Customer Reviews (3)

Twice as big; just as good!
This is an enlarged soft cover copy of the smaller original hard cover edition.Love this book.It's fun, it's really French! Big, but an exact copy otherwise.Just wanted a counter copy, a work copy, in order to preserve my original purchase in pristine condition and this was a surprise and a welcome one too.Wipes off easy too when you get a litte too energetic with the mixing whip!It is a very large, easy to work with soft cover edition.Just couldn't have asked for anything better for my purpose.Handy to the extreme and that's what I was looking for. Been looking for a back-up copy of this book for a number of years and was really pleased to have at last found it and in such a workable edition.Pleased?You bet!

Your Friends Will Be Impressed!
A really classic, basic, reference for French cooking in an approachable manner.I am working my way through the recipes and would highly recommend this book.Amaze and delight your friends and neighbors with recipes prepared from this book.This particular copy was purchased as a gift for a nephew who has just moved to LA and his own apartment, and he is doing a rotating "Sunday Dinner" gathering with his posse of 20-somethings friendds.

Best cookbook I have
I have stacks of cookbooks, from Thomas Keller to Greens to cheesy supermarket pick-ups.This is the one I go to most often.I get inspiration from it in every section.Every recipe is delicious.Raves from husband and guests.The pork tenderloin with Camembert is now a house favorite.The apple tart is incredible.I've had it about 6 or 7 years, ready to try her other titles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

The Best of them All
I bought Alma Lach's book, "Hows and Whys of French Cooking", when I was first starting to learn how to cook seriously in the late 1970's, and even though I have many other fine cookbooks on French cuisine, including Julia Child's classics, I still turn to Alma first.The organization of her book, the setting out of menus of various types, as well as the brief chapters on regional recipes, makes this the best of them all.

Kitchen Library - Must Have
I have had this book for 25 years. I have made many of the recipes in it and all of them were great, most them outstanding. Buying it was a fluke and it was my first (& for many years only cookbook). The book goes beyond measure, poor & stir - giving direction as to what is supposed to be going on (but somtetimes doesn't) and helps get final product as it should be. I was making haute cuisine & it was consistently coming out good - but had no clue on some basic American recipes.

A definte must for the kitchen library. I am ordering another copy as my first is wearing out.

French Classic!
Alma Lach was a contemporary of sorts of Julia Child, having published her books during the 60's and 70's, however she was greatly overshadowed by Julia's landmark classic (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol 1) and numeroussubsesquent books and tv series, and Alma has been nearly forgotten.

I find both authors very helpful on making classic French dishes, and will consult both authors, and others prior to cooking a particular recipe, to see the subtle or different variations to consider. Few since these authors have had better suggestions and instructions.

The book does lack color photos, not a negative as such was not in vogue among these authors, and one can download photos of nearly every dish from a "Google" search.

Indispensible.
I own hundredsof cookbooks.I have sold over 200 cookbooks after I tired of them.This one will have to be pried out of my cold, dead fingers.
Seriously, there are tips in here, like how to make brown coloring for sauces, that you will not find mentioned even between friends.From pate and snails to green beans with bacon,you couldentertain or feed the family , breakfast, lunch and dinner, or a wedding cake.Enjoy.

A wonderfully complex book of Cordon Bleu cooking techniques
I first purchased this book in the late 1970's and have used it since.Individual recipes often draw from several locations in the book, and colored ribbon bookmarks allow fast cross reference.The recipes are sometimes complex and engrossing...the perfect formula to take me away fromthe worldly pressures.My all time favorite recipe is the Normandy Applepancake.Try it with the Calvados as suggested.I have searched often forthis book, without luck,as gifts to friends; and am delighted it's backin print. A true French classic, and a "must have" for thecookbook collection.I'm ordering several as gifts at this price, which isa couple of dollars more than it sold for in the late 1970's!! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

down home country french
I bought this book to help me cookwhen entertaining french friends and co-workers when we moved to France. Expatriates will know the difficulty of having to change measuring units and basic ingredientswhen adopting your recipes to life in another country.
What I wanted mostwas to have some basic recipes with everyday ingredients I could find in the store where I live. I'm not sure if one would easily find the French ingredients mentioned in the States(creme fraiche, lentillles du Puy).Still, this book was indispensable to me.I loved the stories behind the dishes ANDthe variations suggested. I mostly love the recipes in both metric and good ole' cups/tablespoons. ... Read more

Product Description
Noted French chef Gerald Hirigoyen presents some of France's favorite bistro dishes. Here are classics such as a Creamy Chicken Liver Terrine and Creme Brulee, as well as contemporary favorites such as an onion pie filled with Roquefort and walnuts. In addition, you'll find suggestions for serving French wines and for recreating the bistro experience at home. 56 recipes. Full-color photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great cookbook!
Everything I have cooked from this book of recipes turned out great!It's all pretty easy to follow, and yet, at the end, everyone thinks you're a master chef for turning out such fabulous dishes.A few of the recipes are a bit more involved, however.But this could almost be called French Cuisine for Dummies.

A 'must have' cookbook
ILOVE this cookbook. As opposed to some cookbooks which I use for maybe only one or two recipes, I use many of the recipes in this book;they have almost always been successful.If I had to choose just four books from my fairly extensive cookbook collection, this would be one of them!

French cuisine for everyone
Anyone who wants to enjoy fast, easy and authentic French cooking in the comfort of their own home should definitely buy this book. The recipes are simple and well explained, and readers will enjoy success after success.Planning an entire informal French meal is easy, as courses are dividedinto sections in the book.

Most of all, the recipes are delicious andtruly French.

Excellent recipes with enticing illustrations
After making most of the recipes in this book, we've decided it's one of the best we own.Everything we have made from this book has been exceptionally tasty and original, and many are relatively easy.We use ita lot during the week when our time for cooking is very limited.Don't letit's slim size and pretty pictures deter you -the illustrations are helpfuland enticing, and the porportion of recipes worth making repeatedly is veryhigh.

Clever Recipes In A Lovely Package
I just bought this cookbook last week, and was astounded at the simplicity and beauty of each recipe. The directions are clear and concise, and unlike a lot of French cooking, you don't use every pot and bowl in the house. Iliked especially the way the book was formatted - appetizers, soups, maindishes, desserts - you can form a complete menu for a special meal andnever need to leave the book! The glossary in the back spells out some ofthe obscure or unknown techniques employed in the recipes, such as the easyway to roast and skin peppers. The tone of the writing helps to inspireconfidence. There's no assumption that you should know all about theintricacies of cooking; just have fun! One caveat: This is not a cookbookfor those on a low-fat diet. But, in moderation, each recipe can beenjoyed. ... Read more

Product Description
What is Jewish cooking in France?

