CUISINE SANTE: The New French Cooking for Healthy Gourmet Eating

by Christophe & L'Ecole de Cuisine Francaise Sabine de Mirbeck Buey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 4, 1987

Highfalutin' twaddle trying to do multiple duty as a spinoff of the spa cuisine vogue, ""an informal cooking course,"" a coffee-table book of food photographs, a piece of glossy publicity for a British-based cooking school, and ""the next great movement in cooking."" The recipes are instantly identifiable as what wows students in cooking courses--pastry swans; boned stuffed sole accompanied by julienned vegetables tied with bits of chives; creamed mushrooms in puff-pastry cases; beggars' purses (a dessert version tied with strips of angelica). The word ""healthy"" is often repeated, and there are would-be-salubrious tics like the constant use of thickened yogurt for cream or the silly designation ""gluten free"" to mark anything that happens not to contain flour (say, Waldorf salad). In fact, the approach turns out to be not unlike putting saccharin in your coffee while eating a triple-whammy dessert. For one thing, Buey keeps parking his marvels of santÉ in pastry shells or cases--which needlessly adorn poached eggs, lamb chops, and poor innocent veal stew. The introductory section on techniques is easily bettered in many more comprehensive books, and the author's ideas on health do not seem well-informed (oysters are not terribly rich in cholesterol, and making a version of consommÉ that resembles fancy beef tea has no health advantage over a true consommÉ). Slim pickings, indeed.

Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION