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Cover of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book by Alice B. Toklas

The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book

by Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas's 1954 cookbook, which is also her memoir of fifty years with Gertrude Stein, told through the meals she cooked.

Published
1954
Setting
Paris
Shelf rating
4.3

About Alice B. Toklas

Illustrated portrait of Alice B. Toklas
Alice B. Toklas

4 books shelved

The story, briefly

Spoiler-free

Alice 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.

Themes and analysis

These readings discuss events throughout the book, including its ending.

A bass for Picasso

In Bass for Picasso, Toklas turns a meal into a test of artistic recognition. She describes the decoration as her own achievement, but Picasso redirects the tribute toward Matisse. The joke separates the cook's intention from the guest's interpretation without making the dish a failure: he admires its beauty. It also gives the anecdote its shape. A recipe becomes a small comedy of authorship, in which Toklas can control the preparation and the telling, but not the response at her table.

Toklas decorates the bass prepared for Picasso with colored mayonnaise, egg, truffle, and herbs. His delighted comparison with Matisse makes the lunch a small encounter between cooking and modern art. (Illustration — The Paris Atlas)

The breakfast garden

The Bilignin passage measures pleasure against effort. Toklas's hour of picking yields only a small breakfast basket; when the crop expands, younger guests must gather their own. Hospitality does not make the labor disappear. Her joke with Stein about seeing weeds rather than strawberries when she closes her eyes brings that imbalance into their conversation. Read beside the image, the passage makes the garden more than a peaceful retreat: its pleasures depend on repetitive work, and Toklas insists that the work be remembered too.

At Bilignin, Toklas remembers spending an hour gathering a small basket of strawberries for Stein's breakfast. The garden turns the memoir's attention from elaborate hospitality to patient daily care. (Illustration — The Paris Atlas)

Why we recommend it

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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

  1. 1954

    Eight years after Gertrude Stein's death, Toklas publishes the cookbook, which doubles as her memoir.

  2. 1954

    The London first edition includes Brion Gysin's contributed "Haschich Fudge"; Harper cuts it from the American edition.

  3. 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
First edition, London — with the Haschich Fudge
Hardcover
Hardcover
Harper & Brothers
1954
First American edition — the fudge omitted
Paperback
Paperback
Harper Perennial
In print, fudge restored

Reader reviews

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Readers may also like

Recommended alongside Staying On Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Paris France.

The 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.

If you like Alice B. Toklas

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References

References

The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, its publication, and its place in literary history.

  1. 1The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book

    Novel
    Alice B. Toklas, 1954
    Used for

    The primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.

  2. 2Bass for Picasso (Cook Book excerpt)

    Memoir
    The Marginalian, 1954
    Used for

    Primary excerpt supporting the first close reading.

    View source

  3. 3The Vegetable Gardens at Bilignin (Cook Book extracts)

    Memoir
    The Daily Gardener, 1954
    Used for

    Primary extracts supporting the second close reading.

    View source

  4. 4The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

    Memoir
    Gertrude Stein, 1933
    Used for

    Used to place The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book within Alice B. Toklas's published work and verify its bibliographic context.

  1. 5A Moveable Feast

    Memoir
    Ernest Hemingway, 1964
    Used for

    Used for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding Alice B. Toklas's career and the period in which The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book appeared.

  2. 6What Is Remembered

    Memoir
    Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963
    Used for

    Used to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in Alice B. Toklas's wider catalogue.

  3. 7Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Collection, YCAL MSS 77

    Archive
    Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
    Used for

    Used to verify Alice B. Toklas's bibliography and place The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book within the broader chronology of Alice B. Toklas's career.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.

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