That is the question that has haunted Joan Nathan over the years and driven her to unearth the secrets of this hidden cuisine. Now she gives us the fruits of her quest in this extraordinary book, a treasure trove of delectable kosher recipes and the often moving stories behind them, interlaced with the tumultuous two-thousand-year history of the Jewish presence in France.

In her search, Nathan takes us into kitchens in Paris, Alsace, and the Loire Valley; she visits the bustling Belleville market in Little Tunis in Paris; she breaks bread around the observation of the Sabbath and the celebration of special holidays. All across France she finds that Jewish cooking is more alive than ever. Traditional dishes are honored, yet many have acquired a French finesse and reflect regional differences. The influx of Jewish immigrants from North Africa following Algerian independence has brought exciting new flavors and techniques that have infiltrated contemporary French cooking, and the Sephardic influence is more pronounced throughout France today.

Now, with Joan Nathan guiding us, carefully translating her discoveries to our own home kitchens, we can enjoy:

• appetizers such as the rich subtle delight of a Terrine de Poireaux from Alsace or a brik, that flaky little pastry from North Africa, folded over a filling of tuna and cilantro;
• soups such as cold sorrel or Moroccan Provençal Fish Soup with garlicky Rouille;
• salads include a Mediterranean Artichoke and Orange Salad with Saffron Mint and a Tunisian Winter Squash Salad with Coriander and Harissa;
• a variety of breads, quiches, and kugels—try a Brioche for Rosh Hashanah, a baconless quiche Lorraine, or a Sabbath kugel based on a centuries-old recipe;
• main courses of Choucroute de Poisson; a tagine with chicken and quince; Brisket with Ginger, Orange Peel, and Tomato; Southwestern Cassoulet with Duck and Lamb; Tongue with Capers and Cornichons; and Almondeguilles (Algerian meatballs);
• an inviting array of grains, pulses, couscous, rice, and unusual vegetable dishes, from an eggplant gratin to a mélange of Chestnuts, Onions, and Prunes;
• for a grand finale, there are Parisian flans and tarts, a Frozen Soufflé Rothschild, and a Hanukkah Apple Cake, as well as many other irresistible pastries and cookies.

These are but some of the treasures that Joan Nathan gives us in this unique collection of recipes and their stories. In weaving them together, she has created a book that is a testament to the Jewish people, who, despite waves of persecution, are an integral part of France today, contributing to the glory of its cuisine.Amazon.com Review
Alice Waters Reviews Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous

Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and proprietor of Chez Panisse, her restaurant in Berkeley, California. For four decades, Waters has been a champion of local, organic, and sustainable food. She founded the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1995, which works to promote Edible Schoolyards around the country that integrate growing and cooking fresh, delicious food into school curricula. In addition, Waters is a vice president of Slow Food International, an organization dedicated to preserving the world’s local and artisan food traditions. She is also the author of several cookbooks, including the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, and In the Green Kitchen. Read her review of Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous:

Customer Reviews (1)

Good book but no deckel edge
My copy came this morning (Sat. Oct 30) and I've read the intro and much of the boxed text. It has lots of interesting summaries of the Jewish experience in France for 200 years -- the recipes look good too. I was surprised at what a beautiful book it is: color photos, nice layout. Glad I didn't get it on a Kindle. But the pages have normal edges. ... Read more

Product Description

In My French Kitchen bestselling author Joanne Harris, along with acclaimed food writer Fran Warde, shares her treasured collection of family recipes that has been passed down from generation to generation. All the classics are here: Quiche Lorraine, Moules Marinière, Coq au Vin, and Crème Brûlée, plus an entire chapter devoted to French chocolate, including cakes, meringues, and spiced hot chocolate.

Customer Reviews (16)

Lovely cookbook
Very nice & approachable.The receipes are well written and to the point. I'm happy to add this one to the collection.I can tell when I do the flip thru of a cookbook if it's a true keeper by how quikly I flip the pages.I found myself taking my time with each page & thinking "this is nice".

A really special book
My French Kitchenby Joanne Harris is a very special cookery book filled with wonderful , mouth watering French recipes , lovely photographs and good advice and information. This is a cookbook that any seriouscook will want to haveand constantly refer to.My French Kitchenis a real keeper, and a great find, and should beon every cook's bookshelves.
I'm entralled with this cookbook , it's loaded with so many wonderful recipes.

A treasure
My French Kitchen is too pretty to reside among the grease-stained, befloured, petrified vegetable festooned other denizens of my cookbook shelves.It belongs on the coffee table so that the photographs of boats, doors, crisp curtains, flowers and of course, the dishes may be enjoyed without preheating the oven.

Part memoir, part photographic essay, part cookbook, My French Kitchen is all charm.The dishes range from homely (cabbage pie) to tour de force (the whole chocolate chapter), and the ones I've made have come out well.A raw beginner might have some trouble, but the pictures would definitely inspire.This book would be a lovely addition to the collection of any cook, francophile or Harris fan.

Love the concept
For me the clinch of this book lies in its very concept of connection. Many recipes 'stem directly from', if that is possible, Harris' most delicious novels such as Chocolat. The photos, descriptions, ingredients, and recipes themselves bring the reader another step closer to the 'reality' of the characters so relished in her novels.It takes me to the world of Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters, for example. In this volume you can see them, smell them, taste them, it gives their world colour and texture.
I like that.
Admittedly, as the book is quite new to me, I have only (so far) tried the one recipe I was most keen to appreciate with my own senses: Vianne's Hot Chocolate. If the others turn out as luxuriously, this book is going to provide some true pleasure in the kitchen and at the table.

Nice done
Nice design and beautiful pictures to present most of the best and traditional recipes of french cooking...I'm french and I offered it especially to share it with my best american friends: now they can try the recipes by themself and enjoy simple good ones at home :-) ... Read more

Product Description

Fewpeople will make the entire menu for a week-night dinner, but even asingular dish, like salmon cooked in its own juice with broccoliflorets, would be fine served with your own green salad and fruit fordessert. Even when you bring home roast chicken or plain grilled fish,adding the earthy Mushroom Sauce or zesty Tomato Vinaigrette will addimmeasurably to your meal. --Dana Jacobi ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Buy this book!
After my husband had a heart attached, I needed to drastically change our diet.I love to cook, and was fearfull i would be cooking boring food.Everything I've tried is great. Not only are we eating healthy, you would never know it from this food, because the first thing and foremost is the food is great.I just want to know when the second book is coming out.

eat in good health
I join the chorus of praise for this cookbook.I appreciate the menu format, though you're free to select individual dishes.The grilled pork tenderloin with roasted red pepper and tomato sauce is a consistent success, elegant and delicious while requiring little work.This is an excellent source of flavorful recipes for those on salt and fat restricted diets.

