If you read 2014’s style bible, How To Be Parisian Wherever You Are , you would know that to be a chic Parisian you do not need to live in Paris. Similarly, Shaheen Peerbhai and Jennie Levitt’s new cookbook and labour of love, Paris Picnic Club , does not necessarily need you to picnic in the city. You can picnic like a Parisian wherever you are. In fact, as Peerbhai — who also runs the popular Purple Foodie blog and teaches baking — puts it, “The recipes are in no way limited to just picnic food, but span small plates, sharing platters, tartines, drinks and desserts.”
The book was born out of the duo’s little after school (Peerbhai was studying at Le Cordon Bleu and Levitt at HEC Paris) project — a weekly Friday lunch club pop-up that fed 80 hungry guests at Jouy-en-Josas, a small town south of Paris. Soon the concept moved to the city of lights with them packing picnic baskets for people to eat in various parks and hidden spots. While classic French culinary techniques were applied to the recipes, the duo made sure to cook with fresh, local ingredients as well as the diverse bounty that the city has to offer. So you will find Middle Eastern, African, East Asian, Indian, Spanish and Latin American influences in the book.
The classic watercolour illustrations, done by Levitt, not only look delicious enough to eat but also to frame. And though finding Aleppo peppers or tonka beans in India might be a tough call, the book, thankfully, mentions helpful substitutes. I chatted with Peerbhai about her collaboration with Levitt and the book’s stunning illustrations for over 100 recipes. Excerpts:
How was Paris Picnic Club born?
When I was living in Paris, I met Jennie and we instantly bonded over our love for good food. We enjoyed cooking together, but quickly realised that we needed an audience for all our cookouts. That’s how our weekly lunch club, Friday Lunches, was born. We would plan a different menu each week and cook a delicious meal from scratch.
We did this for a year and then went on to cook elaborate sit-down dinners. When I moved to London and Jennie to Bogota, we wanted to continue to work together and that’s how the idea of the book came about (the title, Paris Picnic Club , alludes to our little club). We already had an arsenal of tried and tested recipes. So we used that as a starting point and fine-tuned it for the book, adding new ones that inspired us.
Why did you choose to illustrate this cookbook?
We really wanted to do something different and we thought that illustrations would be refreshing and distinctive. So far, it’s been very well received by our readers, and we’ve even had requests for framed prints!
What were Levitt’s influences while illustrating?
Jennie drew a lot of inspiration from classical botanical drawings, in which the details of raw fruits and vegetables are perfectly rendered to reflect their natural attributes. We like to think that our cooking similarly reflects and accentuates the characteristics of all the ingredients that we use, so it organically came together as we were writing the cookbook.
The illustrations seem very classic.
Just as the recipes in Paris Picnic Club are based on classic French culinary techniques, the illustrations are old school — in that they’re simple and detailed to highlight the beauty of the ingredients themselves. Jennie chose watercolour because of its associations with freshness and whimsy, the foundations of our cookbook. The combination of this joie de vivre and careful, delicate execution are what define our cooking style.
Can you give us examples of local Indian ingredients that can be substituted in some of the recipes mentioned in the Paris Picnic Club ?
Actually 80 per cent of the recipes can be made in India — just the way they are or by use of indigenous ingredients. For instance, you can use any semi-soft cheese like cheddar instead of comté in the Herb Roasted Ham, Eggplant, and Tomato Confit with Almond Parsley Pesto and Comté.
Hazelnuts and walnuts can be used instead of pecans, and potatoes instead of parnsips in the Pecan Crusted Rack of Lamb with Parsnip Purée and Chips. You can replace tonka (a South American spice) with vanilla in the Tonka Brown Butter Madeleines.
Published by Penguin India, Paris Picnic Club, ₹749, is available at all major book stores.
