The entire second half of the book is a cookbook and every recipe looks great! I can't wait to try a few.
My only complaint is the use of French was a little tough for a non-French speaking person. I don't mind a word here and there but there were whole sentences and/or paragraphs occasionally. There was no translation so at times I felt a little left out. I completely understand why the author did this and since I like to also read books that use lots of Spanish (a language I do speak a bit of) I know if you speak French you'll love the book all the more for it.
If you love cooking, eating and want to read about some really lovely people then don't let the French thing stop you. Just don't be surprised.
Clementine braved the culture shocks of 1940 USA very well to hear Mr. Chamberlain tell it. The mighty American supermarkets, the excesses of packaging, and the difficulties of a one-language nation left her unfazed and French to the core. Unfortunately for her, the one language was not French. I suspect Clementine was not as innocent and circumspect as the author believed, and I am sure at times was very lonely.
The occasional recipes in the memoir section of the book can be daunting to the American cook who is used to exact measures. Mr. Chamberlain rather grumpily hints we should use our imagination. I think I can handle "butter the size of an egg," but confess "a handful of flour" makes me uneasy. The recipes are not exceedingly difficult, though many are painstaking, and all will make a cholesterol counter wince. The recipe for Coquille St. Jacques (scallops) is a marvel of simplicity and excellence. The latter half of the book contains recipes with measurements translated by Mr. Chamberlain's wife and daughter. Somehow, these lack the charm of Clementine's unexpurgated notes.
The book is lavishly illustrated with the author's charcoal and line drawings expertly done. This is a fun book to own for anyone with a taste for provincial French cooking and warm-hearted memoirs.
More a recipe book than a memoir.
Great traditional french recipes.reviews: page 1, 2The Chamberlain family spent a dozen blissful years in pre World War II France, with their beloved cook, Clementine, learning the gustatory pleasures of snail hunting in their backyard and bottling their own wine. When war rumblings sent them scurrying Stateside, Clementine refused to be left behind and made a new home for herself in Marblehead, Massachusetts, where she introduced the initially suspicious Yankees to the pleasures of la cuisine de bonne femme. First published in 1943, Clementine in the Kitchen is a charming portrait of a family of gastronomic adventurers, and a mouth-watering collection of more than 170 traditional French recipes. This Modern Library Food series edition includes a new Introduction by Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic for Vogue and author of The Man Who Ate Everything, winner of the Julia Child Book Award.