Kitchen Gardens of France

Magnificent kitchen gardens are a long-standing tradition in France. Every region has its own characteristic examples that--depending on the climate, terrain, and design--boast a profusion of vegetables, fruit, flowers, and herbs. Family knowledge is carefully handed down for the benefit of each new generation. In this wonderful celebration of the French kitchen garden, old-fashioned techniques and obscure produce are rediscovered. An illuminating text and brilliant color photographs uncover vegetable patches alongside chateaux or abbeys, gourmet gardens planted by master chefs, romantic gardens tended by parish priests, and lovely ornamental idylls. Four main sections, covering stately homes, grassroots gardening, dreams and utopias, and vegetable produce, conjure up the rich history and extraordinary variety of the French countryside from Paris to the Alps. The extravagance of the kitchen garden at Mongenan, highly praised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the mosaic-like patterns of the allotments at Ivry, and labyrinthine cultivated gardens at Amiens are just a few examples of these most original, most secret, most spectacular, and most poetic of kitchen gardens.