Ratatouille Creole, Habitant pea soup, Mauritian bredes au bouillon . . . the distinctive flavour of French cookery lingers in the nation's ex-colonies across the globe. As French settlers began to adapt old regional dishes to accommodate exotic local ingredients, a new tradition of cross-cultural cuisine was born.
French Colonial Cookery is a fascinating exploration of the culinary interchange between French colonies the world over. Prizewinning cookery writer David Burton, author of the acclaimed The Raj at Table and Savouring the East, looks at the persistence of traditional French methods and the extent to which the renowned cooking of the mother country has itself been influenced by its former empire. Mixing recipes and chronicle, it interweaves descriptions of indigenous dishes with a social history of their transformation by French colonists and explores the enduring French legacy in contemporary cooking.