Press releases drop into my mailbox daily and I usually give them a glance but rarely read them unless they’re addressed to me by name with some sort of request that’s unique to me. When I received a mass-mailed release from Group Alain Ducasse, however, the first few lines…well… if the goal of a press release is to grab your attention, this one worked. I found it immediately and viscerally infuriating.
Chef Alain Ducasse’s Recipes Adapted for the Home Cook by Cookbook Author Sophie Dudemaine Ducasse Made Simple by Sophie aims to bring fine dining and the art of entertaining back into the home
(New York, New York – September 2008) This October with the release of French cookbook author Sophie Dudemaine’s newest title, Ducasse made Simple by Sophie, home cooks will be able to effortlessly recreate the world-class cuisine of renowned Chef Alain Ducasse in their own kitchens.
My first thought was, Ducasse made simple? Why on earth would you want Ducasse simple? What makes Ducasse preparations Ducasse prepartions are the details, and it’s the details that make a dish increasingly less simple.
But really it was this statement angered me most: “home cooks will be able to effortlessly recreate the world-class cuisine of renowned chef Alain Ducasse in their own kitchens.” It’s this kind of claim on which many cookbooks stake their reason for being and that I find fundamentally dishonest—that anyone can do this food quickly and easily, and, that quick and easy are what we most want in a cookbook from a Michelin-starred chef.
Do people actually believe this? I don't know the author, Sophie Dudemaine, but I certainly have nothing against her. Though I’ve never met Ducasse, I have only the highest opinion of his work as a chef, restaurateur and businessman. And I must also add that what I’m writing here is not a review of the cookbook itself, which may well be filled with delicious easy recipes—I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen the book.
What I’m criticizing here is the conceit of this cookbook, and all others that claim to make refined cuisine simple for the home. It makes me crazy not because it’s fundamentally a lie, though that’s never a good thing, but rather because publishers don’t seem to recognize that it’s a lie, and they want to keep on telling it to us.
Can you imagine a book called The French Laundry Cookbook Made Simple? Such food would cease to be French Laundry food.
In my experience excellence and ease usually don’t go together.
There’s nothing wrong with easiness—a poached egg with a little shallot-lemon butter and a good piece of toast can truly excellent. But to try to combine the two ideas, Ducasse and “made effortless” or the “four-star cooking at home” premise—this idea is harmful to home cooks. It encourages them to believe that every kind of cuisine can and should be made easy for them. This is simply not true. Some recipes are easy. But many recipes are excellent in direct proportion to the labor that goes into them.
If what you want is quick and easy recipes, buy a cookbook comprising recipes that use five ingredients or fewer.
Or try this: buy better food. That’s the quickest easiest way I know to quick and easy meals.
Here is a quick and easy recipe. Pair it with roast chicken, with a grilled steak, a crisp salad or simply a very good glass of red wine.
Pasta with Parmigiano-Regianno
Kosher salt as needed
1 pound dried pasta
4 ounces/1 stick of butter cut into four pieces
1 cup coarsely and freshly grated, excellent Parmigiano-Regianno
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (salted, meaning that it tastes nicely seasoned). Place a large oven proof bowl in your oven and turn the oven to 200 degrees F. Drop the pasta in the water and cook it just until it’s tender, then drain it. Remove the bowl from the oven and toss the butter and pasta in the bowl until the butter is melted and the pasta is evenly coated with the butter. Taste the pasta. If it needs more salt, add it now (remember that the cheese you’re about to add is salty). Divide the pasta among four to six bowls and sprinkle each with the Regianno. Serve with a delicious red wine.
That's an honest, quick and easy meal.
tahoedan
There is nothing wrong with being elitist when one practices elite standards of behavior and is judged by his or her peers to be an “elite.” Actually, I expect it. (Ducasse, for example, is definitely elite.)
There is something definitley wrong with acting elitist when one is not elite. That is seriously lame. BUT it is not nearly as unseemly as the behavior of an elite who tries to pretend that he/she wants to “educate” the common folk when all he may really be interested in taking their money.
tahoe dan (and others) are mischaracterizing Michael’s point here.
The point is not that “simple” is always bad. The point is that the whole point of Ducasse’s cooking is that it is NOT simple, and it is disingenuous to pretend that it can be so.
