The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
Alice B. Toklas's 1954 cookbook, which is also her memoir of fifty years with Gertrude Stein, told through the meals she cooked.
- 1954
About Alice B. Toklas
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeAlice B. Toklas ran the household of Gertrude Stein's salon and refused for years to write her memoirs. What she published instead, in 1954, was a cookbook in which every recipe comes with a memory: dishes cooked for Picasso, the vegetable garden at Bilignin, cooking under rationing during the German occupation. A friend's contributed recipe for 'Haschich Fudge' — a cannabis confection, cut from the first American edition — became more famous than the book. (More below — courses, not chapters.)
The story, in more detail
Publishers had asked Toklas for her memoirs for years, and she refused; she felt the story had been Gertrude Stein's to tell, and Stein had told it. Eight years after Stein's death she agreed to a cookbook instead, and it turned out to be a memoir anyway. Every recipe arrives with its occasion: the bass she cooked for Picasso comes with Picasso's reaction, and the chapters move from the rue de Fleurus salon through the summers at Bilignin, where she kept the vegetable garden, to the occupation winters, when cooking meant improvising around rationing.
The scandal was an accident. Short of material, Toklas asked friends for recipes, and the painter Brion Gysin sent 'Haschich Fudge (which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)' — a cannabis confection. It ran in the 1954 British edition; Harper cut it from the American one. The cut only spread the story: by the sixties 'Alice B. Toklas brownies' were counterculture slang, and the 1968 film I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! fixed the misattribution for good. Toklas herself never made the recipe.
The full story
The chapters follow the life in order. The early ones cover the Stein-Toklas household in Paris: learning to cook French food seriously, the meals served to guests at 27 rue de Fleurus, and 'Murder in the Kitchen,' the book's most quoted chapter, about what it was like to kill a carp for dinner with her own hands. The middle chapters cover the summer house at Bilignin, where the garden and the market decided the menu, and the war years, when ingredients ran out and improvisation replaced them.
The book ends with 'Recipes from Friends,' a chapter of contributed dishes — Gysin's fudge among them — and a look back at the kitchens of fifty years in France. Stein appears throughout the book; her death is never mentioned directly.
Why we recommend it
The view from the kitchen
Other memoirs describe the salon's conversation. This is the only account of its meals, by the person who cooked them.
The era's most notorious recipe
One contributed recipe — the cannabis fudge remembered in pop culture as 'Alice B. Toklas brownies' — became more famous than the book. How that happened is a story about the sixties as much as the fifties.
Grief, perfectly plated
Toklas wrote it eight years after Stein's death and never mentions the loss directly. Readers have found the grief in it anyway.
What this book explores
Timeline
1954
Eight years after Gertrude Stein's death, Toklas publishes the cookbook, which doubles as her memoir.
1954
The London first edition includes Brion Gysin's contributed "Haschich Fudge"; Harper cuts it from the American edition.
1968
The film I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! fixes the fudge's misattribution to Toklas, and "Alice B. Toklas brownies" become counterculture slang.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1954
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Harper & Brothers
- 1954
Paperback
- Paperback
- Harper Perennial
Reader reviews
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Read our takeThe Alice B. Toklas Cook Book: frequently asked questions
Who wrote The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book?
Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein's partner. It was published in 1954, eight years after Stein's death.
What is The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book?
A cookbook that is also a memoir. The recipes come with five decades of memories: dishes cooked for Picasso, the vegetable garden at Bilignin, and cooking under rationing during the German occupation.
What is the "Haschich Fudge"?
A recipe for a cannabis confection contributed by the painter Brion Gysin. It ran in the British edition, was cut from the first American one, and is often credited to Toklas herself, who never made it.
Why did she write a cookbook instead of a memoir?
Publishers had asked for her memoirs for years, but she felt Stein's story had been Stein's to tell. A cookbook let her tell her own part of it — the household — instead.
Is it really a memoir?
Yes. Behind the recipes it covers the salon, the war years, and her life with Stein. It is one of the era's memoirs in an unusual form.