Book Review: Tessa Kiros’ Latest

Tessa Kiros has written a travel cookbook about French cuisine as you have never tasted it before. She does not limit herself to the territory between Belgium and Italy, but also hops over to a number of French overseas territories.

Had we not heard anything from London-born, Tuscany-based Greek-Cypriot-Finnish Tessa Kiros for a while, author of successful cookbooks such as Twelve (twelve months of Tuscan recipes), Mezze and Moussaka and my favorite Venezia (poorly translated into Dutch as Ciao Bella)?

Travel Cookbook

Tessa is one of the pioneers of travel cookbooks as we know them today. Cookbooks in which dishes are prepared on location, together with locals whom the author meets along the way. Books with recipes, naturally, but also travel stories. Personal, achievable and atmospheric.

When I first leafed through Venezia/Ciao Bella with that sultry red velvet bookmark, I immediately wanted to—no, not cook, but go there (which I did). I wanted to live in Tessa Kiros’s cookbook and discover, experience and taste her Venice (not entirely successfully).

This French cookbook does not stop at Marseille on one side and Dunkirk on the other.

Now Tessa is back with a cookbook about French world cuisine. A book that does not stop at the borders of the territory wedged between Belgium and Italy, but also includes the (overseas) regions that once, and sometimes still do, belong to la République Française.

A refreshing ambition, because it is not only French cuisine that has left its mark in those places with its baguettes, pâtés and boudins. All those cuisines have also made French cuisine richer. Would the French have cooked with chili peppers, kumquats and rice if they had not discovered them overseas?

Senegal?

Tessa’s selection is not exhaustive and calls for a sequel in which, for example, the cuisines of French Guiana, Canada, Senegal and Algeria are covered.

How often do you come across recipes from Guadeloupe or Pondicherry?

For now, we will stick to Provence with its anchovies, herbs and olives, Normandy with its cider, apples and Camembert, Guadeloupe with its rum, allspice and coconuts, Vietnam with its fish sauce, limes and lemongrass, Pondicherry (India) with its cardamom, curries and masala, and Réunion with its vanilla (it is the mother island of vanilla and was once called Bourbon), tamarind and kaffir lime.

A recipe for Normandy apple pie, okay. But how often do you come across recipes from Guadeloupe or Pondicherry? Kiros collected them for sauces, vegetarian dishes, curries, salads and ice cream—all cooked with locals on location. A local mussel recipe runs like a common thread throughout the book. From the moules au pistou of Provence to those with combava (kaffir lime) from Réunion.

Bonbons Piment

I once ate acras de morue (salt cod fritters) in Guadeloupe and cannot wait to eat them again, just like bonbons piment from Réunion, and absolutely pissaladière (anchovy ‘pizza’) and tomato tart from Provence. I am going to live in this book.

Make these Tessa Kiros recipes for a summery tomato tart and these spicy pork sausages.

The French World Kitchen
Tessa Kiros
€ 29.99
Terra Lannoo

Image: Manos Chatzikonstantis