Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Volume 1 of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" received overwhelmingly positive reviews when it was first released in 1961. In the "New York Times", Craig Claiborne wrote that the recipes in the book "are glorious, whether they are for a simple egg in aspic or for a fish souffle," and that it "is not a book for those with a superficial interest in food...but for those who take a fundamental delight in the pleasures of cuisine." Michael Field, writing for the "New York Review of Books", praised Beck, Bertholle, and Child for "not limiting themselves to la haute cuisine," and stated that "for once, the architectural structure of the French cuisine is firmly and precisely outlined in American terms." Field's sole criticism of the book was that the authors suggested dry vermouth as a substitute for white wine, as he felt the domestic vermouth available to American home cooks, the book's target audience, was "bland and characterless." Despite being a relatively expensive cookbook, retailing for $10 in 1965, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" Volume 1 did well commercially, selling over 100,000 copies in less than five years. According to Julia Child biographer Noel Riley Fitch, the publication of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" instantaneously changed the entire American cookbook industry, leading more cookbook publishers to place emphasis on clarity and precision, and away from the "chatty and sometimes sketchy" style that had typified American cookbooks.
Edna Lewis
While in New York City, Lewis began throwing dinner parties for her friends and acquaintances - John Nicholson, an antiques dealer - was one of those friends. In 1948 on 58th Street, in East Side Manhattan, Nicholson opened Café Nicholson with Lewis as cook, which became an instant success among bohemians and artists. The restaurant was frequented by William Faulkner, Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Gloria Vanderbilt, Marlene Dietrich, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Diana Vreeland. At the Café, Lewis served a neat menu of simple, Southern inspired dishes, including a chocolate soufflé, for which she was known. After five years there, Lewis left Café Nicholson and from there spent time as a Pheasant farmer in New Jersey until the entire flock died one evening from an unidentified disease. She opened and closed her own restaurant, catered for friends and acquaintances, taught cooking lessons, and even became a docent in the Hall of African Peoples in the American Museum of Natural History. In the late 1960s, she broke her leg and was temporarily forced to stop cooking professionally. With encouragement from Judith Jones, the cookbook editor at Knopf who also edited Julia Child, Evangeline Peterson and Lewis worked together to write "The Edna Lewis Cookbook" (1972). However, Jones found the cookbook "fashionable but tasteless" and in turn worked with Lewis on her own to write"The Taste of Country Cooking" in 1976. "The Taste of Country Cooking" contained as many recipes as it did information about Southern and African American food - successfully capturing the spirit and stories Lewis had to share - which was Jones' intention with the book"." In 1979, Craig Claiborne of "The New York Times" said the book "may well be the most entertaining regional cookbook in America". In 2017, nearly forty years after its publication,"The Taste of Country Cooking" saw an abrupt and newsworthy spike in US sales, ranking #5 overall and #3 in the cookbook category on Amazon's bestseller list - this spike followed its thematic inclusion in an episode of the cooking competition show "Top Chef."