Édouard de Pomiane
Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Édouard de Pomiane was the pen-name of Édouard Alexandre Pozerski (20 April 1875 – 26 January 1964), a French scientist, radio broadcaster and food writer. He pursued his academic career under his real name, but was known to the public under his pseudonym for his books and broadcasts about food.
Born in Paris to Polish exiles, Pozerski was educated in his native city and became an academic scientist, specialising in biology and medicine and particularly food chemistry and dietetics. As a hobby, which turned into a parallel career, he wrote for and lectured to a wide, non-academic audience under the Pomiane pseudonym, explaining the science behind cooking techniques and propounding the virtues of simpler cooking than that of classic French haute cuisine.
His admirers have included the food writers Elizabeth David and Richard Olney and the chef Raymond Blanc. Pomiane is credited with inspiring the generation of French chefs who introduced nouvelle cuisine in the 1960s, a simpler style of cooking than haute cuisine.
Life and career
[edit]Early years
[edit]Pomiane, whose real name was Édouard Alexandre Pozerski, was born in Montmartre, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, on 20 April 1875.<ref name=an>Paris, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1555–1929, Entry number 1394, via Ancestry.co.uk Template:Subscription</ref> His parents were Édouard Pozerski and his wife Olympe Template:Nee Bielaiew.<ref name=an/> They were Polish nationalists who had fled to France after taking part in the 1863 Polish uprising against Russia. Olympe, the daughter of a Russian general, had escaped to France under sentence of death and Édouard had served a sentence in a penal colony in Siberia.<ref name=pack>Pack, pp. 294–296</ref><ref name=bro1>Brosselet, p. 45</ref> In Paris their son grew up within the Polish exile community, attending the École polonaise – an establishment described by another Franco-Polish cookery writer, Ali-Bab, as one of ferocious austerity – and then the Lycée Condorcet.<ref name=ed1>David (1986), p. 175</ref>
After graduating in natural sciences, Pozerski joined Albert Dastre's laboratory at the Sorbonne as an unpaid volunteer. He supported himself by teaching mathematics, and wrote a doctoral thesis on digestive fermentation. In 1901, at the Academy of Sciences, Emile Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute, consulted his colleague Dastre about creating a post of Template:Lang (staff member who prepares students for forthcoming examinations) in the newly created physiology department of the institute. Dastre recommended Pozerski, who joined Duclaux's staff in May 1901.<ref name=bro1/>
Pozerski developed a new category of his subject, naming it Gastrotechnology – the scientific explanation of established principles of cookery.<ref name=ed1/> The food writer Elizabeth David, an admirer of Pomiane's books, wrote in 1967, "Many before him had attempted to explain cookery in scientific terms and had succeeded only in turning both science and cookery into the deadliest of bores".<ref name=ed1/>
Pozerski was twice married. In July 1906 he married Marie Tourtchine.<ref>Paris, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1555–1929, Entry number 1403, via Ancestry.co.uk Template:Subscription</ref> His second wife was Charlotte Raymonde Watier, a fellow scientist with whom he collaborated on a couple of scientific papers. They had one daughter, Wanda.<ref name=pack/>
First World War and 1920s
[edit]During the First World War Pozerski served as a medical adjutant and, after various front-line postings, ended the war serving in an advanced mobile surgical unit, and receiving the Croix de Guerre.<ref name=obit816>J-C. L., p. 816</ref> During the war he began the writing of Template:Lang (Eating Well to Live Well). After the war he resumed his research at the Pasteur Institute in his small laboratory there, but post-war inflation left him in need of extra income, and for a while he had second jobs, playing the violin in the orchestra of a local cinema and working as an examiner for a large pharmacy on the Right Bank. He was able to give up these activities with the success of his teaching of gastrotechnology, and he returned to his research work.<ref name=obit816/>
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His academic work did not distract Pozerski – in his capacity as Édouard de Pomiane – from his hobby and second profession of writing and talking about food. Template:Lang was published in 1922 by the Académie Française with a preface by a fellow gastronome, Ali-Bab, (also of Polish family and from a medical background).<ref name=obit816/> He published articles and gave lectures, and from 1923 to 1929, starred in weekly programmes on Radio Paris, in which he recounted stories about his culinary experiences and provided recipes illustrating his precepts. In a biographical sketch, M. M. Pack writes "Despite the fact that he was neither French nor a trained chef, these broadcasts contributed to his reputation as one of the most popular and widely respected cooks in France at the time, and made him, arguably, the food world’s first media personality".<ref name=pack/>
Later years
