"The Art of Simple Food" is a book by Alice Waters that has just been translated into French but had already existed in English (and in 16 other languages) for several years. It is a simple book, as its name suggests, essential, thorough, but above all striking in its common sense. It is the very opposite of the many books that have sprung up lately around "detox" or the various culinary fashions that do not necessarily grasp ingredients, method, season and means as a whole and as a virtuous circle.
Alice Waters is the founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley and vice-president of the "Slow Food" movement. She is a great woman who has put into practice the ideas and advice she gives, who lives them day to day, and who has already proved that everything she argues for is possible, indispensable, simple and also viable (in a restaurant, a catering business and so on).
The commandments of this simple cooking
Everything she talks about in this book is concrete advice for all sorts of different people, and not only for retired people spending their lives in the vegetable garden. Even if I seem to have had my own moment of putting it all into practice by way of the vegetable garden! That famous virtuous circle I discovered by applying all of Alice Waters's advice, without knowing it, before her book came out in translation. Simply because one sensible action leads to another and then it all hangs together. Here are the 12 commandments she sets out at the start of the book, to lay the foundations:
- Eat seasonally
- Eat locally and sustainably
- Buy from the growers
- Plant a garden
- Conserve, compost and recycle
- Cook simply, engaging all your senses
- Set the table with care and respect
- Eat together
- Remember food is precious
- Cook together, involving your family and friends, children in particular
- Share the experience of gardening and cooking
- Teach children the value and the pleasures of good food
The magic of the virtuous circle at work
Read like that, it all seems obvious, right and essential. This Art of Simple Food therefore took hold with me when I planted my first seedlings, took care of them so they would grow, watched them become vegetables, saw that food take on an incredible value in my eyes, cooked it with great pride and got friends and family involved, when several seasons were set to the rhythm of gardening and harvesting, and when our whole relationship with food changed. Along with our relationship with shopping in supermarkets or at the shops, for several reasons, but the simplest of all: when you HARVEST, you stop buying! And I was forgetting, that is also the moment when you move away from processed food (as often as possible), because it no longer has any taste or any value.
L'Art de la cuisine simple, Alice Waters, Actes Sud Cuisine, September 2018