For example:
You could, in theory, adapt Dostoevksy into a children’s book. Some publishers might even think this would be a great idea.
But… Dostoevsky: Made Simple For Kids! is not Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky is not simple, nor is it for kids.
If you want a children’s book, read a children’s book; there are some great ones out there. If you want Dostoevsky, read Dostoevsky.
Similarly, Ducasse: Made Simple For Home Cooks! is not Ducasse. Ducasse is not simple, nor for home cooks. There are some great chefs out there who DO use simple preparations, and a home cook looking for the simple-but-good can and should check them out. But if someone wants to use a recipe from Ducasse, it should be a real recipe from Ducasse, which is more or less the gastronomic equivalent of a Russian novel.
There’s nothing elitist about it — it’s just logic. Ducasse is not simple. These simple recipes are not Ducasse. To pretend so is just dumb. A is not B, and B is not A, so don’t try to tell me that A equals B.
tahoe dan is dismayed by the elitist attitudes continually posted on this blog.
Since when is calling out deception “elitist?”
I smell a food industry shill, what with the code words and all..
Tahoedan -
If given the choice between the magna cum laude from Johns Hopkins Medical School or the “C” student from a cut-rate medical school – which one would you choose for your medical care??
If you were offered an engineer who had a great safety record and one who had been sued and lost 5 times for unsafe structures – which one would you choose??
A plastic surgeon?
A school?
A teacher?
A veterinarian??
Childcare????
If your doctor told you he was going to cut down your heart surgery time by 50% and is using an untrained Anaesthesiologist would you trust him?
A sub-contractor removed 50% of the concrete tunnel thickness in the Metro Red Line subway here in L.A. so they could get the job done quicker and faster – do you trust that decision??
Why would you go out of your way to choose below average food? It may sound like humility but it isn’t – its just an attempt to legitimize the mediocre.
I see a red flag when I see any professional making “fast and simple” their mantra, versus “correct and well-done.”
You may stop by the homeless shelter I work at any time this winter to watch me being “abusive” to the residents by lobbying for better quality food any time you’d like, dan.
Michael,
As always your comments ring true. I have problems with the wording “effortlessly recreate the world-class cuisine of Chef Alain Ducasse in their own kitchens” as well.
I’m a home cook who likes to look at cookbooks that I can get good idea’s from. I also like to use good ingredients because the ingredients selected do have a direct impact on how the dish turns out. However, I generally don’t have much time in my life to “effortlessly recreate” the dishes of anyone. What home cook does except maybe on the weekends?
We all have hectic lives and some serious time constraints on us. Heck, I’m lucky if I get to see my pregnant wife more than two hours a day Monday through Friday because I work midnight shift. She’s leaving when I’m coming home. Then I’m sleeping when she comes home.
That also means that sadly I don’t get to spend much time in the kitchen right now as I’d like. My days are spent unpacking from our recent move, cleaning the house, yardwork and the list goes on as we all know.
Now I decided to see what else I could find out on-line about this book after reading your blog earlier today.
These are some of the comments I found.
However, Dudemaine has taken 100 of Ducasse’s prized recipes and streamlined them so the average home cook can make and enjoy the swoon-worthy flavors of fine fare. “I always simplify the recipes and make the accessible to anyone. Fifty years ago, people spent almost four hours making the daily meals – today this has been reduced to 45 minutes. My aim is not to make complicated failures, but to prepare simple and good meals,” says Dudemaine.
http://www.sheknows.com/articles/805899.htm
While retaining the spirit of Ducasse’s recipes, Dudemaine has made the world-renowned chef’s cuisine accessible to every home cook. In addition, Linda Dannenberg, the author of more than 20 books on French cooking and culture (as well as Stewart, Tabori and Chang’s Perfect Vinaigrettes), has tested and adapted the recipes for an American audience.
http://lartculinaire.wordpress.com/category/ducasse-made-simple/
To pair-down his complicated recipes, Ducasse enlisted French cookbook author Sophie Dudemaine, who is known for speaking easily to a novice audience. Featuring 120 recipes culled from Ducasse’s 2001 cookbook Grand Livre de Cuisine, the new book–Ducasse made Simple by Sophie–considers the skill level and timing constraints of the average cook without sacrificing quality or flavor.
http://blogs.forbes.com/findoftheday/2008/09/ducasse-made-si.html
Ducasse is listed in every review as an author of the book therefore he knows what is going on. Sadly, I think that he should have passed on this project because it does appear he’s compromising himself in search of the almight dollar.
