The authors of the books
We publish 3 categories of books:
- Books about gastronomy and history
- Fiction, tales, imaginary, fantasy, literary creation, texts, links, images, music
- Books for children and teenagers.
Our web sites
- In English: TAMBAO books
In French: TAMBAO livres and TAMBAO (about us). - Old cook : in English, Medieval gastronomy in Europe, history of cooking.
Our living environment
We live in an old house in the Dauphine region of France, located in peaceful settings on the southern slopes of the Vercors Natural Park. In our hills beset with oak trees and thyme, we can step back and think about the world matters, we have the time to consider and let our books grow. We have become stationary travellers, skippers logged on to extreme modernity thanks to the magic of web-navigation.
Marie Josèphe Moncorgé
Marie Josèphe has studied literature and is passionate about history. Since 1994, she has been studying the culinary history of Europe/ Mediterranean regions through the cookery books written since antiquity to the 19th century. She loves treasure trails: in search of the history of fruits and vegetables or certain dishes, in search of common points amongst culinary cultures and dietetics, in search of culinary legends. Cuisine reveals the way one thinks: the ideas about social relationships, religion, and medicine can be seen in the cookery-books and culinary habits.
She writes articles for the net (Old cook, Compare-diet), gives lectures and writes books for adults and children. For 15 years, she organised and hosted the Maître Chiquart cookery competition.
Marie Josèphe's web site
- It is apparent? : A bit of critical thinking to shake our certainties and let a spark of doubt light up as that is the source of creativity.
Marie Josèphe's books
Antiracist tale for 3 to 6 years old children. Bilingual in English and French.
Caramel, the cat, was bored and wanted to make friends...
Caramel and Chocolate, book for children, in English and French (november 2015), and a video in English (september 2022)
The nougat is a typical confectionery of the Mediterranean countries...
All kinds of nougat
A journey through the Mediterranean history of a confectionery, in English - December 2018.
A young boy finds himself transported by magic in Pompeii at the time of eruption of Vesuvius. Kevin befriends Alexandra, another young slave like him. He discovers how people lived in Pompeii just before the catastrophe....
More in French: Kevin in Pompeii, June 2013.
Fruits in the culinary art. Cheese, milk, from feta to yoghurt. Confectionaries: nougats, syrups, candied fruits, jams, sorbets. Aniseed-flavoured drinks...
Mediterranean culinary tradition, a long shared history
2nd volume, more in French: Mediterranean cheeses, desserts and drinks, March 2013.
Main vegetables: aubergine, tomato, zucchini, bell pepper, chilli. Pasta. Salted fishes in all forms. The techniques and flavours characteristic of the Mediterranean. Recipes...
Mediterranean culinary tradition, a long shared history
1st volume, more in French: The Mediterranean cuisine, February 2013.
Lyon 1555, capitale de la culture gourmande au XVIe siècle
Editions Lyonnaises d'Art et d'Histoire, 2008. Out of print.
Jacques Bouchut
Does the fact that you were born in your great-grandfather's cinema and spent your early childhood watching movies predispose you to an immersion in dream-world? The images and sounds that fill your imagination transform into imaginary worlds. You could have told stories, but no, you write and draw. Your mental images become phantasmagoria. You rig the reality just like your altered photographs. With your drawings and collages, too, you make an unlikely world.
And then, one day, by digital magic, you move on to the other side of the paper, taking the reader and the child, who has grown up within us, with you as if you were a professional mountain guide, and this in a tale that is no longer told.
Jacques' web sites
- Garden of stones : Fictions, unlikely stories, imagination.
- Automn leaves : Literary texts. Thought in matter of writing, fictions and ebooks construction.
Jacques' books
Antiracist tale for 3 to 6 years old children. Bilingual in English and French.
Caramel, the cat, was bored and wanted to make friends...
Caramel and Chocolate, book for children, in English and French (november 2015), and a video in English (september 2022).
Fiction with images and musics from films: Jaume evokes his family's cinema by telling stories that his friend Mujea finds it hard to believe. She opposes his version of the facts. By confronting these two contradictory points of view, a strange story is born between 111 film characters.
