"Solitary Salad" on Menu for Jailbirds

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Fancy a "Solitary salad" or some "Jail-style apple pancakes?" French prisoners have published their own cookbook to teach other inmates how to produce low-budget meals with simple prison cooking equipment. The book, Cooking Just For me, seeks to live up to France's reputation for gastronomic excellence. It features 100 recipes by convicts that range from sophisticated fish dishes to rich chocolate cakes and desserts. "Cooking in prison forces you to be creative: you only have a pan, a saucepan and an electric stove-that's all," Claude Deroussent, a doctor in the Ensisheim prison in southeastern France who launched the project, told reporters. Deroussent called on France's 60,000 prisoners in 2003 to send in select the best out of 600 replies. "I was very impressed by the prisoners' inventiveness," said Haeberlin, whose Alsatian restaurant has received the Michelin Guide's top three-star rating. "Some prisoners have built their own oven by putting one electric stove on each end of a stool and wrapping aluminum foil around it. Ingredients are another changllenge. Not everything is as readily available as here in my restaurant. Some convicts say they save amused by breakfast to make cake later on." Haeberlin said he was amused by the inmates' instructions on some of the recipes. One message read:"This recipe takes time. But time is not really scarce in here." The 160-page book was distributed free to Ensisheim inmates. But its authors aim to publish it in prisons nationwide and to even sell it in shops.