It also says that this Sophie selected and simplified the recipes but then it also says that Linda Dannenberg tested and adapted the recipes for American use.
What’s up with that? Swoon-worthy dishes in less than 45 minutes?! I know that you can make excellent dishes in that time but swoon-worthy Alain Ducasse meals in 45 minutes?
That’s just plain wrong. Again, it’s a major misrepresentation of the facts. Something that some author’s and publisher’s will do to sell a book.
Good cooking comes from the heart.
But it helps if the cook knows what they’re doing.
Greely
This all reminds me a little of the article in the NY Times Mag by Allen Salkin where he had Ferran Adria cook at his house. He bought fresh ingredients and prepared it earnestly, but in the end it did not have the WOW of his food at El Bulli…and the fact that Adria insisted he would never do that again…you can’t make magic without your spells at hand, and that’s how it should be!
When I first started attending culinary classes my friends were so excited. In fact one of them went out and bought the entire Charlie Trotter cookbook set for me. Which was a very gracious thing. However, they all wanted to know when I was going to cook them something out of those books. I still have a hard time convincing people that even if I don’t cook something from those books. I can use them for “ideas” and “concepts.” I believe Bourdain’s use of the term “Food Porn” is very applicable to a lot of cookbooks these days.
Such as the Alinea book. I would love to cook items from that book. However, probably the best way to do that is to get a job at Alinea. Which would be a most awesome thing in its own right.
I have bashed Rachel Ray and other folks in the past. But I regret it for the most part. You have to look at what they are trying to communicate to the audience. Which is “you don’t have to be a professional cook to make your family a good dinner.” The Food Network is based around that mantra these days.
As far as the Alaine Ducasse cookbook. I think the idea sucks.
I would rather see Paula Dean and Rachel Ray churn out another twenty books full of home made comfort food. Then any book with the words “Ducasse and simple” in the title.
tahoedan – talk about being judgemental… geeshk. you sound ever so lovely yourself…
and why is a cat not an alligator? my point being that you can’t make a silk purse out a sow’s ear. these books cater to the home cook who thinks that he/she will be making a ducasse recipe. and it simply not true – or even close.
i cook simple food all the time. as ruhlman points out, the ingredient list need only be short in number and long on quality. and in the end, it’s all about the quality of your ingredients… period.
i’ve not seen this book but my guess is that it would be silly for both the serious home cook and equally silly to those wanting to make dinner for their families.
i think in this case we CAN judge a book by its cover…
I am dismayed by the elitist attitudes continually posted on this blog. Why can’t a recipe be simplified so the home chef has the chance to make a tasty meal in a reasonable time frame? I cook dinner almost every night and on the week nights I am looking for good, easy to make food. If Ducasse worked with the author to contribute recipes that he is happy with that taste good, what is the problem. Too many of you are so in love with yourselves and your rigid beliefs. You must be horrible to meet in person.
Couldn’t agree more. It seems everywhere I turn in the food community, the phrase “quick and easy” dominates. I am tired of the quick and easy. Don’t get me wrong- there is absolutely nothing wrong with something being quick and easy if it’s meant to be, much like the recipe you just posted. However, if osso buco was made quick and easy, would it truly be osso buco? Can the perfect, crusty baguette or flaky croissant be slapped together? I don’t think it’s possible and part of the joy of successfully creating those things is the process itself- each and every step, every failure and eventually the hard won victory. Here’s an idea- instead of spending all this time experimenting to see which steps can be cut out of a recipe to make it quick and easy, why not spend the same amount of time making a recipe in the way it was meant to be in the first place?
Eric wrote:
Others I think just use the word “simple” to mean “not nearly as intimidating as you might think.” and “entirely possible for you to make at home.”
Add me to the minority in agreeing with that. Yes, most of the books you’ll find with “simple” in the title are utter crap, but everyone once and awhile you get something good.
