The Cookbook Not for Cooking

Blue Moon in the Kitchen — an unpublished manuscript

The most evocative image of the elusive chef Gabriel Aubouin does not come from his “Part novel, part autobiography, and part traveler’s tale — and yes part cookbook” Blue Moon in the Kitchen (Aubouin). While the manuscript for this unpublished codex contains descriptions of a great ball of fire, red dancing balloons, and the instructions to “Go ahead, break a tooth”, the defining picture of this chef appeared in an early 1980’s Washington Post article (Aubouin). During a gathering of renowned French chefs working in Washington D.C. since the 1970’s, Gabriel “Gaby” Aubouin is said to have roared up on his motorcycle. Arriving at the scene with what the audience can imagine as the growl of an engine and an accompanying cloud of smoke, Aubouin proclaims that “Chefs of our generation must stick together. We want to make a new cuisine. We’re in the business to be recognized, not to make money” (Conaway). With this declaration, said over a drink with his fellow callus bearing culinary cohorts, Aubouin encapsulated the energy of food writing in the decade when he was working and writing his cookbook.

The Blue Moon in the Kitchen unpublished manuscript, now housed in Syracuse University’s Special Collections archive, dates to the late 1980’s. The codex dedicates more page space to Aubouin’s personal history and anecdotes than it does to his “Easy-to-follow and well-tested recipes” (Aubouin). In the hands of his readers, Aubouin’s manuscript looks more like a book for the coffee table than the kitchen counter. The long text blocks, containing stories from the chef’s life, and the detailed illustrations do not lend to a reading experience done in the middle of meal preparation. This is a departure from the structured recipe book format that constituted the publishing tradition of American cookbooks prior to Aubouin’s gastronomic generation. However, Blue Moon in the Kitchen’s rejection of the prescribed recipe collection look, of recipes bound together in sections labelled for different meals, is in line with the food publishing time that produced it. Gabriel Aubouin’s writing and book style was at once a rejection of the cookbook tradition that preceded it and a product of the era of the “New chef” that he was living in.

The history of food writing is a long one. As Siobhan Wiggins notes “Early evidence of societies sharing recipes include thirty-five culinary recipes found on three Mesopotamian clay tablets from 1700 BCE, and recipe collections from the late Middle Ages remain” (Wiggins). In an American history of recipe writing, the Compleat Housewife, written by Eliza Smith in 1742, is considered the first cookbook printed in the country (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). As food scholars Jennifer Cognard-Black, Melissa Goldthwaite, and Marion Nestle explain, these earlier cooking manuals were “Functional rather than conversational” (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). As an example of the “Functional” nature of these earlier recipe books, the Compleat Housewife included ingredient lists with food items like pumpkins and Native American corn meal (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). These ingredients would have been locally recognizable and practical choices for cooks living in colonial America. Food writing has always existed in multiple forms, but those forms look different from the variety of food blogs, video series, and cookbooks that are produced today. Recipe manuals came in the shape of “Community cookbooks, advertising booklets, home economic texts, government publications and general trade books” (Driver). In the “Functional” era of food writing, all of these mediums promised practical recipes and food preparation guides to their audiences.

Food writing did not become “Chattier” until the 1960’s, with the work of Julia Child. Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which sold 1.4 million copies by 1974, and her subsequent television show made her a household name in America (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). With her success, Child “Came to epitomize the chef celeb” (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). In the second half of the 20th century, the American food landscape was dotted with what Megan Elias calls “The new chef” (Elias). Inspired by Child’s fame, these “New chefs” took up an individualized approach to cooking and food writing. This turn to the individual was a direct defiance of the French chef tradition, that Child and Aubouin both would have identified with. French cooking is defined by “Not place, not products, and not people”, but rather by “Codes” (Ferguson). A traditional French chef knew exactly what ingredients worked and knew the precise way to prepare them. With the 1960’s, 1970’s shift, the “New chef” was concerned with “Disconnecting themselves from any one culinary tradition in order to claim the ascendancy of the individual’s educated choice of cuisine” (Elias). Identifying as “Artists, not mere craftsmen”, who focused on being equally “Self-made and self-expressive”, the “New chefs” of America worked to produce good food and equally good writing (Elias). Their slogan, if they ever had one, was that “Telling someone what and how you cook is another way of telling them who you are” (Elias). This attitude of personality in cookbook publishing is what led to the advent of cooking memoirs like Aubouin’s Blue Moon in the Kitchen.