Clever Ways to Present High-Quality Healthful Food
I am glad that I wasn't put off by the reader who complained about the stock recipes. If you don't like the stock recipes just substitute your own favorite stock recipes and proceed with the rest of the book.This book is full of very clever and elegant ways to produce food that promotes your family's health.

The recipes are accessible to the home cook, clever, elegant and healthful. Really people, what more do you want?

A must
This is a book everyone who enjoys cooking and eating healthy should have.While some of the dishes are a bit on the bland side, many of them are not.The wine steamed salmon is fab.The garlic soup is a favorite! Even if you don't make a single recipe just the information in the front of the book is well worth the price.

Wonderful recipes for weekends
This book is truly inspiring. It's organized by season, and then by different menus for each season. The three summer menus I have tried have been absolutely wonderful. This book really lives up to its promise; the dishes are very refined and you don't miss the fat and calories at all. The authors make very good use of herbs and aromatics such as orange juice to give their dishes a lot of flavor. You will definitely impress your friends and neighbors with these recipes.However, there are a few caveats. This book is definitely not for beginners. The recipes tend to be complicated and can involve sophisticated equipment (mandoline, crepe pan). The recipes I have tried involved many steps and a lot of knife work, and therefore consumed a lot of time. However, if you really enjoy cooking, want to eat more healthfully, and you have the time to spend, this book will become one of your favorites. My husband and I are cooking one menu a week, and now we really look forward to our Sunday dinner. ... Read more

Product Description
With this exceptional opus, over 100 years of unparalleled experience and expertise are put at the fingertips of every home cook using the same hands-on approach promoted in practical classes at Le Cordon Bleu's institutes. This indispensable and unique reference work teaches essential preparation and cooking skills and professional tricks-of-the-trade, with over 700 cooking techniques shown in more than 2,000 color images.

Whatever the interest -- providing family-pleasing everyday fare or mastering a top chef's recipe, or even attempting to re-create a dish from a restaurant menu -- Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques will enable people to cook what they want with success. Its hundreds of illustrated techniques are invaluable kitchen aids, as are the many integral recipes.

Cooks interested in ethnic cuisines, readers of chef inspired, ingredient-led, or occasion-oriented cookbooks, as well as devotees of simple home cooking will turn to this book again and again and wonder how they ever cooked without it. Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques is destined to become a classic kitchen reference. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

Love this Book!
Fell in love with this book the moment it arrived. As some of the other reviewers stated, THIS IS NOT A COOKBOOK. There are several recipies, but it is just what it says it is: a reference book. The photos are astounding, the not too beginner-not too advanced language is easy to follow. Great book to have around.

Indispensable
I picked up this book when I could barely boil an egg and this book taught me most of what I needed to know (although I still can't make a good chocolate mousse, despite the claim that this is the simplest desert possible).

Falls short of expectations - a "Coffee Table Cookbook"
This isn't a terrible book, in fact, in some ways it is a nice book.But I was a very disappointed in the level of the material.Based on the title, I expected an Escoffier, Larousse, or perhaps something on the level of James Peterson's "Sauces".What I got was strictly Time-Life or Reader's Digest.Don't misunderstand, it is a lovely book.And perhaps a few years ago I would have been pleased to have it.But it is long on nice pictures and recipes, and very short on the sort of advanced level teaching I expect of a book that claims to be the "complete techniques" of the prestigious Cordon Bleu.If you are a good home cook who is just getting started in broadening your horizons, you will probably like this book.If you have already begun to broaden them, I think you will find this to be a watered down pretense of what it claims to be, only slightly more than an Americanized coffee table book, intended more as a "gift book" to impress the uninitiated, than as a comprehensive treatise to educate serious cooks in the techniques the title purports to offer.It is really too bad, I would very much like to have a book which actually contains what the title of this book promises, but which its' contents fail to deliver.If the title were more honest, perhaps "Illustrated Cordon Bleu recipes for the American Kitchen" or some such, I would rate the book more highly.Instead, they chose to over promise, and under deliver, hence the low rating.

I finally found the most amazing cookbook, with photos and techniques
I am beyond thrilled with this book.I started cooking shortly after I got married (had tons of new Le Crueset pots that needed to be used).I have purchased 5 or 10 cookbooks and I wish that i had started with this one instead.You will not need another!

My only complaint (and it is small) is that the descriptions do not always match up with the photos in the first section of the book.This was particularly apparent in the discussion about knives (there are so many, I wish their were photo references for each one).

Overall - excellent.An incredibly useful book.And I have made both the English custard and the Coq Au Vin - both were phenomenal!

All the essential
I found this book exteremly useful. The techniques are excellent and instructions are straight forward. My vegitables are now done right. Love the book. ... Read more

Product Description
France has a culinary tradition that is the most renowned in the world--from the sun-drenched specialities of Provence, through the lusty, full-bodied dishes of Burgundy at the country's heart, to the classic seafoods found along the Atlantic coast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

easy French cuisine
This book is so easy to follow and the recipes so good, I bought it for my 3 adult chiildren

Great service, excellent book!
I was under a last-minute time frame and had to get the book quickly, so I requested next-day delivery.The book arrived the following day is perfect condition.Service was great! ... Read more

Product Description
Henri-Paul Pellaprat and Jeremiah Tower, master chefs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have created a reference cookbook that will shape great chefs and great cooking in the twenty-first century. The English language edition of Pellaprat's landmark cookbook, L'Art Culinaire Moderne, when first published by Vendome in 1982, was hailed as "the most comprehensive, authoritative, and up-to-date book on French cooking and gastronomy ever written." Now, after a complete revision and updating by the James Beard award-winning chef Jeremiah Tower, Pellaprat's legendary recipes are again available in a handsome and accessible new edition.

Henri-Paul Pellaprat was the first chef to give the vast subject of French cuisine a logical and comprehensive underpinning by offering a complete education in the four basic subdivisions of French cooking, la haute cuisine, la cuisine bourgeoise, la cuisine régionale, and la cuisine impromptue, the inspired cooking that creates memorable dishes with easily available ingredients. Pellaprat and Tower have selected 2,000 recipes covering every aspect of gastronomy from sauces, soups, fish, grillades, and salads, to soufflés, cakes, and traditional French desserts.

This new edition includes more than 600 easy-to-follow techniques and timesaving tips, and a complete lexicon of French cooking terms. Unparalleled in its scope and the authenticity of its information, The Great Book of French Cuisine remains a definitive work, the perfect reference for both amateurs and professional chefs, to be treasured and consulted throughout a lifetime of cooking. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

a great addition to my library
This is a really nice book. Great recipes, nicely organized, and comprehensive. Photos or illustrations would earn it 5 stars, but don't let that keep you from buying.

