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
Early years
Pomiane, whose real name was Édouard Alexandre Pozerski, was born in Montmartre, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, on 20 April 1875. His parents were Édouard Pozerski and his wife Olympe Bielaiew. 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.
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 (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. 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. During the war he began the writing of (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. 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 (Cooking and Restrictions) and (Eating Anyway).
Pozersky died in Paris on 26 January 1964 at the age of 88.
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". French Cooking in Ten Minutes, or Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life was published in English in 1977. In 1985 his 1929 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". He propounded the virtues of simplicity in cooking, writing in the preface to :
Pomiane's precepts were a strong influence on the generation of French chefs who introduced nouvelle cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s. Other admirers have included the food writer Richard Olney
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".