Books |
Paris Patisseries: History, Shops, Recipes
Pierre Hermé and Christian Sarramon
By
Published: Jan 19, 2010
Category:
Food and Wine
“Paris Patisseries: History, Shops, Recipes” is 160 oversized pages of exquisite food porn.
Recipes? Twenty five of them are sandwiched in the back of the book, in smallish type.
Preparation? There’s not a single shot of a cook whipping batter or pouring chocolate.
Text? A history of desserts and baking in France by Pierre Hermé, a well-known pastry chef. It’s pleasant. Informative. And altogether optional.
Photographs? Ah, Christian Sarramon’s big, close-up shots of ready-to-serve desserts are the glory of the book. There are some double-page spreads, lush as centerfolds. There’s even a shiny domed individual cheesecake, topped by a raspberry, explicit (say I) in its sensuality. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here.]
The book is smartly divided by obsession. That is, it starts innocently enough, with “Cakes from our Childhood” (relatively harmless eclairs, meringues and tartes). Next comes the weakness of so many of my friends — Chocolate. Here you’ll find cakes decorated with French precision and artistry. The French honor the past, but they don’t worship it, so next up is “Contemporary Creations” — like surreal red lips atop a white chocolate shell that’s filled with a coconut macaroon and a fruit compote. And, finally, there’s a section devoted to takeout pastries — and the addresses of the best pâtisseries and tea rooms in Paris.
This is as much an art book as a food book, for there are many photographs of pastries in display cases — and the display cases are architectural in their purity and color. A close-up of brushed raspberry sauce on a white cake, with a round mini-cake for accent, is Japanese in its simplicity and elegance.
And it’s a travel book — a book of dreams.
If you’ve never been to France, it will make you want to take the night flight.
And if you have been — well, I’m thinking of any number of afternoons at Ladurée (the one on Rue Royale, not the one that now occupies the space that was once home to Madame Castaing’s antique shop, a place I loved so much I can’t betray the memory for a convenient pastry). We’d order a selection of little cakes and pastries and consume them slowly, as if with chopsticks, washing them down with the palest of teas. And then we’d buy a box for the plane.
This is a bold book — in its refusal to show you how it’s done, it’s almost revolutionary — and that’s as it should be. Dessert as a comfort food is not a French idea. Dessert as drama, as an event — that’s a French notion. And a French notion is to be cherished.
