Richard Olney

Who was Richard Olney?

Richard Olney was an American painter, cook, food writer, editor, and memoirist, best known for his books of French country cooking.

Olney was born in Marathon, Iowa. He lived in a house above the village of Solliès-Toucas in Provence, France, for most of his adult life, where he wrote many classic and influential cookbooks of French country cooking. He had first moved to France in 1951, to Paris, where he was close friends with the American and English bohemian expatriate set, including James Baldwin, filmmaker Kenneth Anger, painter John Craxton, poet John Ashbery, and composer Ned Rorem.

His deep knowledge of traditional classic French food and wine got him a job writing a column entitled Un Américain à Paris for the journal Cuisine et Vins de France beginning in 1962. After The French Menu Cookbook was published in English in 1970, his then-revolutionary approach of seasonal menus and close attention to wine pairings began to attract notice in Britain and America. By the time he wrote Simple French Food in 1974, he was one of the most important food writers of the era, with a huge impact on nouvelle cuisine and California cuisine.