Additionally, the 1970’s also saw a change in the publishing business. Larger corporations became profitable in the book printing realm, and publishers looked to audience interests to chase book sales. As Aubouin’s Washington D.C. chef cohorts note, the 1970’s saw “People are more interested in food. Everybody’s talking about it” (Conaway). Publicity buzz around the “New chefs”, and their food exploits, meant money earned for whatever publishing house secured the rights to their cookbooks. This shift in profitability saw that “Corporate executives gave business managers and publicity specialists new authority over manuscript acquisitions” (Elias). There was also the 1980’s advent of technology like Adobe Photoshop, which allowed for more “Playful” layouts and page design. Suddenly the aesthetics of cookbooks became equally as important as the recipes they contained, and “By the middle of the twentieth century, what had once been text-heavy guidebooks to middle-class American foodways became both objects to be enjoyed aesthetically and souvenirs that connected readers with famous chefs” (Elias). All of these economics of publishing and recipe book design created a space in food writing for the more unique and sensational tombs like Aubouin’s.

For Aubouin’s pitch into this publishing sphere, his book proposal, which opens the unpublished manuscript as the first page, describes his book as belonging to a number of genres. He calls Blue Moon in the Kitchen a cookbook as the last of those descriptors. This text qualifies as a cookbook for its inclusion of a handful of scattered recipes dispersed throughout the stories. A recipe, in food scholarship, is thought of as a “How-to text, explaining the organization of a space (a kitchen), the acquisition of tools and materials (implements and ingredients), the step-by-step process by which a reader (the cook) can synthesize these materials into a finished product (the dish)” (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). That follows the earlier tradition of recipe book writing as functional manuals for the kitchen. But, in “New chef” artistry, “Recipes are far more than a set of instructions on how to make a dish” (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). In the memoir style of cookbook writing, recipes take on a literary bend. In this 1970’s emergent genre, “A recipe is like a short story, offering characters (ingredients), actions (recipes directions), and a final epilogue (culinary presentation)” (Wiggins). For chefs who sought literary accomplishments alongside their culinary work, this new way of thinking about recipes was more apt. The storytelling tint to recipes made the chef’s personality as important as the ingredients that he calls for.

Aubouin’s recipes seem to follow the tradition of recipe book writing, in that “A recipe is almost always broken into three sections: an ingredient list, a set of instructions, and additional information on serving a dish” (Cognard-Black, Goldthwaite, Nestle). His recipes for “Breast of Duck Gourmand with Blueberries”, “Crab Cake Brasserie”, and “Sardines Filet with an Anchovy Butter Sauce” all follow that three-part formula (Aubouin). Where his Blue Moon in the Kitchen recipe writing conventions differ is in what would be considered the section on additional information on the presentation of the finished dish. This section of the recipe is when the plate would be realized by the cookbook audience. The role of the recipe book as a functional manual would be fulfilled when readers fully recreated the dish according to the instructions of the author. However, Aubouin does not always use this section of the recipe outline to offer suggestions for plating and wine pairings like traditional recipe writers might. He does do that in the notes for “Sardines Filet with an Anchovy Butter Sauce”, where he says to “Serve with french fries. In the middle of the table, display your butter anchovy sauce, leaving your guests with the choice to eat the sardines with or without the anchovy taste” (Aubouin). With this inclusion of a recommended side dish, Aubouin proves he is aware of the traditional layout of recipes in cookbooks, which includes that last section on serving. He then chooses to forgo that convention for a number of the recipes he shares in the book.

In the recipe for “Dover Sole Corn Curry Curls”, his only additional note on the page offers no advice to would-be home cooks (Aubouin). Below the title of the dish, he says “This recipe made the front page picture of the Washington Post Magazine in 1988. I guess this fish was more photogenic than me!!” (Aubouin). In the purpose of recipes as instructions of food recreation, this tidbit contributes nothing. By making this dover, Aubouin’s audience can never hope to replicate having their dinner grace the front page of any newspaper. He does not tell them how that picture specifically looked, beyond the fish being “Photogenic”, so cooks would not be able to compare their final creation against his template (Aubouin). The reason that Aubouin included this story of spotlight is because it contributes to his air of “Celebrity chef”. Aubouin’s career in Washington D.C. was illustrious. He was the executive chef at the Brazilian embassy in the city, and he wants to tie himself to the reputation of Washington as a food capital in the country. Appearing in the Washington Post, through the medium of his recipe, would have been important to his reputation. He told the story of that experience through this recipe, rather than just telling the recipe. This move away from traditional recipe sharing is in line with the personality drive chef writing on his era.