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup
I give this book a lousy rating. I applaud the effort to take a venerable cookbook and update it for the modern day, but people who pick up this book will probably want Pellaprat, not Pellaprat as filtered through present day sensibilities. The result is an OK cookbook, but I do not recommend it (there are other such encyclopedic cookbooks on French cuisine that are better); I suggest you pick up an earlier edition of this book that is NOT revised. I was disappointed with this book; I did not get what I was expecting.

Editorial note on this edition: my mistake in buying this book was not studying the various editions more carefully. This and an earlier edition of the same title are `revised' and `adapted', respectively. A much earlier edition is titled `Modern French Culinary Art'; I believe that is the original translation, sans `improvements', and this is the edition I recommend you get. I positively do NOT recommend this version of Pellaprat. (There are multiple listings in Amazon Books for 'Modern French Culinary Art', and it is not clear from the vague descriptions which ones are just translations, and which ones are translations + 'improvements'. If I ever figure it out, I will list; for the time being, all I can say is 'buyer beware').

Both Pellaprat (P.) and Tower (T.) are legendary chefs in their own right; both have started a culinary revolution, and both taught an entire generation how to cook. P. was part of the Cordon Bleu during the early part of the 20th century and given credit for inventing modern French cuisine, and this is (or is suppose to be) his definitive cookbook. This book is a new edition, with a new Introduction and revisions done by T. The genius of P. was to embrace 4 different type of cooking: haute cuisine, cuisine bourgeoise, regional cuisine, and impromptu cuisine. Sadly, P. does not identify which category each recipe corresponds to. T. and a few others took impromptu cooking and developed a whole new cuisine around it.

On page 290, T. produced at least one gem: the statement that the true glory of French food is fish or shellfish + sauce. Course, he also repeats the old wives tale about fresh fish having clear eyes and red gills; this is true for some fish (notable salmon and trout), but not all of them.

I wonder about T's revisions. He gives no hint in the introductory material how extensive his `improvements' are. When you read a recipe, there is no way to tell whose recipe it is or how much the recipe has been changed. Some kind of indication, perhaps in a different color ink, should have been used so you can tell what is original and what has been revised or is entirely new. Some places, like the starch chapter, appear to be heavily edited. The chapter on cakes and pastry (not to mention the Confectionery chapter) seem to have been heavily edited, and were especially disappointing and worthy of ignoring; the recipes clearly have NOT been tested. I note that T. has smoothed only a few of the many kinks in the recipes; there is still plenty that will trip up the inexperienced or unwary cook. In light of the number of recipes, I wonder how many of his recipe changes T. has actually kitchen tested, or if this was mainly a word processor project; they are well written, so it is often difficult to tell. I hate to say it, but it sure seems like T has diluted P's genius.

Format Problems
*recipe titles are usually English (but, confusingly, the original French has sometimes been retained, but not always, and usually randomly), so sometimes you have to guess how this book translated the French name of a recipe
*there are both major and minor editorial errors. Page 350 (Lobster a l'Americaine) has `New Igredient'. Huh? Perhaps T. planned to add another, modern ingredient or `improvement', but never got around to it. On p. 374, the beef section transitions from tournedos to other cuts, but there is no editorial comment to warn the reader that the recipes now require a different cut of beef.
*the TOC has chapter titles only, and some of them are quite long. The chapters are divided in the text into sections, but these are not listed in the TOC.
*there is only one bread recipe and 2 pizza crusts, and all seem to be T's.
*I object to the translation of the book's title (well, this edition has been so heavily changed that perhaps a different English title is in order).

Sure it's dated!But it's a great compendium of pre-modern Haute Cuisine
This is one of those lavishly impractical texts that serious food-lovers should own because it so neatly reminds us of the aristocratic origins of French Haute Cuisine.Originally published in 1935 as L'Art Culinaire Moderne, it records, encyclopedically, the last days of the grand hotel cuisine of the 19th century.Within a few years of its first release, Hitler had overrun Paris, the great restaurants and cooking schools were closed, aging gourmands were withering on an unintentional diet of cuisine minceur in the countryside, and war-enforced austerity replaced these rich indulgences.That austerity eventually became the astringent modernity at the heart of most French high cuisine today.Sauces have simplified and lightened, butter is used more sparingly, tastes have shifted toward lighter, fresher ingredients that are left closer to their natural state.

Which brings up a good working summary of what chef Henri-Paul Pellaprat advocated: a cuisine of transformation, in which often humble ingredients are artfully altered into the most sumptuous forms imaginable and served with fanfare and deference.A bourgeois form of this luxe aesthetic is still available at several of the 3-star restaurants, especially in Paris, but deference, per se, is no longer organic.It has become a commodity for sale, part of the lingering stage-set of pre-war hierarchies.

You could do worse than to cook from the roughly 800 recipes the Great Book contains, but you will find them anachronistically, if not unpleasantly, rich and opaque.I have cooked several of the more arch recipes [Sole Mornay, Lobster Bordelaise, Tournedos Clamart...just the names evoke another era] and have enjoyed the results.More to the point, I have enjoyed my guests' reactions [a mix of surprise, glee, giggling, and eventual gasps for mercy] to a cuisine that now feels profoundly foreign, or at least nostalgic.

But I should note that mixed in with these old restaurant dishes are many simpler ones, and a surprising assortment of Italian, Spanish, German, and even Asian dishes.Pellaprat wasn't a snob, I guess, and he knew that Osso Buco a la Milanese, for example, is as good as anything French.

I do highly recommend this book, whether you plan to cook from it or not.It's a fascinating historical vignette, as well as one monumental cookbook.I also recommend you try, at least once before you die, to serve a meal cooked entirely from these pages, served as Pellaprat recommends.Your guests will remember it forever.Great fun.

Encyclopediac Treatment of haute cuisine. A must for foodies
`The Great Book of French Cuisine' by Henri-Paul Pellaprat is the kind of book every foodie should own. The question is whether this is the very best summary of French cuisine or simply a very good one. The primary competition to this position would be the works of August Escoffier. I should also be clear that this book is not in direct competition with the great `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' by Julia Child. In fact, Jeremiah Tower's introduction indirectly makes it clear in echoing Maurice-Edmund Saillant's classification of four cooking styles that while Pellaprat and Escoffier are addressing haute cuisine, Mme. Child's works address `La cuisine bourgeoisie'. The numerous books on regional French and Italian cooking represent `La cuisine regionale'. La cuisine impromptue' might be represented by Jacques Pepin's latest book, `Fast Food My Way'.