More in French: That's all cinema, February 2015.
One stormy day, an old man learns on TV that all the birds have disappeared. He begins to follow children, who lead him on a strange adventure around the world. In a mysterious way, he meets 3 dragons, a manatee, a seal, a buffalo, llamas...
More in French: In search of missing birds, a tale for children and adults, february 2019.
In a Fish Bottle brought back from the islands by a pirate, there was a genius named Manman Doudou. One day, Manman Doudou came out of the Fish Bottle to tell his long, very long story to the children: how she escaped the war, how she was saved from drowning by a shark, how she sailed with pirates, how she saved people on an island, how she saved a whale calf and a polar bear...
Tale for children and adults
More in French: The long story of Manman Doudou May 2018.
When walking in his garden, the narrator has the impression of wandering around with characters, as if he were jumping from one book to another. Far from worrying, he finds it quite natural to follow their adventures in pieces. But the day he comes out of his delicious ramblings, it is to find his library in an unacceptable disorder, as if a storm had thrown the books to the ground. What if the characters had deserted the books? To go where? I ask you.
More in French: When I am walking in the garden, september 2017.
These fictional sketches may give sight of a family everyday life: building up a pond, children playing, a boy‘s holidays at his grand parents’, two teenagers seemingly in love, a young woman going through a job interview, a couple...
More in French: Snapshots, July 2016.
In the first tale, a teddy bear finds a book about the last bears of Bauges region in France. Marvellous ecological tale, the second text tells the story of the life of a family of bears throughout the year...
More in French: Brunon, September 2013 / July 2016.
As his girl friend Mélodie left for USA, Alfredo is getting close to Almandine. While working as a composer and rehearsing with his band, he still finds time for a crazy net searching of a hidden treasure. From Annecy to Switzerland, from Chicago to Roumania... till facing a sombre reality.
More in French: Almandine, May 2016.
In sales of a frozen foods company, he's sent by his manager to Japan. She runs a travel agency and leaves for Canada's frozen North, for a cross-country skiing adventure. Will they end up meeting?...
More in French: Tiny flames flickering on an automnal fire, March 2016.
Jicook lands on a strange planet and sends messages and photographs in the space. Jokico, who is somewhere else, replies to him in her own manner. Which strange malady struck Jicook?...
More in French: Jicook and Jokico, February 2013 / February 2016.
A saxophone player lost his job. As he could no longer play the instrument, he went towards the Ocean of silences and noises and thus met surprising figures who were all musicians...
More in French: Words and music, November 2015.
A writer has found some pages from 3 manuscripts of his deceased father. Little fool of fresh water, the beginning of the cinemas (movies theaters). Do you believe? or the dream of Péh, love meeting and creation of a hotel restaurant. The sleepwalker's ballade, science-fiction or love story's memory?...
More in French: An other book, March 2014 / June 2015.
Prune makes a chance discovery that his wind vane becomes a fantasy world at night inhabited by 4 familiar figures, the monsters from the garden of childhood...
More in French: Childhood garden, February 2013 / June 2015.
So what is there on the other side of the world? It is up to the reader to decide whether one changes one’s reading habits in order to venture in other territories...
More in French: On the other side of the world, March 2013 / May 2015.
Alfrèdo, a young boy, is kidnaped with his girl friend Mélodie. They are led to Sénégal, where they escape with the help of their friend Mamadou. But the troubles go on...
More in French: Alfrèdo Cortex and the cross from Agadez, children’s book, January 2014.
In this coming-of-age-novel, Imer, a young boy with fertile imagination, meets a blind young girl. Cloune, his new friend, guides him on an incredible adventure...
More in French: Abracadir, October 2013.
A young boy finds himself transported by magic in Pompeii at the time of eruption of Vesuvius. Kevin befriends Alexandra, another young slave like him. He discovers how people lived in Pompeii just before the catastrophe....
More in French: Kevin in Pompeii, June 2013.
