The introductory texts reproduced here were written by the original Feeding America team to contextualize the books that were selected for inclusion as part of the 2001 digitization project.
La Cuisine Française. French Cooking for Every Home. Adapted to American Requirements.
Chicago: Baldwin, Ross & Co., 1893.
French influence on American cuisine is among the most important, both directly from France and French-controlled areas of the world (Canada, Caribbean) and from the French influence on English, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian haute cuisines. From the large number of books we could have selected to illustrate this, we have chosen to include this handsome little item.
See also:
This book intrigues for a number of reasons. The author, Francois Tanty, was trained under Careme, the most famous 19th century French Chef. Tanty then served as Chef de Cuisine to Emperor Napoleon III and Chef to the Czar of Russia; he also was proprietor of the Grand Hotel and the Restaurant Dussaux at St. Petersburg, and Purveyor to the French and Russian Armies. In the early 1890s he came to America to establish his two sons in business. He most likely came because of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One of his sons, M. Louis Tanty, collaborated on this book and was responsible for the translation.
It is a fine, professionally-oriented manual of the classic French repertoire. However, there are a few attempts to include American dishes, such as the Sweet Corn with Butter and the Mais a la Creme, which uses canned corn. Recipe names are given in both French and English. The small black and white illustrations are quite charming and deserve a wider audience.
This book sold so well that it was republished in 1896 with a second volume of about equal length on Bread and Patisserie.
