A quick history of "express cookery." - Special Issue: Quick, Light & Healthy - Editorial

Sunset, Summer, 1997 by Melissa Houtte

By nature, I am a fast (and haphazard) cook, and only occasionally do I wish I were otherwise. That's usually after I'm disappointed by my first bite of a dish filled with expensive ingredients. Then, I feel stupid about my reckless ways with a recipe. Soon enough, though, I am back to my old habits, which is one reason I was drawn to a curious little book I found in a used-book store last year.

Unless you are a collector of old cookbooks and already know about Cooking in 10 Minutes, you might assume from the title that this is the latest effort by an American publisher to give home cooks what they want: good recipes that are fast and easy to make.

But Cooking in 10 Minutes is no such animal. It was first published in France, in French, in 1948. I don't know for sure, but I assume a certain amount of gastronomic indignation greeted author Edouard de Pomiane for defiling the country's slow-cook-or-die reputation. No matter. French cooks bought 50,000 copies in the early years of the book's life.

De Pomiane had struck a chord with a kitchen philosophy of "express cookery" that was as irreverent as it was eloquent. And nearly 50 years later, you can still see the appeal, even if the ingredients might raise an American eyebrow or two:

"Do not imagine that ten-minute cooking is going to condemn you to an eternal round of beef-steak without any of the frills of finer cookery" is how de Pomiane opens a chapter on "extemporary sauces."

"Your gas stove has two burners, if not three. What is to prevent you cooking slices of ox kidney saute in butter on the one, while you make a sauce bearnaise on the other? During the same ten minutes you can prepare both the kidneys and the sauce. The result is delicious. I have done it time and again. Thanks to the sauce the ordinary ox kidneys, despised by the fastidious, assume an aristocratic manner."

What I particularly like about de Pomiane's book is that he doesn't take cooking too seriously, and he encourages his cooks to take chances, to be inventive. Yes, the concept of 10-minute cooking is a gimmick, and de Pomiane frequently acknowledges that there are some things you just can't do in 10 minutes. But back in 1948 he wasn't reluctant to use prepared foods from the market (such as a "ready roasted chicken"), and he cooked smart, putting that pot of water for noodles on the fire as soon as he arrived home. Simple ideas, yes. But good ones, too.

I hope you'll find similar inspiratiori in the following pages of this issue of Quick, Light & Healthy, even if almost all of our recipes are designed to be finished in 30 minutes or less, rather than 10. And if you've been wondering how much chicken you actually get from a "ready roasted chicken" these days, check page 42. It's one of many tips in the magazine we hope you'll find useful. We want to save you cooking time this summer. And we want you to have a good time anytime you're in the kitchen. We know both are possible.