The first thing that impresses us about this `Great Book...' is that it is truly great in size, weighing in at over 750 pages of rather small printing. It is not so small to make it unreadable in the kitchen, but compact enough to assure us we are getting our money's worth for a very modest list price of $35.

The second thing that impresses us is the confirmation that there are few things that are new under our sun. In spite of Alton Brown's jabs at French cooking, there are chapters in this book which raise the quite probable specter that if AB didn't exactly steal some ideas from this book for his two `I'm Just Here for the Food' volumes, he comes very close to taking out a long term lease on Pellaprat's summaries of types of cooking and types of mixing for doughs. The other side of the coin is that if AB never read this book, he gets high marks for coming to the same conclusions as a leading writer on French `haute cuisine'. `Sacre bleu'.

The third thing that impresses us about the book is the encyclopedic treatment of several important culinary subjects. On poached eggs alone, there are 39 different named recipes, with names coming generally from the person, event, or location responsible for their creation. It gives on the sense that when chefs are looking for dishes with clever or impressive names; it is to this book they will turn. Marie Simmons' book, `The Good Egg' has but 11 recipes for poached eggs. An even better piece of information on eggs comes from Pellaprat's classification of omelets into classic French, American style (which looks remarkably like what some people describe as the Normandy style), and Italian (frittatas).

The section on both omelets and stocks demonstrates that this book is long on encyclopedic coverage of the field of French cooking, but sometimes short on some of the finer details. As great an authority as this book is on French technique, I sense that the author is leaving a few details out. This is my impression on many of the thousands of recipes in this book, although, of course, there is no need to repeat all the finer points of egg poaching in 39 recipes. You just need to point out what distinguishes each variation from the basic technique. This is another distinction between Pellaprat and writers such as Child and Elizabeth David. The latter ladies are teaching people who have never before cooked an omelet or a souffle or a gratin. On the other hand, Pellaprat opens with a chapter that is straight out of the world of Martha Stewart in that it teaches us the proper methods for entertaining and serving meals.

In many ways, the closest analogue to this book in the modern lexicon of cookbooks is `The Joy of Cooking'. Both are encyclopedic in that they focus on giving at least some attention to even the most arcane of meats. While `Joy of Cooking' gives us recipes for possum and boar, Pellaprat gives us a great number of recipes for venison, hare, and woodcock.

This book is an eminent proof that if one is serious about cooking, you need more than one cookbook, at least on those important subjects like omelets, stews, and stocks. No one book can cover everything in the depth to which one may need. While this book covers an enormous range, it does not even cover everything French, let alone the rest of the world.

For a translated work, this reads remarkably well. It is also much more up to date than you may expect from a book first published in the mid-1930's. There is mention of both the microwave and the food processor in many recipes. And, all measurements are in simple spoon and cup units. One may however, be on the lookout for pork recipes that may be expecting a much fatter porkie than what we get in the markets today. I have even seen 1970s James Beard pork recipes falter because the fat on the pig has been reduced so much.

Subject to a review of Escoffier's major work, I heartily recommend this for your armchair library and as a great source of fancy pants recipes. I am sure there are thousands of restaurant chefs who refer to this for that very purpose.

THE EPITOME OF FRENCH COOKBOOKS
Several editions of this cookbook have been published, each more visually attractive than the last.Whether you're merely thumbing through or engaged in meal preparation this is a must for all who enjoy French cuisine.

This volume contains over 2,000 receiptes by the former director of the Ecole du Cordon Bleu.When first published in our country it was deemed one of the classic French cookbooks, and it remains so today.Each republication is a cause for rejoicing.The full-color, full-page photographs are worth the price.

It is a comprehensive reference piece, whether your tastes run to la haute cuisine - the most elaborate meal preparation or to la cuisine impromptue - the quickest and most basic cooking method. ... Read more

Product Description
Chosen Cookbook of the Year (1989) by USA Today and selected as an Editor's Choice for the year's top books by Publishers Weekly, Patricia Wells's Bistro Cooking celebrates the return to warm, generous cuisine. Here are over 200 recipes inspired by the neighborhood restaurants of France--adapted and tested for the American table. 2-color photos and illustrations throughout.Amazon.com Review
In this warm look into the world of French bistro food,eminent food writer Patricia Wells reveals her love for this simple,robust cuisine in a collection of recipes garnered from France's bestbistros. From Warm Potato Salad with Herbed Vinaigrette to Lamb Stewin White Wine to Pear Clafoutis, Wells admits her preference forhearty, homey bistro dishes. Through clearly written recipes, Wellsencourages cooks to buy the best ingredients and turn them intofragrant, warming dishes. Each recipe has a note telling where it camefrom and alluding to its flavor. Pithy quotes throughout the bookrelate to bistro style--in cooking, serving, and eating--andhistorical quotations give a cultural connotation. Wine choices reachdeep into the heart of France, from a crisp white from Provence suchas a Chateau Simone with lamb, to a good Côtes du Rhone (Cru duCoudelet) with guinea hen. From the introduction to the last dessertrecipe (for Prunes in Red Wine), Bistro Cooking is sure toplease not just the novice in the kitchen, but the experienced cook aswell. --Susan Loomis, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (39)

a favorite
This is one of my favorite cookbooks and I think I've prepared more dishes out of it than just about any other I own.In fact, it's so good I bought it twice!When I moved it somehow disappeared and as soon as I realized it I ordered another copy.The recipes are all little classics purloined from the bistro/cafe settings of france.And while not a regional survey the author does a nice job of incorporating various gastronomical locales other than Paris/Lyon for which this style of cooking is most famous.I would also note that it's not the glitzy coffee table book that Patricia Wells has become associated with later in her career (she is a professional writer, not a chef) butit does contain some evocative B&W photos of pre-war bistro scenes. No color photos of either the dishes or the scenery;the value here is recipes and lots of them, from entree to side dish (several wonderful gratins) to salads, soups, etc.The best of Wells' books and highly recommended.

My go-to cookbook: everyday and special occasions
I received this as a gift many years ago and didn't pick it up for a few years at first -- I assumed it was just another specialty cookbook without much relevance to the type of cooking I wanted to do. But after I started cooking from it I've never looked back. The recipes are simple, delicious, and nearly fail-proof: I finally succeeded in making pastry crust using the recipes in this book. Some have become my favorite dinner party standbys, like the roasted tomatoes provencales and tarte tatin.

This is an excellent cookbook. The recipes are well-written and easy to follow (I think, although I'm a moderately proficient cook). They don't require much special equipment or fussiness -- after all, this is bistro fare.

Un trésor!
Love this book. The vinegar chicken is a family favorite, as is the Gratin Dauphinois. The instructions are clear and concise, and the recipes make French food accessible.

Love this book
Patricia Wells is my favorite cookbook writer!
All the recipes are easy and tasty. I have all her books and have yet to cook something that I don't love.

Indispensable
Honestly, for the average home cook, having this is more useful than having Mastering the Art of French Cooking (I am a BIG Julia Child fan, but generally I just don't have the time to make her recipes, wonderful as they are).The vast majority of the recipes here are both uncomplicated and inexpensive.(There are a few exceptions, of course, but it's very easy to tell which ones they are.)There's a whole chapter of potato recipes--what can be better than that?We usually have a few extra copies on hand to give as gifts after dinner parties.If we cook out of this book, our guests invariably want the recipes, and it's easier to give them a copy than it is to write them out, especially as used paperback copies can be had ridiculously cheaply.No serious cook should be without this book (or her book on trattoria cooking, which performs the same function for everyday Italian cooking). ... Read more

Product Description
An introduction to the cooking of France, featuring basic recipes for everyday breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes,as well as typical menus and a brief description of the special features of a French table setting. ... Read more

Product Description
Modern French habits of cooking, eating, and drinking were born in the Ancien Regime, radically breaking with culinary traditions that originated in antiquity and creating a new aesthetic.This new culinary culture saw food and wine as important links between human beings and nature. Authentic foodstuffs and simple preparations became the hallmarks of the modern style. Pinkard traces the roots and development of this culinary revolution to many different historical trends, including changes in material culture, social transformations, medical theory and practice, and the Enlightenment.Pinkard illuminates the complex cultural meaning of food in her history of the new French cooking from its origins in the 1650s through the emergence of cuisine bourgeoise and the original nouvelle cuisine in the decades before 1789.This book also discusses the evolution of culinary techniques and includeshistorical recipes adapted for today's kitchens.Amazon.com Review
Book Description
Modern French habits of cooking, eating, and drinking were born in the Ancièn Regime, radically breaking with culinary traditions that originated in antiquity and creating a new aesthetic. This new culinary culture saw food and wine as important links between human beings and nature. Authentic foodstuffs and simple preparations became the hallmarks of the modern style. Pinkard traces the roots and development of this culinary revolution to many different historical trends, including changes in material culture, social transformations, medical theory and practice, and the Enlightenment. Pinkard illuminates the complex cultural meaning of food in her history of the new French cooking from its origins in the 1650s through the emergence of cuisine bourgeoise and the original nouvelle cuisine in the decades before 1789. This book also discusses the evolution of culinary techniques and includes historical recipes adapted for today's kitchens.

Amazon Exclusive: Author Susan Pinkard on the French Culinary Revolution

I wrote A Revolution in Taste:The Rise of French Cuisinebecause I am fascinated by the intersection of the routines of everyday life with the world of ideas.Eating is a universal human need;but what you eat, how you prepare it, and with whom you share it reveal a lot about who you are, what kind of society you live in, and what you believe about beauty, health, and your place in nature.

Why French food?There are a couple of answers to that question, one of which has to do with history and the other with my life.

From ancient Rome through the Renaissance, cooking all over Europe was pungent, spicy, and sweet or sweet/sour, rather like North African or Middle Eastern food is today.From Naples to London, Seville to Warsaw, cooks used local ingredients as well as imported spices to fuse layers of flavor into complex sauces that were meant to balance the elemental composition of the foods with which they were served.The point, aesthetically as well as in terms of diet, was to civilize ingredients and to render them wholesome by transforming them in the kitchen.Then, quite suddenly, French cooks broke with this ancient tradition. The aim of what was called “the delicate style” was to cook and serve ingredients in a manner that preserved the qualities with which they were endowed by nature:instead of being miraculously transformed by the cook, food was supposed to taste like what it was.In pursuit of this new aesthetic of naturalness and simplicity, cooks developed many techniques and recipes that continue to define French cuisine to this day.Indeed, the impact of the French culinary revolution reverberated far beyond the borders of France.The fact that so many of us moderns wish to eat and drink in a manner that represents the variety of nature reflects our lasting attachment to the idea of authenticity that first emerged in the kitchens of the ancien régime.Why and how had this major shift in sensibility come about?What does the culinary revolution reveal about other aspects of modern life that were also coming into focus in 17th- and 18th-century France?Those were the historical questions I set out to answer in this book.

The other reason why I decided to write about the rise of French cuisine is that I love to eat French food and I cook it almost every day.One of the enduring misconceptions about French cooking (especially in America) is that it is inherently fussy, expensive, and ridiculously rich.Although such a rococo element certainly exists, especially in fancy restaurant cooking, recipes from the cuisine bourgeoise (that is, home cooking as it has evolved in France over the past 250 years) are easy and economical to make and healthy to eat:roasted chicken with a quick deglazing sauce, inexpensive braised meats, poached fish with a little white wine, simply prepared vegetables, plain green salads, puréed soups of leeks, potatoes, and other fresh, cheap ingredients, just to name a few of my favorites. I hope that by focusing attention on the development of this aspect ofthe culinary tradition, my book will encourage readers to experiment with simple French foods.The historical recipes, in the appendix, are a good place to start.
--Susan Pinkard

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Cook up the Enlightenment:Exclusive Recipe Excerpts from A Revolution in Taste

Click here to see authentic (and delicious!) recipes from eighteenth-century France.

• Green Butter with Leek and Parsley (Marin)

• Potage aux Herbes (Marin)

• Roasted Chicken with Bitter Orange and Garlic Deglazing Sauce (Bonnefons)

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... Read more

Customer Reviews (41)

REVISIONIST CULINARY HISTORY
Susan Pinkard takes an erudite and revisionist look at the revolution that took place in French cooking during the 17th Century.She argues that its motivation was healthful and its objective was simplification rather than complication.Inspired by ideas of the Enlightenment, the great chefs of the Ancienne Regime created recipes that emphasized the natural flavors of ingredients and that were meant to improve the health of their clients.They reduced the use of strong spices and sweeteners and increased the use of vegetables.Hardly the fussy style of cooking we associate with classic French cuisine!

A MOST PALATABLE FOOD HISTORY
An ingredient that will take a book to another level is often the love and care the author feels for the subject, in this case it is French cuisine and it's intriguing history. Author Susan Pinkard's enthusiasm and love for the subject at hand propels her book towards the rarity of excellence and makes for a great and entertaining read. As an amateur chef with a great interest in food the historical insight in this book book was both revealing and a very pleasant surprise. Historical anecdotes abound and enliven the book. It is most interesting to understand the evolution of cooking from heavy sauces intended to disguise bad (no refrigerators then) food to those that would enhance and bring out the natural flavor of food was most informative for me. Another evolution was the change from food as medicinal to something a bit more derived from taste is also interesting. It is all here, a great history, an appendix, and even recipes that can actually be understood. A must for the foodie or for anyone just interested in a fine read.

