French Ingredient

French Ingredient is Jane Bertch's memoir of founding a cooking school in Paris. Her first visit to the city came at eighteen, on a graduation trip with her mother. She was eager to use her high school French, but waiters and shopkeepers met her hesitant efforts with scorn, and she left vowing never to return.

Ten years later an American bank transferred her to Paris. She became fluent and gradually won the respect of her French colleagues through her work. Her real ambition was something else: a cooking school for foreigners like herself, where tourists could take a few classes in French cuisine in a welcoming setting and carry the skills back to their own kitchens.

She met skeptics who objected to an American banker opening a cooking school in Paris, then real estate headaches and a long struggle to find clients. Her persistence paid off, and La Cuisine Paris opened in 2009. The years since have brought both triumphs and heartbreaks. The COVID-19 pandemic and terrorist attacks, which kept tourists away, nearly closed the school more than once.

Today the school is thriving and welcomes visitors from around the world to knead dough, whisk bechamel, and whip meringue, while learning the care, precision, patience, and beauty of French cooking.