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16 reviews for:
Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France, Family and the Stew That Saved My Soul
Sylvie Bigar
3.29 AVERAGE
16 reviews for:
Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France, Family and the Stew That Saved My Soul
Sylvie Bigar
3.29 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
The descriptions of food in this book are wonderful. There are some surprising chapters about her family's history in the world wars.
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
For many people, there is that one dish that feels like home. Sometimes it's rooted in memories, sometimes culture, and every once in a while you take a bite of something for the first time and everything just clicks into place. In Cassoulet Confessions: Food, France, Family and the Stew that Saved My Soul, Sylvie Bigar had just that experience. This feeling sent her on a quest to understand the history imbued in every bite. Throughout the journey, she uncovers the complexities of the dish, while sharing glimpses into her own complex history.
I have mixed feelings about this slim book. The personal narrative is not nearly as cohesive as the food narrative. Her own history is littered with grief as well as intergenerational and personal trauma that gets dropped on the reader like bombs out of nowhere. These events are frequently brushed over and rarely seem to tie into her feelings about cassoulet. In the end, both the food history and the personal narrative felt unfinished. #books
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
A slim memoir about cassoulet, a dish I’ve never even seen, forget eaten, why was I reading this at all? It turns out it doesn’t matter, because Bigar’s ability to tell a compelling story about a stew I know nothing about is unparalleled. I think I’d probably read anything she writes about after having read this.
On a writing trip to France in 2008, Bigar meets with Eric Garcia, a chef and cassoulet purist, as part of her research. And her first mouthful of the stew sets off an obsession: to try it, to learn about it, to make it - and to figure out why it tastes like home to Bigar. Over the course of several years, she travels and learns, tries cooking it, helps create an embassy of the region’s cooking in New York, unravels her family history - and finds the way home. Not an unnecessary or wasted moment in this memoir, which is full of passion for cassoulet, and family.
Bigar also includes several cassoulet recipes. Am I going to make it? We’ll see. But it almost doesn’t matter, because her writing is really the final word on it.
On a writing trip to France in 2008, Bigar meets with Eric Garcia, a chef and cassoulet purist, as part of her research. And her first mouthful of the stew sets off an obsession: to try it, to learn about it, to make it - and to figure out why it tastes like home to Bigar. Over the course of several years, she travels and learns, tries cooking it, helps create an embassy of the region’s cooking in New York, unravels her family history - and finds the way home. Not an unnecessary or wasted moment in this memoir, which is full of passion for cassoulet, and family.
Bigar also includes several cassoulet recipes. Am I going to make it? We’ll see. But it almost doesn’t matter, because her writing is really the final word on it.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced