There are as many reasons to turn to cookbooks as there are home cooks. For some, it’s the rather mundane matter of putting supper on the table. For others, the objectives are more ambitious, such as re-creating a wonderful dish enjoyed long ago at a petit resto on the Left Bank.
    A duo of French offerings recently translated into English reflects this range; one counsels novice cooks, the other illuminates a starred chef’s nature-driven thinking. Despite their drastically different approaches, each relies in large measure on two characteristically French traits: simplicity and resourcefulness.

Retro Redux
In 1932, a 25-year-old home-ec teacher named Ginette Mathiot amassed some 2,000 classic, everyday French recipes into a manuscript and published it under the title Je sais cuisiner. The book’s no-nonsense approach was reflected in its black-and-white cover and page after photograph-less page of ingredients and instructions.
    It was a hit.
    In the nearly eight decades since, Mathiot’s book has sold more than six million copies. Finally, it has been translated into English. Within weeks of its release last fall, I Know How to Cook (Phaidon, $45) was hailed as “bold and authoritative” by The New York Times and likened by others to Italy’s best-selling The Silver Spoon and America’s beloved Joy of Cooking. Weighing in at more than five pounds, 976 pages and 1,400 recipes, it is a “truly voluminous volume,” says the Guardian, one that “avoids all the lifestyle guff and focuses on the matter in hand: cooking.”
    A team of editors headed by Clotilde Dusoulier, the Paris-based blogger behind the award-winning Chocolate & Zucchini site, worked to make the English edition true to the original spirit yet accessible to an American audience. Dusoulier explains that over the years, the French edition had undergone several slight revisions. “We edited out a few recipes that seemed to have been added in the ’60s,” she says. “One that stands out is a mushroom and banana salad. It just wasn’t right.” They also tweaked many of the remaining recipes, given that today’s palate tends to prefer vegetables and fish cooked a little less severely and with a bit less cream and butter than in the 1930s.
    The difference between this and the magnificent classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Dusoulier says, is that Julia Child was trying to translate the vagaries of culinary school and professional cooking into recipes suited for the home cook while Mathiot was simply teaching French home cooking to home cooks. Her recipes include basic and regional fare such as crêpes, daube of beef, duck à l’orange, Alsatian choucroute, no fewer than 30 takes on potatoes, jams galore and—truly a testament to the book as home-ec lesson—a dozen uses for liver. There is also a glossary of cooking terms, descriptions of various herbs and spices, suggestions for seasonal dishes, even advice on serving food and cleaning up after the meal. Little wonder this hefty tome has long been a popular gift for new brides.
    The English edition is much less austere than the original French version, embellished with whimsically retro illustrations and photographs that inspire “I-can-do-that” thinking. But it is the way the book lays the groundwork for aspiring cuisinières who are willing to learn as they cook, not necessarily as they read, that made it such a hit in France and that will likely endear it to English-speaking cooks as well. “When you start with the more accessible recipes then make your way to the more complicated ones, you really learn how to cook,” says Phaidon’s editorial director Emilia Terragni. “Some French cuisine may be complicated, but home cooking can be simple.”`


Provençal Poetry
Just when Americans began to grasp the wisdom of eating in sync with the seasons, along comes a French chef from Provence telling us there are not four seasons but six.
    Edouard Loubet, known for his ability to distill the region’s flowers, herbs and vegetables into ethereal infusions, gastriques and essences, poetically explains his interpretation of the calendar year in Six Seasons in the Luberon (Glénat, €45). “Four seasons simply are not sufficient to capture the opulence of nature here,” he says. For him, there are two springs: One when the valley’s almond, cherry, apple, quince and pear trees burst into bloom, followed by a second when thyme, rosemary, savory and other herbs flower. There are also two distinct falls: the first marked by the appearance of pumpkins and squash, and a second that is all about ripe grapes and game, mushrooms and truffles.
    Author Eve-Marie Zizza-Lalu recounts that in every season, Loubet knows how to recognize nature’s ephemeral gifts; where most of us would see nothing edible, his expert eye sees herbs and plants with the potential for new taste experiences. Tender young wheat shoots, for example, become the impetus for a mimosa-flavored cream egg dipped in white chocolate and set in a pool of delicate green wheat juice. It is a dish he can offer patrons only a few days of the year.
    Loubet began deciphering the secrets of the Provençal landscape when he arrived here from Savoie at age 22. Having trained with Alain Chapel and Marc Veyrat, who taught him to recognize and cook with Alpine herbs, he struck out on his own at the Moulin de Lourmarin. At 25, he became the youngest chef in France to earn a Michelin star, and by 28, he claimed a second. Now 40, he is ensconced at La Bastide de Capelongue, a dreamy hotel and restaurant hidden away on a hilltop overlooking the perched village of Bonnieux.
    Whereas Loubet’s first cookbook focused on recipes, this one celebrates the elements that give rise to them. “Nature and local suppliers—of fish, meat, fruits, vegetables and so on—are the true allies of chefs,” he says. Although technically a cookbook, it is perhaps more accurately described as a fairy tale of the highest order for foodies. Zizza-Lalu’s seasonal essays chronicle Loubet’s wanderings through the idyllic Lubéron, describing how he gathers ingredients from his gardens and the surrounding countryside and bakes bread every morning as meditation. She also profiles a cast of local characters: Milou, “the last of the peasants”; Gianni, the flamboyant goatherd; Vincente, the elegant and almost octogenarian mushroom forager. The story seems no less fictional, given the enchanting photography of Jacques Guillard and Jean-Marc Favre—or, for that matter, the 60 chimerical recipes that make up the balance of the book.
    Each is a carefully composed meal, gently deconstructed into its constituent parts. A slow-roasted suckling pig shoulder with star anise and a cinnamon-infused butternut squash purée actually appears as five short recipes on the same page. No ordinary meal, although a home cook could easily tease out the purée—four ingredients transformed in three sentences—to elevate Tuesday night dinner to great effect.
    Loubet assumes a certain level of expertise from readers willing to indulge his flights of fancy, yet unlike many chefs’ recipes, his are largely doable and a marvel of efficiency. Indeed, few require anything beyond the means of the average kitchen and seasonal farmers’ markets.
    Although the English translation is a bit rough in spots—it sometimes lends a preciousness that isn’t in the original—the recipes are clear and the text effectively conjures up the intoxicating scents, sounds and colors of this storied corner of Southern France. Ultimately, whether American readers experience a happy ending depends very little on technical savvy or access to Provençal ingredients and a lot on whether Loubet’s passion and creativity inspire them to look at their own seasonal bounty with fresh enthusiasm.
    The English edition is available at La Bastide de Capelongue, through capelongue.com and at specialty stores in Paris.