Happy Birthday Prosper!

It’s Prosper Montagne’s birthday on the 14^th yes it is! This fellow Scorpio knew his cooking stuff! For those of you who didn't know, tomorrow, November 14th is the fabulous Prosper Montagné's birthday! He was born in Carcassonne, France on  Nov 14th 1865.

For those of you who aren't obsessed with old cookbooks the way I am, dear old Prosper is the author/editor of one of the benchmark food tomes of all time Larousse Gastronomique.

Written in 1938, and prefaced by Escoffier the comprehensive encyclopedia of French cookery/gastronomy/edible history still stands as a reference to today's great chefs! Prosper himself was one of the greatest French chefs of his time who worked in the most famous kitchens in  Europe. The son of a hotelier,

Montagne aspired to be an architect but his father forced him to apprentice in a hotel kitchen. He showed great talent and worked his way up the kitchen brigades of the biggest and best hotels in France. 

During the WWI he was tasked to organize the kitchens of the French Army. Shortly after he set up the 'Ecole des Cuistots' (Cooks School) where he  taught the future chefs of Europe. After his illustrious career, and in retirement, he sat down to write 'La Grande Livre de Cuisine' in order to share his vast wealth of culinary knowledge. Published in 1929, the volume became a chef’s bible. Its English edition made its debut in 1938. 

I love my copy of Larousse Gastronomique. I scored this puppy for 4$ at the Alemany flea market!! I'm not alone in my love of this book.... it’s even listed as
Heidi Swanson's first cookbook in her 101 cookbooks list!

   

In honor of Prosper Montagne’s birthday I decided it was time to give one of the
recipes from this behemoth of a book a shot. I felt that in honor of his birthday I should attempt a recipe out of Larousse Gastronomique. If you have a copy of this then you know that while yes, it has 8500 recipes… they are often broad and vague. But I let my cohort and designated eater of the house pick a letter of the alphabet and whatever letter she picked, I find a recipe in the section of that letter and make it. She picked T. There were tons of recipes for tarts and turnovers, but for all those I had to refer to the D’s. For dough. There were also a ton of recipes for tomatoes but they are just past season so I figured I’d forgo those for something more seasonal. So I settled on a recipe for Glazed Turnips.

 
I didn’t want to scare the eater, as she’s never eaten turnips, so instead of straight up turnips I made a mix of butternut squash, turnips and sweet potatoes but I still followed the recipe for Glazed Turnips on pg 979:

Turnips to be further cooked in the sauce of the main dish can be prepared in this way: Trim the turnips to look like olives (or if they are small, leave them whole). Sauté in butter in a frying-pan. Season with salt and sprinkle with castor (fine) sugar. Sauté for a few seconds over a very high flame to brown them slightly. Finish cooking with the main dish (duck, shoulder of mutton, etc).

Pg 979

Okay. Well I was in the process of roasting up a turkey breast so I followed the recipe and tossed the veggies in the pan with the turkey breast.

These showed great promise but unfortunately I WAY over salted the veggies. I would definitely make this again—it does show some very tasty but simple, wow-factor at the Thanksgiving table-- promise!

Happy Birthday Prosper!! Hope I did ya proud.

Enjoy!

Erin

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Beth]

I have a new edition of this. Is the older version any different?

[EB]

Beth-
From what I gather, the newer editions have been updated over the years. Some people apparently love the new/current info but others feel that the original should have been left in tact. I'm kind of torn between the two. I love knowing what was considered THE WAY to do things in the past, but the new info influences my actual cookign more.

Thanks for stopping by!
Erin

[Bea]

This is a great cookbook indeed! Mine is in French, in 3 smaller pieces.