Marvelous history for foodies and historians alike
This is an excellent new history on a fascinating subject. Pinkard treats her subject beautifully, in lovely and very clear prose. The analogy between nouvelle cuisine innovations and modern locavorism is intriguing. The addition of modernized recipes in the appendix is a pleasant bonus, especially for those of us who are familiar with the original recipes and have always puzzled over some of the more opaque instructions, or wondered what the results would be.

Thick and rich
This is a DENSE little volume.Extensively researched and annotated, it covers everything from the health food fads of the 1600s, to the arrival of the artichoke in various European cities in the 1400s and 1500s, and in Paris itself "shortly after 1532."

You will learn how typical seating arrangements at medieval dining tables discouraged conversation during meals.

Or how, between 1600 and 1650, "culinary refinement" to flatter the tastes of gourmets began to take precedence over prevailing medical theories, some dating back to the time of Hippocrates, about the health effects of various foods and diets.

And how, with the growing profusion of fresh meats and vegetables, French cooking evolved from an early era of heavy, sweet and acidic sauces which largely masked the taste of the food (which might not be so darned good) to delicate cooking and sauces intended to highlight the freshness and natural flavors of meat and produce.

The development of roux based sauces, emulsions. The fact that "nouvelle cuisine" was actually a term first used about food and cooking in 1742 -- eat your hearts out, Gault-Millau.

The arrival of coffee in France in the mid-17th century and how it transformed the typical French breakfast.The evolution (the author calls it a "revolution") from winemaking for local consumption, with wines of reasonably low alcohol and little extract, intended for drinking young, to the deeper and richer Bordeaux, Burgundy and other French wines we collect and cellar today.

There is a handful of recipes from the 17th and 18th century (I've not tried them yet).An extensive bibliography for those who really want to dig in.

Quite the book for the serious foodie.Not likely to be a book most folks will take to the beach, however.

A long read, but interesting
This was an interesting book, about the history of french cuisine.The author tries to debunk some of the myths we think of why food choices were made.The book is slow, even for a history book, but enjoyable ... Read more

Product Description
Have you ever read a recipe that called for artichokes and wondered just how to trim them, or wanted to learn the proper way to use a pastry bag? While most cookbooks provide home cooks with only recipes, The Tante Marie's Cooking School Cookbook provides recipes and detailed cooking techniques -- it's like going to cooking school without ever leaving your home. With more than 250 delicious yet approachable recipes and countless techniques, The Tante Marie's Cooking School Cookbook enables readers to become familiar with the basics of cooking and then encourages them to improvise. Because the recipes have been tested in the San Francisco kitchens of Tante Marie's by hundreds of students, home cooks can be assured that they are virtually foolproof.

Having guided thousands of students through the world of French cooking for the past thirty years, renowned cooking teacher Mary Risley is well aware of common mistakes made in the kitchen. Risley troubleshoots a multitude of problem areas for cooks (such as what to do if your soup is too thick, or not thick enough), allowing home cooks to avoid common pitfalls. With variations provided for many dishes and instructions on how to cook without recipes, more advanced home cooks can start to create dishes on their own.

From delicious hors d'oeuvres like Fava Bean Crostini with Pecorino and Miniature Shrimp Quiches and Asparagus-Fontina Pizza with Truffle Oil, to enticing entrees like Roast Chicken with New Potatoes and Olives, Halibut Baked with Warm Shallot Compote, and Herbed Rack of Lamb with Béarnaise Sauce, Risley presents an impressive array of French-inspired recipes for contemporary American tastes. Classic recipes are updated with modern twists in dishes such as Fresh Pea Soup with Cilantro and Meyer Lemon Crème Brûlée. Delectable dessert recipes include Grand Marnier Soufflé, Gingerbread Napoleon with Poached Pears and Caramel Sauce, Compote of Fresh Berries with Lemon Verbena Ice Cream, and classic Tiramisù.

Additional chapters on first courses, soups, salads, pasta and risotto, fish and shellfish, vegetables, breads, cookies, chocolates, cakes, and pastries offer the home cook a recipe for every occasion. Risley also provides in-depth discussions on ingredients such as cheese, chocolate, truffles, and planned leftovers. A section of Suggested Seasonal Menus as well as a chapter of foundation recipes for accomplished cooks complete this wonderful volume.

Illustrated with gorgeous black-and-white drawings, The Tante Marie's Cooking School Cookbook will become the cookbook you can't live without. It's the next best thing to having a cooking instructor cook right beside you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

One of my go-to cookbooks
I have stacks of cookbooks that I use, but this is one of my all-time favorites.Here is why I am such a huge fan.First, the ingredients are relatively easy to find in your local grocers market.Many of the items I can find in my pantry.Second, the majority of the recipes I can make for an elegant weekday meal or a special dinner for guests. Finally, EVERYTHING I have made in this book tastes absolutely wonderful.And let me clarify "wonderful."It's not deep-fried wonderful, or condensed-soup enchilada wonderful (if anyone actually considers the latter wonderful), it is fresh vegetable wonderful, olive, shallot, red wine and pine nut wonderful.Tons of fresh, clean tastes that appeal to my palette.I have yet to find a dud!Thanks so much for a fabulous cookbook - mine is well worn-in!

Fun to use, fun to read
The first time I saw this book was in the public library. I was just browsing through the cookbook section and the attractive spine and then the title caught my eye. I pulled it off the shelf, wondering if it was just going to be another boring cookbook with a pretty cover and a catchy title -- I'm so happy I was wrong! This is a pretty book with a catchy title AND it's great!

First, I sat down and read it, which was a pleasure in itself. Then my two teenage daughters and I started choosing recipes to prepare, improving our technique and expanding our knowledge.

We learned a lot from this beautiful book. It is a keeper. I could barely bring myself to return it to the library, so I ordered one of my very own. I foresee that this will be a cookbook that sports lovingly stained pages with penciled notes in the margins - one I'll use for years to come.

A Genuine Learning Experience
I selected five recipes more or less randomly from the book and made them in preparation for this review.Over the course of a couple of months I made the roasted almonds, paella, boned leg of lamb with tapenade stuffing, vegetable charlotte, and tiramisu.Normally I take recipes as guidance (which Ms. Risley recommends), but for this exercise I followed them as closely as possible (except that I used blanched almonds, and I barbecued the lamb).I loved all of the dishes and my guests did, too.My learning curve was very steep, and I extended my culinary technique considerably.For instance, I'd never considered butterflying a leg of lamb before.Now?No problem!Ms. Risley composes her chapters and recipes very like Julia Child, by which I mean that she interposes considerable guidance on culinary technique among her recipes.It works for Julia and it works for Mary, too.I have one regular houseguest who now pulls this book from the bookshelf in the kitchen and requests me to make anything from it.I figure there are enough excellent recipes in this book to make me look good for years to come.