[edit]In 1940 Pozerski reached the age of retirement from the Pasteur Institute, but he continued his work in a small laboratory set up for him in the attic.<ref>J-C. L., p. 817</ref> During the German occupation of France during the Second World War he organised public lectures and cooking demonstrations at the Institute to help people with cooking and eating under the severe rationing then in force. He demonstrated how to make the most of what food was available, how to derive the most nutritional value from it, how to make the best use of unrationed foods, and energy-efficient cooking techniques. Pack comments that titles of the books Pomiane published during the war reflect his concerns, such as Template:Lang (Cooking and Restrictions) and Template:Lang (Eating Anyway).<ref name=pack/>
After his official retirement from the Pasteur Institute Pozerski continued his lectures for the Institute of Food Hygiene and acted as guide for visitors to the Pasteur Institute. An obituarist wrote: Template:Blockindent
Pozersky died in Paris on 26 January 1964 at the age of 88.<ref name=pack/>
Works
[edit]Pozerski published more than 200 articles, notes and scientific books,<ref name=bro1/> and, as Édouard de Pomiane, he published more than twenty books about food and cookery:
| Title | English translation | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Template:Lang | Eating Well to Live Well | 1922 |
| Template:Lang | The Code of Good Food 700 Simple Recipes | 1924 |
| Template:Lang | Cooking in Six Lessons or an Introduction to Home Cooking | 1926 |
| Template:Lang | Jewish Cuisine: Modern Ghettos | 1929 |
| Template:Lang | Cooking in Ten Minutes, or Adapting to the Rhythm of Modem Life | 1930 |
| Template:Lang | Cooking for the Woman of the World in 10 Discussions | 1932 |
| Template:Lang | Cooking and Reason | 1934 |
| Template:Lang | Twenty Dishes that Cause Gout | 1935 |
| Template:Lang | To Eat Better | 1935 |
| Template:Lang | Outdoor Cuisine | 1935 |
| Template:Lang | Radio-cuisine, 1st and 2nd Series | 1936 |
| Template:Lang | 365 Menus, 365 Recipes | 1938 |
| Template:Lang | Reactions and Reflections in Front of the Tablecloth | 1940 |
| Template:Lang | Cooking and Rationing | 1940 |
| Template:Lang | Eating Anyway | 1941 |
| Template:Lang | Drop by Drop, or 47 Gastronomic Adaptations | 1943 |
| Template:Lang | Family Conserves and Food Microbiology | 1943 |
| Template:Lang | Eat Well to Live | 1948 |
| Template:Lang | Radio Cuisine: Gastronomic Discussions Broadcast by T.S.F. | 1949 |
| Template:Lang | The World at the Table | 1952 |
| Template:Lang | Polish Cuisine Seen from the Banks of the Seine | 1952 |
| Template:Lang | Anna's Notebook: Anna's Natural History | 1967 |
- Source: Culinary Biographies.<ref name=pack/>
Some of Pomiane's works were published in translation. The French first edition of Template:Lang lists translations of his works published in London (Good Fare, 1932), Berlin (Template:Lang and Template:Lang, 1935), Zurich (Template:Lang, 1935) Prague (Template:Lang, 1936) and Warsaw (Template:Lang, 1936).<ref>Template:Lang, Pomiane, unnumbered introductory page</ref>Template:Refn
Later English translations include Cooking with Pomiane (1962), a compilation of recipes and essays taken from his radio shows. In her foreword, Elizabeth David writes that Pomiane, "like all good teachers, makes light of his learning, and so makes learning easy for his readers. He takes the mystique out of cookery processes and still contrives to leave us with the magic".<ref>David (2009), p. 10</ref> French Cooking in Ten Minutes, or Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life was published in English in 1977. In 1985 his 1929 Template:Lang was published in English as The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes. The translator, Josephine Bacon, described it as "...the only memoir of Polish Jewry between the wars written by a non-Jew, the only authentic collection of Polish-Jewish recipes, the only kosher cookbook ever written by a non-Jew".<ref name=pack/>
Reputation and legacy
[edit]David titled her biographical sketch of him, "Pomiane, Master of the Unsacrosanct",<ref name=ed1/> because he was a continual rebel against culinary orthodoxy and in particular the excess and over-richness of classical haute cuisine. He urged restraint and the greater use of vegetables and less excessive use of meat and fish.<ref name=ed2>David (1986), p. 176</ref> He propounded the virtues of simplicity in cooking, writing in the preface to Template:Lang: Template:Blockindent
In David's words: Template:Blockindent Pomiane's precepts were a strong influence on the generation of French chefs who introduced nouvelle cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>David (1986), p. 181</ref> Other admirers have included the food writer Richard Olney<ref name=pack/> and the chef Raymond Blanc; the latter names Pomaine as his hero – "one of the first people to have queried the establishment, the static traditions and the taboos of French cuisine. He wanted to make cooking accessible, demystify it and especially to associate it with an act of loving and giving".<ref name=ofm>"Cooking in Ten Minutes", Observer Food Monthly, 10 August 2010</ref>
Pomiane also explained in easily comprehensible terms the science behind culinary techniques. David comments, "In cooking, the possibility of muffing a dish is always with us. Nobody can eliminate that. What de Pomiane did by explaining the cause, was to banish the fear of failure".<ref name=ed2/>
In 1995 BBC Television broadcast a six-part series called French Cooking in Ten Minutes, "As much a drama as a cookery series, it dramatises Édouard de Pomiane's 1930s culinary classic, Cooking in Ten Minutes".<ref>"French Cooking in Ten Minutes", BBC Genome. Retrieved 1 February 2025</ref>