Cookbooks for Brittany?

Decided the time has long past to investigate Breton cooking. Poked around a bit and can find a sum total of one book, now out of print, Kate Whiteman's Brittany Gastronomique. Does anyone know anything about that book? In addition, there must be others. There must. Right? Can someone point me to something good? Many thanks in advance.

Olivier Roellinger's Contemporary French Cuisine: 50 Recipes Inspired by the Sea

Roellinger was in the Bourdain Brittany episode which premiered last Monday.

Roellinger was in the Bourdain Brittany episode which premiered last Monday.[/quote]

And the show, of course, is what prompted me to get up off my butt. Though I gotta say that the family dinner toward the very end looked fabulous. And that wasn't seafood. Still, a great book is a great book. I'll check it out, thanks!

Man, do I love breton food! I did some searching in french to see what I could find, and if you're feeling particularly adventurous, (in terms of language, not necessarily cuisine), go to http://www.amazon.fr and search for Nathalie Beauvais. She's a restaurateur (restaurateuse?) in Brittany, and her cookbooks seem to be well-regarded.

There is also a book available used from Amazon.com called Bouquet De Bretagne: Seasonal Recipes from Le Bretagne, Questembert that might be worth checking out (especially for less than $10 including shipping.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1851457887/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1264991307&sr=1-10&condition=used

Here are some other links that might be useful:

http://frenchfood.about.com/od/foodsofbrittany/Foods_of_Brittany.htm

http://www.frenchentree.com/france-brittany-restaurants-shops/

http://www.saveur.com/solrSearchResults.jsp?q=brittany

I've been to Concarneau three times, for a grand elapsed-time of a little over two weeks. All I ever ate was shellfish, fish, and buckwheat crepes. Man, who needs anything more! [Well, actually, I had lamb a couple of times, too: nothing like that salt grass lamb. ] Local butter, local cream, and calvados from neighboring Normandy, well then, what more is there to ask for?

Moral of the story: if you can get excellent dairy, some calvados, great seafood, and fine lamb, then you can cook Breton. Otherwise not. Isn't that the pits? Even in Montréal, rounding all these elements together is tough...

But, oh!, the memories of those eating Belon oysters overlooking the sea! Sigh.

I think reading a Breton cookbook would break my heart.

Good luck in your quest—

Geo

Geli,
Of course! I don't know why that didn't occur to me. So obvious it bypassed by brain. I've got enough French to muddle my way through and have even (I think) ordered from Amazon in France and so may have a dormant account. And used books may be available here. Brilliant. Thanks for the effort.
Thanks, too, for the other links. In fact, that's something I've done several times when I couldn't find a book: I gather as many recipes as possible from as many sources, copy them to a word processing file, format them into a book, and "publish" it through one of the online services so that I have my own little book.


Geo,
Right. Of course. And yet. I cook too many things that demand things I can't find or get here and that won't stop me. I understand and sympathize and even agree. But I'm on a quest!

Thanks all for your help.

Let me bore you with an anecdote:

My business partner and I went to France a few years ago, and we visited a town in Brittany called Cancale, famous for oysters. After a fabulous mid-afternoon meal, just as the sun was sinking down into the fog, we tried to start our car and found that the anti-theft device had been activated, so we weren't going anywhere for a while. As we waited for a mechanic in the November drizzle, a small box truck passed us by bearing the slogan: "Jacques Seafood: Direct from the Atlantic." We didn't pay much attention until the truck trundled down onto the beach and began to slowly BACK INTO THE WATER. Beep-beep-beep-beep and then a little boat emerged from the fog and began to unload shovelfuls of oysters into the truck.
"Well, Mark," I said to my companion, "that's about as direct from the Atlantic as you'll ever see."

Also I highly recommend drinking a nice crisp Muscadet with your seafood. It's even considered a Breton product by many, since the area of the Loire that it's from was historically part of Brittany.
http://bordeaux-undiscovered.blogspot.com/2007/10/breton-wine.html
(My favorite line in the article at the link is "in 1936, Pétain outrageously divided Loire-Atlantique from the other Breton departments.")

Great story; thanks for sharing it.

Just saw the Bourdain episode (a friend recorded it for me) -- and man, am I ready to get on a plane. I know you can buy the Brittany butter here, but I think I need to go on location. (Need to start brushing up on my French.) And I've always wanted to see Mount St. Michel. I need to find a way to get rich!

I will say that, if one gets to Brisbane, Australia, rather than Brittany, there's a restaurant —Gambaro's— that does something comparable to that tower of seafood, also taken moments earlier from the sea. It's a glorious thing to tackle, and I wouldn't mind going there, either. http://www.gambaros.com.au/test.html

But it was all the scenery and the astonishing cooking that made Brittany look great. I've had amazing seafood, but after that No Reservations episode, I want it to be French seafood.