La Gavroche etc. Those places are the descendants of that choice. Of course this goes to the point that part of the reason that French cuisine evolved to the extent it did was that more people were given the choice (in France) then in England. And to say it in a simple, but possibly not accurate way, a more democratic process allowed more people with the ability to discern good from bad to have access to the information, and that inertia of public opinion about what tasted good and what tasted bad, created competition among chefs as to who could make food that tasted the best. Okay I'll deal with the rest later.

John - I'm not using best as in superior, I'm using best as in the cooking technique that was the most dominant. It is not to the exclusion of other cuisines and other techniques as you proffer, but to the inclusion of those cuisines. So it isn't that there wouldn't be any dishes from other countries, on the list, it's that a large percentage of the dishes would be French in origin.

[John Whiting]

If Courtine is dead, it's very recently. He edited the latest Larouse Gastronomique

Edit: Steve, I'm saying that if your statistically-based assertion is true, it is what logicians call "trivially true". Wilfrid will immediately grasp what I'm getting at.

[Wilfrid]

Okay I'll deal with the rest later.

Oh. Good.

Where you is wrong, old chap, as you surely is, is as follows. Accept for the sake of argument that French food is being considered and evaluated during the 19th century by the serried ranks of wealthy, intelligent, sophisticated British palates from their superior vantage point. Your model is that they made a rational, considered judgment in favor of professional French cuisine, and all else followed.

The truth is that there was only one horse in the race. And this was spelt out in some detail on the thread about how and why French cuisine arrived in Britain. No British tradition of haute cuisine had developed, for the reasons we explored before. And if there were courtly cuisines in Italy, Spain or Germany, these were not on offer (maybe a few aberrant exceptions) in Britain in the nineteenth century. There was no contest. In a hypothetical world where the British connoisseurs had been able to pull up their chairs to fine Italian, Japanese or even Persian dining, and compare it to what the French chefs had wrought, who knows what the conclusion would have been?

"I'm not using best as in superior, I'm using best as in the cooking technique that was the most dominant."

So, in countries where French cuisine is not dominant, another cuisine is the best?

"It is not to the exclusion of other cuisines and other techniques as you proffer, but to the inclusion of those cuisines. So it isn't that there wouldn't be any dishes from other countries, on the list, it's that a large percentage of the dishes would be French in origin."

Well if the list is great dishes of the world, I think we all agree with that, but ... er ... so what?

[Adam Balic]

But shouldn't the inference be drawn that the "matelotte" that Davidson describes as the predcessor for BB tasted better than its fish stew counterparts in other countries, and that is why BB ended up as the number one fish stew in the world?

Huh??!! Oh, I see. Bahahahahahahahaha (Wipes tears of laughter which obscures text from eyes). Very funny.