Book Review: Collette Rossant's "Madeleines In Manhattan"

Melita

14 July 2007, 11:53

Collette Rossant’s autobiography and cookbook Madeleines In Manhattan is a lovely narrative and a lovely collection of recipes. Her wide-eyed impressions of New York through the last 50 years, as well as her breathless accounts of Japan and Tanzania, are deeply involving. And as they centre on food, they’re also profoundly mouthwatering.

While she has published several cookbooks and food articles in different media over the last few decades, Rossant is probably most famous for Apricots On The Nile and Return To Paris, two memoirs in a similar style to this one that trace her Egyptian childhood and her Parisian adolescence, scattering topical recipes along the way.

Their success is not surprising. Rossant has a nice autobiographical voice; we don’t ever feel that she’s trying to create an illusion of perfection, but her loving descriptions of the equally imperfect people around her make her beautifully sympathetic and believable, letting us slip without a struggle into the story of her life.

Madeleines In Manhattan picks up the narrative of Rossant’s life as she leaves Europe for Manhattan. Right from the start Rossant writes about the role of food in creating and smoothing relationships, and it’s through food that she writes about coming to love her new country. Happily for us, the creation of this relationship is presented both as an engaging narrative and as a set of delicious, simple recipes at the end of each chapter.

The book may pique your taste buds like crazy, but Rossant isn’t a well-packaged Jamie Oliver pretending to be a sex symbol or a self-conscious Anthony Bourdain pretending to be a bit of rough. She’s a chef who explored a world of cooking on her own time and who wants to share both that time and her discoveries with us, and instead of anything tawdry or poppy coming out of it we get an impression of delicious but straightforward gourmet cuisine as an earthy necessity. Food porn, this is not. A deeply rewarding ongoing relationship – maybe.

The recipes, by the way, are superb. They’re written out in the same easy conversational style that normal people use when instructing their friends how to replicate something they’ve discovered in their own kitchens. I’ve tried the carrot soup at the end of the final chapter and the mussels in hot tomato sauce – delicious, and a breeze. Cannot wait to try more.

Highly recommended, as are her two other foodie memoirs. All are available through Bloomsbury Books
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Comment

  1. I’ve got a Recipe book from 1936. On the front cover stands – With Compliments from CONSOLIDATES OIL PRODUCTS Limited. P.O. Box 89 Johannesburg. (Place your name on our mailing list and receive New Recipes Regularly.
    Can you tell me if this company still exists?

    — Joanne Erasmus · Jun 11, 15:49 · #

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