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A Triple Helping

Three unique books bring home the goodness of French bistro fare

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COURTESY OF ARTISAN / WORKMAN PUBLISHING Clams Mariniéres with Soffritto is just one of many highly stylized and profoundly flavorful bistro recipes in Thomas Keller's recent book, "Bouchon."

THREE NEW BOOKS on French bistro fare landed on my desk this year. Each one claimed to offer authentic recipes for classic dishes like Boeuf Bourguignon, Coq au Vin and Quiche Lorraine. But even though the books did have a certain amount of overlapping content, they were as far removed from one another as three points on an isosceles triangle.

"Barefoot in Paris, Easy French Food You Can Make at Home," by Ina Garten (better known as the Barefoot Contessa) is less concerned with authenticity than with do-ability. And if some dumbing down occurs in the super-simplified versions of the dishes, the argument could be made that these are great recipes that will allow any halfway competent home cook to entertain with ease.

"Les Halles Cookbook, Strategies, Recipes and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking," by Anthony Bourdain, takes a slightly more rigorous approach. In the same off-color language that perfectly captured the voice of a hardened restaurant rat in his best-selling "Kitchen Confidential," Bourdain assumes the role of chef and assigns the reader the role of rookie line cook.

"While you may, for very good reasons, not wish to be one of us, you would do well to emulate professional cooks in certain aspects of your efforts at home." Any reader willing to be abused in order to learn at the feet of a true master of contemporary restaurant-style bistro cooking is in for a rollicking good time.

"Bouchon" by Thomas Keller, which picked up a pair of awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals in April (one for best book in the chef/restaurant category and one for food photography and styling) takes a third approach. In lusher-than-life photographs and deep, technique-driven recipes, it reinvents the dishes that define bistro cooking. Some of the recipes are so demanding that only a few devoted cooks will venture to make them. But those few will be richly rewarded, and armchair cooks will savor every image and every well-chosen word.

So which book represents "authentic" French cooking? "I think we're inventing the authentic all the time," says food historian and cookbook author Rachel Lauden. "I don't think it was ever there." I'm inclined to agree.

Greg Atkinson is a contributing editor for Food Arts magazine and a culinary consultant. He can be reached at greg@northwestessentials.com.