Another place that Aubouin forefronts his life story over the teaching role of recipes is in the suggestions for his “Crab Cake Brasserie” (Aubouin). On the bottom of the page, beneath the ingredient list and cooking instructions, he notes that “This is the favorite meal of senator Ted Kennedy, but without the red pepper???” (Aubouin). In this pre-publishing manuscript, that typed note has been scratched out with a black pen. An additional note, in that same black ink, states “No” with an arrow pointing to the claim (Aubouin). It is impossible to tell from the manuscript itself whether or not it was Aubouin who made the edit, possibly realizing that he was incorrect about Senator Kennedy’s favorite dish. It also could have just as easily been Aubouin’s editor who decided that the suggestion strayed too far from the recipe formula, and that cooks at home would not find that politician tip helpful in their recreation. Regardless, at some point in his writing, Aubouin decided that this addition was necessary for writing his crab cake recipe. It does not speak to how chefs at home would present this dish to their family or guests, who undoubtedly would not have been Ted Kennedy himself. Instead this note speaks again to Aubouin’s own life story. He is telling about his career in Washington D.C. without having to dedicate the story of cooking for this senator to its own chapter. He fits in the details of this accomplishment in the text of the recipe. It is not an issue of assisting home cooks in their own meal preparations. Aubouin prioritizes his personal anecdotes over the actual cooking.

The final recipe that Aubouin uses for his own storytelling is “Home Smoked Salmon” (Aubouin). This recipe reads like any other in a recipe book. Though, the page itself that houses the cooking instructions is unique in this manuscript. On the top of the page, there is the printed letterhead of Aubouin’s Washington restaurant La Brasserie. Based on the presentation of this book object, as an unpublished manuscript, it is impossible to tell if this image of the restaurant front made it to the final printed copy. With its inclusion here, on this recipe in the manuscript as Aubouin created it, the letterhead does point to more of the chef’s storytelling preference. The only information that this letterhead conveys to recipe readers is where the dish originated. That has very little real weight in the task of recreating a meal from a recipe book. Aubouin then could have included the letterhead of his restaurant as a point of narrative in his life story. As Megan Elias says in her research of 1970’s American cooks, “The restaurant [is] central to American food writing because this was the venue in which the chef could establish his or her personal voice with visible success” (Elias). Aubouin’s standing as a chef in this food landscape was contingent on him running of his own restaurant kitchen. La Brasserie was that kitchen. Rather than including that information just in the telling of his life story, he reinforced his status as a restaurant owner and chef in this recipe. Any reader at home would not need to know that the “Crab Cakes Brasserie” came from his specific La Brasserie (Aubouin). But that information is important in Aubouin’s task of personal promotion and storytelling.

Along with his storytelling recipes, the most visually apparent way that Aubouin’s manuscript strays from the cookbook tradition to embrace his publishing moment is in the included illustrations. Pictures function similarly to the serving instructions included in the three-part recipe format. Cookbook readers can look at included photographs of food to see how the dishes are meant to be prepared and served. Food photography can be supplemental to food writing, by acting as inspiration to try certain recipes for home cooks. Because Aubouin’s manuscript is not primarily about teaching cooking, the pictures that he includes in his text are not about food. They are a series of hand-drawn, Sharpie and pencil sketches, that are meant to direct attention to the chef’s life and not his recipes. The titular Blue Moon of Aubouin’s kitchen wears a top hat and smiles over various hand-drawn scenes throughout the manuscript. The depictions of this moon range from rising over a little house in its quarter phase, to looking down over a large tree at half full, and finally reaching full over an empty field. There are no pictures of the dishes created by his recipes, hand-drawn or otherwise. When Elizabeth Driver discussed the “Celebrity chef” cookbooks of the latter half of the 20th century, she said that “Today, personal celebrity is highly valued and anonymous culinary writing is rare, but looking into the past, pseudonyms, unnamed compilers and collective authorship were more common for cookbooks” (Driver). When recipe books offered functional information on food preparation, the chef writing the text did not matter. This changes by Aubouin’s era. His life precedes the recipes in importance in this cookbook memoir. Aubouin is depicting himself as this Blue Moon, and it’s changing faces follow changes in his life story. The sections correspond to different phases in Aubouin’s life, from his early career all the way to ending with a kitchen accident that damaged his hands. Instead of offering sections on salads, entrees, and deserts, Aubouin’s manuscript is presented in illustrations through the phases of this moon. Readers are meant to come away from the book with an impression of Aubouin first, and his food second.

