-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email For many, French cuisine is typified by indulgence, richness and a certain nose-in-the-air type of stuffiness. Expensive bistros, hifalutin food and immensely heavy, cream -and- butter -laden dishes, with cheeses and wines galore to round out meals (when I wrote this, I admittedly pictured Kenan Thompson's "Pierre Escargot" circa "All That.") Now, while there is certainly lots of dairy and wine, French food is done a disservice when it's looked at through this lens — oftentimes by Americans unaware of all of the nuances and intricacies inherent in the country's food.
Related "Vegetable-forward": How chef and farmer Emma Hearst makes produce the center of her plate Carrie Solomon, an expat by-way-of-Michigan who has lived in Paris for the past 20 years, explains to Salon Food what "Boheme cooking" means to her, what Americans actually get wrong about the classic cuisine, dispelling these preconceived notions and much more. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Bohème Cooking: French Vegetarian Recipes by Carrie Solomon cover (Photo courtesy of Carrie Solomon / Countryman Press) For those who automatically ascribe rich, heavy, butter-and-cream dense flavors to French food — which, yes, is somewhat true in certain cases — how would you dispel that notion? Yes, it is true, but when you use the good stuff, you need less of it.
I often cook with whole milk, so I need less cream and butter. And of cour.