Only online recipe from the book that I was able to find was for a pumpkin soup: http://www.sheknows.com/articles/805899.htm
Doesn’t look too bad. It even calls for real pumpkin (not from a can). After a non-stop 9 hour day at work and a 45 minute commute home through traffic and construction, it’s the kind of recipe I can deal with. Is the original recipe? No doubt. But a simplified version, or even simplified techniques, makes a recipe seem do-able to a wider audience. I believe most people have an inner foodie, but here in America people have been scared into thinking that cooking is hard and difficult and full of possibilities for disaster and they really do need to be convinced that something is simple before they’ll try it.
There are even recipes in TFLC and Bouchon that are actually pretty simple to do as long as you have the “pantry” basics already done (heck, I make garlic and tomato confit once a week and have a freezer full of homemade stocks and my day-to-day cooking is better for it). One reason I became such a fan of FL @ Home is seeing someone else plug through it and having moments of “Hey… I bet I can do that, too!”
I will flip through anything once, but things like this only if I have a little bit of time at a bookstore – I will not pay actual currency for them. Generally, I don’t buy books where the branding confuses things and forces things down or apart from what I go to a chef for… I can think of a other titles I would pass up in the same vein: Ducasse Does 30 Minute Meals (with Rachel Ray!), Ducasse on Fajitas and Guac, Ducasse: The Nascar Barbeques. I eat at Spoon in HK, and I prefer to remember his food that way…
French Laundry at Home wrote
“What I find the saddest of all is that Ducasse gave her the greenlight to do it and endorsed the whole thing.”
I could not agree more. It’s always sad when someone you respect endorses a project that appears to pander. I’ve seen Ducasse cook and knew a student from CIA who externed at Louis XV in Monte Carlo. So I have a pretty good idea of what his art is about. This is sad and wrong.
It is funny because being from Chicago I had to have a copy of the Alinea cookbook. A neighbor saw it on my counter and said “Come on is anything in something you could actually cook.” I tried to explain that the purpose of book was not to be “how to cook like Grant Achatz” but a beautiful, complicated and terribly interesting look into what he creates. Needless to say, she didn’t understand why I purchased the book if I couldn’t cook from it. Pretty funny!
I think is natural for chefs to want to make their food seem accessible for the home cook but it is not always the case. There are cookbooks meant to aid and instruct and others that are simply beautiful, mouth watering to flip through and a bird’s eye view into a chef’s vision. Ducasse should leave his food where it belongs in his creations or a terrific coffee table book like the Alinea cookbook.
Add some cracked black pepper to that pasta recipe, and you get the go-to dish my parents made to get me to eat as a kid. I’m not a picky eater anymore (thank god), but it’s still one of my comfort food recipes.
But back to the matter at hand, what audience is that book expected to attract? I’d imagine that someone looking for “anything-made-simple” cookbooks might not recognize the name Ducasse.
-
Just like when they put the word “Premium” on hydrogenated high fructose corn syrup-sodden garbage.
Premium is what you’re paying, not what you’re eating.
If you buy a book claiming it’s “Ducasse made Simple,” you are the simple one.
What I find the saddest of all is that Ducasse gave her the greenlight to do it and endorsed the whole thing. The almighty dollar (or euro) wins. [http://www.wwd.com/media-news/easy-as-pie-sophie-dudemaine-1802650]
Please… someone send Sophie and M. Ducasse my way. Some things are worth doing right. It’s insulting to be told I need Alain Ducasse’s cuisine to be dumbed down for me, a home cook, to be able to make it.
p.s. — In the cover photo, is that cat food stuffed in the hollowed-out tomato, squash and bread? If that’s what Ducasse Made Simple is gonna look like on a plate… no thank you.
Yeah, I’m writing a couple of books too -
“The Effortless Path to Brilliance: Paint Just Like DaVinci In Five Easy At-Home Lessons!”.
The follow-ups are “Go for the Gold: Train For The Tour de France In 10 Minutes a Day” and “Quick-n-Easy: Home Dental Surgery for Busy People”.
Pah!
Yeah, that is all marketing hype if the book lives up then it won’t be that simple. On the other hand that caption really doesn’t fool many cooks. Non-cooks wouldn’t know any better.
What I find most amazing is that anyone would undertake such a project.
