Alice B. Toklas Cook Book

Alice B. Toklas Cook Book 요약

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   A Culinary Journey Through Art, War, and Love

   

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   The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book is far more than a collection of recipes. Published in 1954 when Toklas was 77, it's a vibrant memoir disguised as a cookbook-a portal into the avant-garde Paris of the early 20th century where Picasso, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald gathered in the salon she shared with her partner Gertrude Stein. When asked to write about her life with Stein, Toklas declined, saying "Gertrude did my autobiography and it's done." Instead, she created something far more revealing-a book "full of memories" that James Beard called "one of the best books about food ever written." Through her culinary lens, we glimpse an extraordinary life lived among extraordinary people, seasoned with wit and the flavors of a bygone era. What makes her work so enduring isn't just the recipes but her remarkably poetic voice, describing custards with "the colour of their flavour" and soups that "come beautifully limpid."

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   The Reluctant Culinary Icon

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   Alice B. Toklas discovered cooking only after moving to Paris in 1908 with Gertrude Stein. Their partnership was defined by their roles: "Alice cooked while Gertrude wrote." She served American "soul food" on Sundays, though her cooking gradually became more French. Despite her seemingly submissive exterior, Toklas possessed a will of steel, occasionally revealed through subtle barbs in her cookbook. Though Toklas didn't consider cookbook writing to be "real writing," her 1954 cookbook became an immediate success that remains in print today. This unlikely culinary icon - described by M.F.K. Fisher as a tiny woman with "a sallow complexion, large hooked nose, and genuine mustache" - wore dramatic, feathered hats after Stein's death in 1946. Her meticulous recipes, requiring "great pains and a remarkable palate," inspired many chefs and offered readers not just instructions but a hunger for life itself.

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   The Violence of Cooking

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   "Cookbooks captivate me as murder mysteries once enthralled Gertrude Stein," Toklas writes in one of her most memorable chapters. Yet cooking involves unavoidable acts of violence-the killing that must precede preparation. She recounts her first "victim"-a lively carp delivered alive. With no instruction, she nervously grasped its jaw through a protective dishcloth and plunged a knife into its vertebral column. Horror-struck at the fish's final struggle, she needed two cigarettes to regain composure. Another culinary murder involved six white pigeons that arrived with the note that "Alice is clever" and would make something delicious of them. Fortified with coffee, she reluctantly pressed on each dove's throat before braising them with salt pork and butter. These accounts reveal Toklas's understanding that good cooking requires confronting mortality. Her descriptions balance instruction with reflection, acknowledging both the necessity and gravity of taking life for sustenance. It was during wartime rationing that she truly learned to cook seriously, when restricted markets demanded both skill and efficiency.

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   A Culinary Anthropologist

   Toklas approached recipe collection with anthropological rigor. Traveling through Spain seeking authentic gazpacho recipes, she documented regional variations: Malaga's with almonds, Seville's with extra garlic and olive oil, Cordoba's with fresh mint, and Segovia's emphasizing raw vegetables. Despite searching numerous bookshops, she found no written recipes - one clerk remarked gazpachos "are only eaten in Spain by peasants and Americans." Her investigation revealed fascinating cross-cultural connections. A Polish-American composer compared gazpacho to chodnik (Polish iced soup with beets and cucumber), a Turkish diplomat likened it to cacik, and Greek guests noted similarities to tarata. These connections demonstrated how recipes travel across borders through conquests, trade routes, and occupations. Toklas viewed recipes as living cultural artifacts carrying stories of conquest, migration, social hierarchies, and economic conditions. Her detailed investigations elevated her cookbook from mere instructions to a scholarly work of cultural history. Through food, she illustrated how diverse cultures connect through shared techniques and flavors - a universal language transcending geographical boundaries.

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   Surviving War Through Food

   When war began in 1939, Toklas and Stein initially lived comfortably on reserves in the Bugey region. Though meat was strictly rationed to a quarter pound weekly, they had access to fish, garden vegetables, and white wine. What they lacked were milk, butter and eggs - German requisitioning left nothing for locals despite these items appearing on ration cards. For entertaining during shortages, Toklas prepared Swimming Crawfish using wine, cognac, vegetables, and spices. Guests brought their own bread or gave her ration coupons, as theirs went to their poodle Basket. Despite their vegetable garden, true hunger eventually set in, and Toklas dreamed of ham slices for months before the black market organized. Toklas found solace in reading elaborate recipes from cookbooks Gertrude Stein gave her. Even during the Occupation, Montagne's and Salle's "The Great Book of the Kitchen" somehow crossed forbidden lines. She'd pore over impossible dishes, with imagination being "as satisfying as it had to be." After Paris was liberated, when American soldiers arrived, they immediately invited them for dinner. Their cook prepared a celebratory meal of trout, chicken, salad, souffle, and wild strawberries - symbolizing the end of deprivation.

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   The Gardens at Bilignin: A Culinary Paradise

   For fourteen years, the gardens at Bilignin were Toklas's consuming passion-she worked them through warm months and planned expansions during winter. In the French Alps foothills, the challenging climate taught her respect for local agricultural knowledge, transforming her from a skeptic of "superstition" into "a fairly successful gardener." When they became tenants in 1929, the gardens required seven men working six days just to clear the severe overgrowth. After establishing raised beds, gravel paths, and proper drainage, they planted using cherished seeds from their previous home and seedlings from the Belley market. The first May harvest filled Toklas with wonder: "There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown." Their culinary approach evolved alongside the garden-beginning with simple preparations using just butter or cream before expanding to complex sauces. Her flourishing garden inspired countless innovative recipes, from her renowned Green Peas a la Francaise to her celebrated Macedoine of Vegetables, becoming her primary creative outlet and a profound connection to French countryside traditions.

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   A Legacy Beyond the Kitchen

   The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book remains one of the most unusual and enduring culinary memoirs ever written. What began as a financial necessity after Stein's death transformed into a literary classic transcending its genre. Toklas created something to be read rather than merely followed-perhaps inspired by how Stein had written The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas for mainstream success. The book caused a sensation upon its 1954 publication, partly due to Brion Gysin's hashish fudge recipe, but primarily because it was "a unique book by a unique person." Written during illness and loneliness after Gertrude's death, it became Toklas's way to revisit happier times and reconnect with absent friends. As M.F.K. Fisher observed, it would "feed my soul abundantly" and "make one smile in the midst of sadness." Through recipes and reminiscences, Toklas created not just a cookbook but a portrait of an extraordinary life-ensuring that both she and her remarkable circle continue to nourish readers' imaginations with meals seasoned by stories, history, and love.

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