Book Review: Les Halles Cookbook

Anthony Bourdain is pretty well known. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he has done a good job of keeping close to his personality. While some other celebrity chefs have poured their efforts into reality shows, toothpaste commercials, prepared foods, gimmicky food appliances and dumbed down chain restaurants, Bourdain has kept his efforts focused on food.

He is known for his candor, wry sense of humor and his ability to transcribe much of the true kitchen experience into everyday language – something that is surprisingly difficult to do.  His cookbook is no different. From the very get go his style and touch are evident.  This is not a cook book compiled by assistants and branded by a celebrity chef de jour.  It is a cookbook that Bourdain clearly was involved with from the beginning. It is about the food he cooks at Les Halles in New York.   It all about the food that made the restaurant what it is today.

The first few lines of the introduction pretty much sum up the books attitude.

This is not cookbook. Not really. It will not teach you how to cook. The recipes, for the most part are old standards, versions of which are you can find in scores of other books… What’s different about this volume is that the recipes are from Les Halles… Which is to say they are the official recipes from the best goddamn brasserie/bistro in the country.

So away we go.

Bourdains approach is simple and straight forward.  He does not attempt to hide behind exotic ingredients, difficult plating or equipment found only in working kitchens.  Instead, his dishes are true to their pedigree of French traditional cooking.

While he strongly suggests using the best ingredients you can find, he does point out that these historic recipes are rooted in necessity and need to use what was around.

The implication that every French housewife and traiteur have always been able to slip on their Dockers and Weejuns, hop in the SUV, and roar off to the organic green market to pay some hippie twice the going rate is nonsense. The kind of cooking we are talking about here… did not originate from cooks with a lot of money to throw around.  Most of these preparations and recipes evolved from shrewd, enterprising, hard-pressed, dirt-poor people who, like all great cooks… were simply making the best of what they had. Which, in most cases, was sweet fuck-all.

And so it goes.

The recipes are uncomplicated, easy to understand, open to interpretation and above all inspiring.  It is important to point out that the food here is rustic, simple, and good.  While it may be offensive to some to think of the recipes within as standard French fare, it is by many accounts, the most accessible.

The format is large, clean and easy to read. The ingredient lists are simple and more importantly available to most readers. The instructions are straight forward and  each recipe starts with a little preamble by Bourdain, like may favorite from roast chicken:

And if you can’t properly roast a damn chicken then you are one helpless, hopeless, sorry-ass bivalve in an apron. Take that apron off, wrap it around your neck, and hang yourself.

I have made many of the recipes in the book and adopted and adapted some as my own. My favorites to date is the Porc Au Lait which I have altered, re-tooled and experimented with.  Overall, the book is well worth adding to your library.