Cooking & Travelling In South-West France

I live in the Southwest for 3 or 4 months each year, and can't give a strong recommendation to this book. It is very restricted: the Southwest without the Bordolais, Gascogne, the Pays Basque, the Bearnais, the Agenais....? Even the locals argue about where the Southwest stops and the Midi (say) begins, and perhaps one might choose to draw the line at including Limousin and/or Languedoc, but the heart of the deep Southwest is missing from this book; the coverage is limited to the most touristic portions of Périgord and Quercy along the Dordogne and the Lot. The author is a "fan" of the region (that's in her favor, as far as I'm concerned ), but there are factual errors every third page or so, and misinterpretations and misunderstandings galore. The pictures are lovely, and the recipes are close enough to get a feel for the food, but I'd suggest that either Paula Wolfert's "Cooking Of Southwest France" or Jeanne Strang's "Goose Fat And Garlic" is a much better choice if you have an interest in the cuisine and the culture, presented more "from the inside," and in a less edited and opinionated fashion. This book uses the phrase "I assume" altogether too much, and very often the locals would find those assumptions simple conjecture.