Like many people, I keep most of my cookbooks on bookshelves in the living room.
Only two actually live in the kitchen: 1) A dog-eared and crumb-filled copy of “The Joy of Cooking,” my go-to guide for basics like making dough or roasting pork, and 2) an equally used and tattered paperback copy of “French Cooking in Ten Minutes,” by Edouard de Pomaine.
“Joy,” which you probably have a copy of, is the most-used cookbook I have. Without it, I’d never be able to navigate through the kitchen.
But “French Cooking in Ten Minutes,” which many people have never heard of, is by far my favorite cookbook ever. Without it, I would have never believed I had any chance of cooking anything in the first place.
I first discovered “French Cooking in Ten Minutes” (also called “Cooking in Ten Minutes” which might be a better title because the “French” part makes it sound much fancier than it is) when it appeared on my father’s bookshelves shortly after he married my stepmother back when I was a teenager.
I don’t know why I opened it up in the first place, because the title sounds like a cover story in Family Circle or something. Not exactly a must-read for a pubescent boy.
But as soon as I cracked it to page 103, I knew I had something different on my hands. Here was the recipe I found:
A Good, Plain Steak
Not every day is a special occasion, and sometimes it’s nice to have a good, plain steak.
Buy a 10-ounce steak cut from the flank or sirloin. Heat some butter in a frying pan until it smokes, then add your steak. Cook 3 minutes on one side, 3 minutes on the other, then serve sprinkled with salt and garnished with parsley and French-fried potatoes.
That’s it. That’s the recipe. Melt butter in pan, fry steak and serve. Brilliant.
Here is another:
Flounder Meuniere
Wash a flounder that has already been gutted. Wipe it off and roll it in flour. Fry it in smoking hot butter, and when it is done, sprinkle it with salt. Serve with a slice of lemon.
Easy enough?
“Ten Minutes” was written in 1930, long before the concept of time-saving had become an international obsession. Precious little of it is outdated (the author calls for canned peas in some recipes, whereas today you’re much better off with frozen), while most of it is crystal-current (he advocates buying from a butcher that you trust, grinding your own coffee beans, and being judicious with but not avoiding high-fat and high-calorie foods like Roquefort cheese).
One reason the book works so well for an avid amateur like me is that M. de Pomaine wasn’t a trained chef. He was a regular (albeit smart) guy, a former M.D. who’d taken an interest in food while researching human digestive enzymes. He’d learned how to cook, and he figured (rightly) that the rest of us could learn too.
And that the rest of us should learn. Because understanding the hows and whys of feeding ourselves is one of life’s most basic, and excellent, lessons.
“Ten Minutes” taught me the most valuable thing I’ve ever learned about home cooking: It isn’t magic. You don’t need to be gifted, or special, to cook successfully at home. Just a pan, a knife and some heat.
In other words, M. de Pomaine, a regular (albeit dead) guy, told me that I could cook.
And once I believed him, it was true.
My point: We live in a time and place where it’s possible to go through life not knowing the first thing about where our food comes from or understanding how it’s prepared.
This puts us in danger of two things: 1) isolating food and cooking into its own inaccessible world, populated by celebrity chefs and prefab products, and 2) replacing the psychologically restorative act of preparing our own food with the convenient, but often empty, act of allowing someone else to do it.
But basic home cooking is no one’s domain but our own, and it is a simple thing to do. It takes effort, yes, and some time.
But, as M. de Pomaine proclaims, the ability to cook can be achieved by anyone: “students, dressmakers, secretaries, artists, lazy people, poets, men of action, dreamers, scientists, and everyone else.”
Go ahead, grab a steak, some butter and a pan. You’ll have dinner, and a real achievement, in no time.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
