Bookshelf

Florian Pinel et Jean Valnoir Simoulin : L’Archipel du Goulache. Aventures culinaires dans le bloc de l’Est. Editions Noir sur Blanc, octobre 2022

Préface de Christophe Bourseiller. 85 recettes, 300 photographies
264 pages • 39 Euros • 45 CHF

L’Archipel du Goulache est à fois un livre de recettes et un livre de voyage à travers l’ancien bloc de l’Est. Des neiges de l’Arctique aux confins de l’Asie centrale, en passant par les républiques d’Abkhazie ou de Transnistrie, Florian Pinel puise ses idées gourmandes dans les décombres fumants des utopies socialistes. Goulache transcarpathien, grouse à la moscovite, beshbarmak kazakh, pelmenis sibériens : les classiques revisités et les innovations audacieuses traversent les pages de ce recueil gastro-dystopique aussi appétissant qu’épique. Les textes sont illustrés de photos originales prises par les auteurs lors de leurs pérégrinations.

Florian Pinel, né à Paris, est ingénieur en intelligence artificielle et vit aujourd’hui à New York. Diplômé de l’École centrale de Paris et de l’Institute of Culinary Education de New York, passionné de cuisine, il a travaillé dans plusieurs restaurants étoilés. Depuis plus de dix ans, il écrit un blog sur ses aventures en Europe de l’Est : foodperestroika.com.

Graphiste, éditeur et réalisateur, Jean Valnoir Simoulin est passionné de musique et petit-fils de chef étoilé. Il a réalisé les pochettes de disques de plus de 300 groupes à travers le monde (notamment Led Zeppelin) et est à l’origine du premier (et unique) concert de rock de l’histoire de la Corée du Nord. Il voyage en compagnie de Florian dans l’espace postsoviétique depuis plus de dix ans.

About the author

Nadia Sikorsky

Nadia Sikorsky was born and raised in Moscow. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University and went on to complete her postgraduate studies there, earning a PhD in History. She spent 13 years at UNESCO, first in Paris and then in Geneva. After serving as Director of Communications at Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, she launched NashaGazeta.ch in 2007, Switzerland’s first Russian-language online daily newspaper.

In 2022, Nadia Sikorsky was named to Le Temps’ Forum des 100, which brings together individuals who, in the newspaper’s view, have “significantly contributed to the success of French-speaking Switzerland”, from across public life, business, politics, science and culture.

After 18 years at the helm of NashaGazeta.ch, Nadia Sikorsky decided to devote herself to what had always held a special place in her work as a journalist: culture in all its diversity. This led to the creation of Russian Accent, a trilingual cultural blog in Russian, French and English, born in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland, which has become her second home and whose multiculturalism and multilingualism have helped shape the character of this new project.

At the heart of the project is the perspective of a European of Russian origin, drawing on more than 35 years of professional experience and a deep knowledge of both cultural traditions. Nadia Sikorsky sees her role as that of a cultural mediator between the two. The title of the blog, Russian Accent, reflects this idea: the accent is neither a linguistic barrier nor a political position, but a distinctive cultural imprint within a European context.

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