When French Women Cook

A recipe and a quick ode to one of the chefs of my heart: Madeleine M. Kamman

The book When French Women Cook, by Madeleine Kamman, opens with this very important dedication:

This book, in its own way a feminist manifesto, is dedicated to the millions of women who have spent millennia in kitchens creating unrecognized masterpieces, with a very special thought to Paul Bocuse’s grandmother and mother, and to my Aunt Claire Robert, to whom I owe most of what I know, practice and teach.

The original printing of this book was in 1976, the year before I was born. It is never lost on me that women my age are still trying to eke out the same conversation on the invisible influence and labor of women. There is a lot I’d like to say, but not today. Today, I am blissfully in the work - knee deep in prep sheets and pack sheets and price sheets and workshop plans and mise en place and feeling every bit like a proper pig in shit. There are few spaces on this planet where my brain and my body and my whole spirit work in complete unison. There are few spaces in my life where I make more sense or understand what I am capable of than here.

In light of that, I’d like to highlight the tongue in cheek nod to Chef Bocuse’s mothers - which I first read as if she maybe had a friendship with them but quickly came to understand, she was basically throwing shade at Bocuse being called the Father of French Cuisine. Brilliant.

What is most magical, for me personally, in this dedication (and the entirety of the book) is that I came upon Ms. Kamman and this book shortly after my own book was published. I had primarily been a student of Miss Edna Lewis & MFK Fisher, these American chefs were my first reads, my first teachers - I was dedicated, too, my eye didn’t wander too much beyond them and Claudia Fleming, Lindsey Shere and Gina DePalma. I had a black and white photo of Ms. Lewis taped over my first pastry table at my first appointment - put it up there the day I was promoted. It stayed up there long after I left. I got sentimental one day and called the new pastry chef to see if I could retrieve it, just to keep in a plastic sleeve with my notebooks as a memento. She said yes. Yet, when I arrived to get it, I was told, with a kind of bitter, seething faux kindness that really only exists in the south, that it had just been thrown away the day before - gosh, sorry! This was coupled with a lot of small town jealousies, bad and incorrect assumptions about my person and not so nice talk behind my back about my successes. Not all restaurant people are nice people. Not all women root for other women.

Anyway! When I discovered the lovely and generous Ms. Kamman’s book much later in my career, I was overwhelmed by our similar trajectories and feelings around food and women and kitchens. The book is simply stunning and the recipes are really a JOY to read. I have included one below, where Ms. Kamman very casually tells you how to make croissant batter as if it is très simplement (it is!). I typed it nearly as it is written in the book (look, I made some efficiency changes - I couldn’t help myself).

Before that though, I thought it might be interesting to share a short passage from my own book with all of this in mind - you can imagine, I got kinda plucky and proud about the similar tone to Ms. Kamman’s dedication when I discoverd it.

This passage is from Chapter 13 of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger. That chapter is called Finding, Layer Cakes. The photo that follows is of my Nana, Mary, and her mother, Anita in New Mexico in the early 1950’s.

My frustrations over my career must have been all over me. This was at the height of hearing man after man on NPR and in The New York Times telling stories of their mothers, their grandmothers, anyone whom they felt gave them clout or a sense of humility and whom, I’m certain, they honored and cherished and wanted to shine a light on, hold up high on that pedestal. The thing is, women are revered straight into abjection, useful only as a totem of inspiration. When we go to make that work our own, we are unable to survive in the industry men built, the one they sell our wares within.

In that moment, I accepted that I would no longer allow myself to feel that my sense of womanhood and motherhood is the part of my identity as a chef that I have to undersell and downplay for fear of my professionalism being shrugged off, as it has been in the past. I will no longer be afraid to talk about how my strength as a cook rests almost solely in my strength as a woman. I am a mother and I am a daughter. I am a granddaughter who learned at my nana’s polyester- panted hips, curvy and full of Navajo and Mexican juju and mysticism. I have grown up in kitchens with women and I am now a woman who cooks from that place, in my heart, for a living. I am not driven to be better than any other cook around me or even to make a “perfect” version of something. I want to give people food that tastes of our past stories and of our present now, like the good food that all these chef boys’ mothers used to make. I want that food to be respected and honored in our world from its true origins, not solely from a male chef who has figured out how to build an entire brand around what he learned from our hands as he stood by our strong, life-giving hips watching and wishing to god he had some kind of magic that even came close.

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These are great little snackies for a special day - or a regular day. Regular days are more special to me anymore. anyway, so interpret that as you like. I was blissed out making this recipe - it’s got steps, sure, but it is fun and such a reward when you pull them out of the oven. It’s going to be on full rotation in France next week, where I will find myself in a kitchen with a crew of strong, incredibly brilliant cooks - all women.

Enjoy! Love, L

ROULETTES AU CAMEMBERT

from Madeleine Kamman’s When French Women Cook

PASTRY / 

2.5c / 300g AP Flour

10g Active Dry Yeast

1t./5g Sugar

¼ c Lukewarm Water, more if needed

½ c Whole Milk

¾t. Salt (more if unsalted butter)

225g Butter

FILLING /  (note: double to use all of dough for 24 roulettes)

1wheel Camembert

1c Walnuts, coarse ground/chopped

WASH / 

1 Egg Yolk

3T Whole Milk

TO MAKE THE PASTRY / 

Combine 1/2c of the flour with sugar and yeast. Slowly add water and gather into a soft ball; you may need more water to bring it together. Immerse this starter in a large bowl of warm water (no warmer than 110°f).

Meanwhile, melt 2T of the butter. Make a well in the remaining flour. Add the milk, salt and the melted butter. Slowly gather together to make a ball. 

By the time you have made a ball of dough, the starter will have come floating to the surface of the water. Scoop the starter out of the water bath, letting it drip well. Mix together the starter and the prepared dough and crash/slap on the table - hard kneading - until it does not stick to either the table or hands but is still tacky. Flatten the dough into a 7” square. Flour it well and place on a plate or tray. Cover with a towel or plastic and let rest in the refrigerator for an hour. 

After 1 hour, work the remaining room temp but still chilled butter into a 5” butter block. Put the butter at the center of the dough and enclose it within the dough so the latter appears like the back of an envelope. Roll into a 7”x12” (with a ⅓ “ thickness). Fold it in three and turn the dough 90° so it looks like a book ready to be opened. Roll it out again to the same previous dimensions. Fold it in thirds again and refrigerate, after you dock it twice in the corner to count your turns. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for at least 30 minutes. 

Give another two turns and store again in the refrigerator for at least a half hour more and then, give two more turns. There should be a total of six turns. Let it rest/”ripen” in the refrigerator for at last two days before using it. 

TO MAKE THE FILLING /

Scrape off the skin of the camembert almost completely. Mash the camembert with the walnuts and  divide the mixture into 12 nut size pieces. Keep them chilled. 

TO SHAPE THE ROULETTES / 

Mix the egg yolk and milk. Cut the dough into two equal pieces. Chill one half while working with the other. Roll into a 9” circle. Cut twelve triangles out the circle of dough. Brush with the egg wash. Shape each nut-size piece of cheese/walnut into a small cigar. Roll each cigar into a triangle of dough, starting at the base of the triangle.

Butter a large cookie sheet, rinse it with cold water, tap it on the edge of the sink. Place the small roulettes on the sheet. 

Preheat the oven to 375°f. Let the roulettes rise nearly by double. Brush them one final time with the egg wash and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.