This absence of food photography, along with the personal storytelling notes in the recipes, is what marks Blue Moon in the Kitchen as unique in the tradition of cookbook publishing. Recipe book writers from the beginning of the 20th century and earlier would not have recognized Aubouin’s work among their ranks. His fellow food writers in the 1970’s and onward though, would have. Food scholar Priscilla Ferguson has explained that “Really good recipes have to be good to read” (Ferguson). There is a literary element in cookbook writing. Storytelling has a place in recipe books, and it was Aubouin and his fellow food memoir writers that embraced that.

When Aubouin attempts to place his book in a literary category for his publication proposal, he is right that it is a cookbook. Blue Moon in the Kitchen contains instructions on food preparation. That inclusion alone relates his work to his recipe predecessors like The Joy of Cooking and other more traditional texts. However, the publishing world and food landscape in America was changing at the time he was writing. The Food Network was set to begin airing in the early 1990’s, and chef celebrity was becoming more attainable ever since Julia Child’s The French Chef. This shift to personality driven food content is evident in every page of Aubouin’s book. His conversational style brings readers not just into his kitchen with his recipes, but also into his life. Aubouin writes in what fellow writer chef Anthony Bourdain might call “Kitchenese”, a “Secret language of cooks” (Bourdain). This culinary language is what brings the memoir format into the cookbook world. For all its included life anecdotes and sketched moon illustrations, Blue Moon in the Kitchen centers on a chef and his cooking career. It is a unique entry, but it still has a place in the history of American food writing.

Aubouin’s manuscript uses and transforms the traditional style of cookbook writing for this autobiography, because there was a paying audience looking for this type of book in its publishing time period. Again in the work of Elias, she says that “It will not surprise anyone to know that although publishers offered more vegetarian cookbooks in the 1970s than ever before, these titles were still vastly out-numbered by cookbooks for carnivores. What matters to me is that vegetarian cooking suddenly seemed like a new and interesting idea to enough people that authors wanted to write about it and publishers felt safe taking risks on these books” (Elias). This example of a 1970’s vegetarian cookbook trend is exactly what Aubouin’s work represents. Blue Moon in the Kitchen is an exciting development in the history of food writing. The “New chefs” revolutionized what it meant to succeed in cooking. There was a new emphasis on success through recognition, and that recognition was gained through public personality. With Aubouin’s incorporation of his life story alongside his recipes, he is a part of a change in the tradition of recipe books. Book writing is a business, and cookbook writing is not an exception from the monetary drivers of publication. Blue Moon in the Kitchen is a deviation from the history of recipe book writing, because that is what Aubouin’s generation of chef writers saw the public reaching for. As the “New chef” came into popularity, the American audience was hungry for information on these figures. Just as like the 1970’s called for vegetarian cookbooks to meet the demand of the decade’s food audience, the chef’s memoir cookbook met the demand for more access to these “New”, celebrity chefs. Recipe writing moved out of the way for stories from chefs on their life in the culinary world. Aubouin’s cookbook can be called as such because of the recipes that it contains for use in the kitchen. His cookbook breaks the genre mold where it has adapted for his specific storytelling moment.

Bibliography

Aubouin, Gabriel. “Gabriel Aubouin Manuscript”, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.

Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential. Ecco Press, 2000.

Conaway, James. “The Chef’s Salon.” The Washington Post, 25 Sept. 1982.

Cognard-Black, Jennifer, Melissa A. Goldthwaite, and Marion Nestle. Books that Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal. New York University Press, 2014.

Driver, Elizabeth. “Cookbooks as Primary Sources for Writing History: A Bibliographer’s View.” Food, Culture & Society, vol. 12, no. 3, 2009, pp. 257–274.

Elias, Megan J. Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture. PENN, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.