students, artists, lazy people, poets, dreamers, even Polish physicians
April 21, 2015 6:34 AM   Subscribe

Edouard Pozerski de Pomiane was a physician and biologist with a particular interest in gastronomy and cooking. Long before thirty, twenty, and fifteen minute meals, de Pomaine made La cuisine en dix minutes.

Google books, 1930 edition, 2008 edition, with much inside, though it is a slim book.
I shall not try to explain or defend myself. I shall try to convince you by describing all the dishes that can be prepared in 10 minutes, only, of course, in towns where the necessary materials can be obtained. If you have to catch your fish in a limpid stream before preparing it you will need more than 10 minutes, even if you devour it raw, sprinkled with salt.

My book is meant for the student, for the midinette, for the clerk, for the artist, for lazy people, poets, men of action, dreamers and scientists, for everyone who only has an hour for lunch or dinner and yet wants half an hour of peace to watch the smoke of a cigarette whilst they sip a cup of coffee which has not even time to get cold.

Modern life spoils so much that is pleasant. Let us see that it does not make us spoil our steak or our omelette. Ten minutes are sufficient – one minute more and all would be lost.
Secrets of the 10 minute maestro. 10 minutes really?! Pomiane who? has some examples of recipies adapted from Pomaine and Child: Ox-Tail Stew, Roasted Pepper Soup, Mushrooms à la Grecque, but doesn't quite replicated Pomaine's characteristic prose
__________
A taste of a de Pomiane menu (from)

Cheese omelette
Fillet of veal with green peas
Salad
Fruit
Coffee

De Pomiane asks: "Would you prepare the different dishes one after another in the order in which they are given?" No, he insists, for that would be courting disaster. Here are his instructions:

1. Put the large saucepan of water on the gas. Cover it. (This is an invariable rite).

2. Open the tin of peas. Empty into a bowl. Put it on one side.

3. Beat the eggs in a second bowl, salt and add grated cheese.

4. Put the lettuce leaves, washed, into a salad bowl. Add oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, without mixing. Stand on one side.

5. Grind the coffee and put it into the coffee machine. Put on one side.

6. Heat some butter in a frying pan until it smokes, brown the fillet on one side and then the other. Eight minutes are sufficient. Add the peas, draining off the water first. Leave it on a low fire.

7. Move the saucepan of water to one side. Heat some butter until it smokes. Pour in the eggs and make the omelette; three minutes.

8. Sit down to table. Eat the omelette while the peas are warming. The fillet reaches perfection and reclines, golden brown, on a jade green carpet.

9. Put the pan of water back on the fire. Stir the salad and eat it. 10. A slice of Brie with a curl of butter will delight you.

11. Before skinning your orange, pour two cups of boiling water on the coffee which is massed in the filter of the machine. It will draw out all the aroma while you are eating the fruit. Put the coffee pot back on the gas for 20 seconds. Watch it like a lynx. Whatever happens the coffee must not boil.
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He also wrote Cooking With Pomaine, where " his prose is a pleasure to read for itself, even if you aren’t planning on cooking anything." From the first chapter:
It is much easier to accept an invitation to dinner than to receive guests at your own table.To accept an invitation to dinner may or may not be pleasant but, in any case, it is only a question of passing pleasantly, or unpleasantly, an hour or two.

On the other hand, to invite relations, friends or business contacts to a meal is a most complicated business. You must, according to Brillat-Savarin's formula, be responsible for their entire happiness whilst they are under your roof.

But the guest's happiness is a matter of infinite complexity. It depends on the host himself, on his humor, his health, his business interests, his pastimes, the character of his wife, his education, his appetite, his attitude toward his neighbor at table, his artistic sense, his inclination to mischief, his good nature, and so on and so forth. So it is really not worth worrying too much, or the problem of inviting guests to dinner would become insoluble.

First of all, there are three kinds of guests: 1. Those one is fond of. 2. Those with whom one is obliged to mix. 3. Those whom one detests.
Chocolate Mousse, and Cooking with Pomaine at Google books.

BBC2 produced a series of shorts starring his recipes:
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (1)
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (2)
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (3)
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (4)
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (5)
French Cooking in Ten Minutes (6)
posted by the man of twists and turns (5 comments total) 32 users marked this as a favorite
 
Fantastique ! Merci beaucoup !
posted by nicolin at 6:58 AM on April 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Delightful!
posted by mumimor at 8:14 AM on April 21, 2015


I am very much looking forward to watching these.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:27 PM on April 21, 2015


Ah, superb post to savor - thanks, tmot&t.
Fortunately for us, you do not ascribe to the Posting in Ten Minutes formula.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:49 PM on April 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love de Pomiane. I never heard of this BBC series. Once upon a time, I contemplated creating a stage version of La Cuisine En Dix Minutes.
I wonder whether the canned peas he used are better or worse than today's.
posted by Jode at 7:39 PM on April 21, 2015


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