I read lots of cookbooks and for my kitchen I keep coming back to Naomi Moriyama’s “Japanese women don’t get old or fat”.
The book has a few recipes a little history some facts that are verifiable but the most amazing thing is that Naomi has broken down Japanese cuisine to what she calls “Seven Pilars”. This goes back centuries of tradition in Japan. Has substance.
Now I am not Japanese nor do I enjoy these recipes as writen down.
But I get the drift, miso soup … clear broth…any broth…you like.
I posted a list of these pilars in the kitchen and I find it very useful each time I craft a meal. Be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Seven Pilars are Fish, Vegetables, Rice, Soy, Noodles, tea and fruits.
Mix and match and combine to create your own food.
For instance take a ready made Ramen square, Frozen sweet peas and microwave defated bacon strips and I am good for the whole morning. Variations are endles..throw in a dumpling some more veggies…. shaven pork anything… you like.
May not be japanese but…Queen Himiko might not entirelly disaprove.. and if she did? who cares.
I like this format very much and I wish there were less recipes in the cookbooks and more distinct meal building blocks with could use for a guide.
Oh comon Ruhlman, seriously, that stuff’s a breeze to slap out. Hell, just as I am writing this response, I made lobster gazpacho, while high on grey Krylon spray paint, with Rachel Ray 30 minute meals playing in the background.
I don’t even know why someone would even think they need this book??
Sheesh….
Well, for one thing, it’s often a conceit put in for sales purposes. The market for a cookbook called “Ludicrously Complex Cooking That You Shouldn’t Even Consider Attempting” is significantly smaller than “[Cuisine] Made Simple”
Also, I think much depends on your (and the author’s) definition of “simple.” I’ve gone through a few of the “simple” cookbooks and there were quite a few labor-intensive dishes involved. What was simple about them was that I didn’t need an immersion circulator, have to fly in prawns from madagascar, or know how to precision-stack thin slices of black cod in order to make something in the spirit of my favorite dish from whatever chef. Granted, these books do tend to be stuffed with [insert famous chef]‘s takes on classic rustic food and whatnot – it’s unlikely we’ll see “Heston Blumenthal MADE SIMPLE!” anytime soon.
Many of these cookbooks are, of course, utter rubbish, but that’s true for pretty much most cookbooks, period. Others I think just use the word “simple” to mean “not nearly as intimidating as you might think.” and “entirely possible for you to make at home.” Yeah, it’s not going to be perfect, and it’s not going to obviate the need for the Alain Ducasses of the world, but I think the “made simple” premise just needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and that salt needn’t be fleur de sel.
There is a marketing person who was patted on the back for writing that press release, proud to have captured the essence of the book. It’s the money talking, I imagine something like, “Somebody write some liner notes that will sell this collection of church recipes ASAP”.
Your pasta recipe is exactly what I was told was the original recipe for fettucine Alfredo in 1974. I ate there with my parents three nights in one week during a trip to Rome. We came upon the “original” Alfredo at the suggestion of some German tourists with whom I shared a taxi. I led my parents there and we had a great time with the whole show. We would just get the fettucine and a salad which was quite enough to eat. The last night I asked in broken Italian what the recipe was and the waiter pointed to the noodles, butter and cheese and smiled.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the “quick and easy” cookbook as long as it’s honest but simple recipes and not cheats like using cans of soup.
There are tons of things you can make that are quick and easy but still taste great.
I do agree that books shouldn’t be dishonest and try to pretend that the “compromise” version is the same as the involved restaurant version, but that’s not reason to dismiss *all* quick and easy cookbooks.
Use better quality ingredients….hmm, what a concept!
I had a friend who told me what an amazing cook this woman was. And I asked well what did she make that was so amazing. The response – well she went to Dean & Deluca and bought some good bread, some fresh mozzerella, tomatoes and pesto and made sandwiches.
This did teach me the lesson that simplicity and good ingredients go a long way. It also lowered my opinion of my friend.
standing up and wildly applauding…
(no small feat)
gee, i wonder what boxed stock ducasse recommends?
I foolishly bought “Happy in the Kitchen” thinking I could recreate the recipes at home–a review of the book promised I could. Only now can I use Saran Wrap again without bitterness.