As food journalist, cooking instructor and restaurant critic Hillary Davis (Cuisine Niçoise) explored regional French cuisine in her travels, she took note of the hearty, economical dishes prized by local families made à l'ancienne ("the old-fashioned way"), as their grandmothers would have done. Her travels have culminated in French Comfort Food, a gorgeously rendered, celebratory anthology of the "the cozy hearth of comfort food" and its lesser-known regional dishes, reproduced and adapted for American palates.
Davis breaks down her favorite old-world recipes in palatable sections for the average cook and includes one-pot casseroles, ratatouille, a cassoulet flavored by duck confit and made in the slow cooker, spreadable rillettes that marry well with ham and cheese on a crusty baguette, the garlic-buttered goodness of escargot and a decadent crème caramel. Photographs depicting idyllic and verdant countrysides accompany the precise but replicable recipes that are "all about nostalgia and about food that brings back happy memories." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant