1. What really pushed and motivated you to start a blog on Classic French Cuisine?

In 2004. I had recently moved from Pennsylvania, where I was living in a living history site re-enacting every day for the public, to Michigan, where re-enacting scenarios would be few and far between. I had discovered food blogs and thought I could use 18th century cuisine to not only fill the void of re-enacting, but teach food history through blogging.

2. How do you acquire various Classic French recipes?

I am blessed to have access to many old French cookbooks and some are also available online in overseas university libraries. Fans have also sent me facsimiles of many of the old books that are no longer available. I have dictionaries and recipe books.

3.How did French cuisines change with the influence of Anglo and American culture? Are there examples of such classic French dishes?

It wasn't until the very end of the 18th century that Frenchmen ate corn or potatoes. Many re-enactor jokes about the English eating pig food (corn and potatoes) and we could always tell English spies by what they might be willing to eat. It wasn't until Parmentier was released from a German prison, where he had learned to eat potatoes to keep from starving, that potatoes became everyday French fare, and then only after planting them in the King's garden and posting a guard. The peasants thought that anything worth guarding had to be good, so they stole the plants and potatoes soon spread throughout France. Hachis Parmentier and Potage Parmentier are classic 18th century dishes that are still popular today.

4. When you compare the French cuisine of today with those of 18th century, what has changed?

French cuisine of the 18th century has changed little. Great modern cooks still seek to layer flavor, creating subtlety, taste you cannot quite put your finger on but which, along with the scent of the food, enlivens the palate. Browning meat to create fond, which is then deglazed so that not one drop of flavor escapes the final product and using dairy to enrich sauces are time-honored techniques.

5. You seem to be focusing on the cutlery and crockery of 18th century France as well. Please tell our readers more about this.

Future digs through my 'midden' [garbage pile or the remains of my house] - will be an archaeologist's nightmare. Dispersed throughout any modern [21st century] items will be the crockery, cutlery, beverage containers, pots and pans of 18th century life. When I take the field [go to an event of living history] I take thousands of dollars of actual antiques or museum quality reproductions to use in my 18th century [lifestyle] as re-enactors try to recreate the flavor and ambience of the actual time period.

6.What is the most delicious Classical French cuisine you have tasted? How is it made?

Goose Pye, similar to Turducken, is the most delicious classical dish I have eaten. It is basically sausage farce [forcemeat] around several boned pieces of meat stuffed inside themselves and baked in a crust. When the pye is cooked aspic is poured through funnels into the spaces between the crust and the cooked meat. The pye is then cooled and cured for several days to mingle the flavors and is served cold in slices. The spice blend used in the forcemeat is amazing when it has cured in cooked meat!

7. Apart from classic French recipes from the 18th century, do you focus on classic drinks from that time too? What was the most popular at that time? How is it made?

Possibly the most delicious 18th century drink is 'chocolat chaud' or hot chocolate. It is made by cutting prepared chocolate tablets [made of chocolate, nuts, sugar, and spices or flavorings] and extra sugar into a pot and adding boiling water and sometimes an egg and then beating it with a 'moulinet' [also called a molinillo, batidor, or batirol], whirring it into a froth. It is like drinking a liquid truffle - chocolate extreme! It was so popular that thousands of pounds were at the top of the shipping lists to even remote villages in the Pays Illinois [the American Bottoms along the Mississippi River] in New France.