The real Provencal cuisine was essentially lived and spoken, but not written down. It remains in the memories and long-established habits of grandmothers like Madame Bonnet, and in the country's more remote towns, where tourists with a dislike of garlic seldom stray... Leslie Forbes

{HISTORY}

Not many cookbook authors can claim to be equally talented artists, travel journalists, and fiction writers too, but in the case of Canadian-born author Leslie Forbes (1953-2016) all this is entirely true.  

There are a lot of joyfully descriptive words that float around in the afterlife of Leslie Forbes... funny, charismatic, intelligent, creative, curious, generous, captivating... but you don't have to do much research on her to figure all that out. You can easily summize much of her lovely personality from her cookbook writing. More specifically from this cookbook, A Taste of Provence,  published in 1987.

To start, she illustrated the entire cookbook herself, including the handwritten font, which is her handwriting set to the page and firmly committed to as font throughout. In between recipes are snippets of Provencal life and the people in it, as told through the eyes of a traveler experiencing it for the first time, while also offering historical backstories to provide context and weight to a book so much more than just a collection of recipes. 

Atmospheric in its descriptions, Leslie captures the cuisine of Provence in all its diverse classifications and recipes. Every town she visited, every kitchen she cooked in, brought a new understanding of the varied culture that makes up this unique type of culinary distinction so tied to its landscape in ways that many cultures no longer sustain.

Cooking takes time in Provence. And an enjoyable meal is a pasttime as much as it is a daily nutritional requirement.  Many dishes are cooked in earthenware pots. Sometimes cooking over open fire is required. Foods marinate for extended amounts of time. Ingredients are gathered in the freshest stages possible. All meals are preapred seasonally. This cookbook combines the best of authentic Provencal cooking, not quick recipes adapted for far-away kitchens in the vein thereof. 

A really beautiful cookbook from beginning to end, A Taste Of Provence includes a variety of recipes from humble home kitchens to passed down family favorites to meals served in picturesque restaurants by the region's most authentic professional chefs.

First published in England under the title A Table in Provence, this is the first American edition published in 1987 by Little, Brown & Company.  Interesting recipes include Grilled Goat Cheeses on a Bed of Salad, Small Chickens Stuffed with Olives, Eggplant Baked Like Roast Lamb, Provencal Beef Stew, Steamed Sea Bass with Stewed Oranges & Lemons, Sweet Goat Cheese Omelette with Fresh Mint, Herb & Pine Kernal Galette, Roast Pork to Taste Like Porchetta, Pasta with Basil & Garlic Sauce, Spinach and Egg Soup, Sweet Pumpkin Pudding, and Corsican Cheese Cake with Caramel. 

Tragically, Leslie passed away at the age of 63 from a seizure-induced heart attack. Her death was a terrible loss to cooking, art and literary communities around the world. But the beauty of a good cookbook is always the wonderful spirit behind it and luckily for s, Leslie's lives on. 

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

• Published in 1987, First American Edition
• 160 pages
• Illustrated throughout
• Recipes include both the French and American names of each dish
• Includes original dust jacket

{CONDITION}

In beautiful vintage condition, this cookbook is very clean inside and out. The dust jacket contains light tanning on the spine. The interior pages contain no cooking spots, stains or notations. The spine is tight and all pages are intact. 

{SIZE}

Measures 10.5" inches (length) x 7" inches (width) x .5" inches (thickness) and weighs 1.7 lbs. 

{FEATURED RECIPE}

We featured a recipe from this cookbook for Pates au Pistou (Pasta with Basil and Garlic Sauce) over on our blog. Find it here!