Les Écrivaines qui font recettes: discours critique par le livre pratique

Abstract

This article focuses on three recipe books inspired by women writers: Les Carnets de cuisine de George Sand: 80 recettes d'une épicurienne by Muriel Lacroix and Pascal Pringarbe , Colette gourmande by Marie-Christine and Didier Clément, and Marguerite Yourcenar portrait intime by Achmy Halley. The article opts to treat these three books as though they were works of criticism. Indeed, these three books, which are hybrids of advice books, biographies and anthologies, represent mythographies of the authors who inspired them. Thus, these far from feminist representations of women writers slaving over hot stoves are nonetheless able to offer vindications of those women's demiurgic powers. As such, these works often take on a regionalist and nostalgic tone that reduces them to the status of literary exhibits in a dusty conservatory of folkloric traditions.