Not just recipes, but how to cook!
If Mary Risley had stopped after training some of my favorite San Francisco chefs, she would earn my undying gratitude. But what she's done with this book is invaluable. It's so much more than a book of recipes. She really teaches you how to cook -- with a recipe or off the cuff.

Tante Marie's Cookbook sits on our kitchen counter as a constant checkpoint, no matter where we get recipes from. I always use it as a cross-reference against other books. I'll open a recipe in the Silver Palate, but I'll check Mary's techniques for cooking that kind of meat, fish or vegetable. When I incorporate her suggestions, it always comes out better - and I understand more thoroughly the principle behind the recipes. So this is a cookbook that will enhance every other cookbook you own.

We are passionate cooks, but this book has taught us what we've never been able to do before -- cook without a recipe. In fact, at the beginning of every chapter Mary tells you how to select the discussed meat, fish or vegetable, what cooking methods are best for it, and how to cook it without a recipe. Mary straddles the difficult divide of providing a resource that teaches the experienced cook but is accessible enough to the beginner. In fact, if you own only one cookbook, this is the one to get.

In addition to wonderful recipes, tricks, techniques and the how-tos that change okay to fabulous, this book is filled with great anecdotes and recipes from some of the Bay Area's best restaurants. All made accessible by Tante Marie herself, patiently explaining the difficult, offering alternatives for when you can't find some exotic ingredients, but firmly telling you when you simply can't compromise. (Mary declares "seared tuna has no place in Salad Nicoise!")

We have a new vocabulary in our kitchen: "What does Mary say?" and "Mary says. . ." I promise you, if you let Tante Marie guide you, you'll never eat another so-so meal at home.

Wonderful gift
I bought this cookbook on a caterer's recommendation as a high school gift for a young man who is living with my family and hopes to become a chef. It was perfecto! I'm grateful he leaves it in my kitchen so I can make use of it, too. I've been cooking for 40 years, but I learned many new tricks and absorbed into my DNA several new recipes from just leafing thru these pages while sipping a latte in the morning.
A must-buy for the serious but casual cook. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the basic book for cooks who want to produce the celebrated dishes of France in their own kitchens the way a French housewife would prepare them for her own family. All of the recipes have been adapted to American methods and use ingredients easily found in the market. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Fabulous Unknown Cookbook
Imagine my surprise when I went to Paris for the first time and discovered that the recipes in my ancient paperback, The Art of French Cooking by Fernande Garvin, were more like what I was being served than those in other cookbooks (including Mastering the Art of French Cooking).

This little beat-up paperback is outstanding.The recipes are simple, authentic, homestyle French cooking, .The recipe for Coq Au Vinthe best I have ever tasted and is simpler than most of the recipes found elsewhere.The recipe for Chicken Dijion has guests asking for the recipe every time.But you don't have to be preparing for company to use The Art of French Cooking.Most recipes take an hour or less and make for great homecooking.Using this book was provided my initial education in French cooking.I recommend it to everyone.

I first used The Art of French Cookingback in the 70s whenI picked up a copy for 25 cents.I was a novice cook, and had not even tasted much French food.My old copy sports the subheading "Free with the purchase of a Giant Size DASH!"That old chestnut about not judging a book by its cover really is true.

A excellent overview of French home cooking with simple, not fussy recipes; have been using it for decades and mine "en loque".
An excellent overview of French home cooking with simple, delicious recipes.My copy is "en loques" (in tatters) after decades of use.I love Julia Child and her fish souffle is a Xmas dinner hit with young and old but it is not for every day cooking.

Lose a husband...gain a better one!
I was introduced to this wonderful little cookbook by my first husband's second wife!
Then ... the recipe for Chicken Marengo sealed the deal with my second husband.
True stories both!

No other book has so insinuated it's self into my life!

I am a very good cook and entertain often. I love to make simple but very elegant and unusual dishes. Whenever I use a recipe from this book I get so many compliments. Each recipe that I have tried worked beautifully. Ingrediants are readily available and measurements are not metric. This book will have you tossing out Julia Child's complicated offerings.

Match Made by Chicken Marengo or Careful What You Wish For
This little book is one of my favorite cook books. As a matter of fact, I credit getting my husband to the Chicken Marengo recipe. We met for after-work drinks. I invited him home and tossed this simple but elegant dish together in almost no time. The rest is history. Now, thirty years later, I am still cooking for him and still using the very approachable recipes in The Art of French Cooking. Take that Julia Child!

Coq au Vin, Chicken with Tarragon and Beef Bourguignon are just as easy and really, really impress a dinner party.

A very nice cookbook of French dishes!
I've had the paperback of this book for about thirty years.It's falling apart; I have to be careful whenever I open it so that it doesn't disintegrate further.But this has been a cookbook that I've gone to many times.Several of the recipes here are on my rotation of dishes.

Some of those recipes that I have actually used:

Parisian mushrooms
Croque monsieur (always a great dish to serve when you are having a party)
French onion soup
Chicken Touraine
Chicken Dijon
Chicken Marengo
Coq au vin
Beef bourguignon (one of my favorites for a dinner party; one can feed a
host of people with this dish)
Tomato salad
Potatoes Lyonnaise
Tomatoes Provencal
Cherries Jubilee
Coquilles Saint Jacques

I don't claim that I'm a great French cook, but this old cookbook has helped me create some dishes that (at least) I enjoy!The recipes represent formulas that ordinary cooks can succeed with.This does not have fancy dishes (don't look to it if that is what you want), but it provides an entree to standard French dishes that are delicious to eat and fun to create.
... Read more

Product Description
Christian Constant is one of the top chefs in France. At his luxurious contemporary Parisian bistro, Le Violon d'Ingres, recently awarded the coveted Michelin star, he prepares dishes that are refined and inventive, but still informed by the traditions and techniques of classic French cuisine. When he's not at the stoves at his restaurant, Constant loves cooking at home. His cuisine au quotidienne as he calls it-"everyday cooking"-focuses on fine products prepared in simple, savory ways. In his first cookbook to be published in the United States, Constant presents his personal repertoire of recipes for the home. Many of his inventive dishes are easy and quick to prepare, such as Cream of Pumpkin Soup with Croutons, Chives, and Diced Gruyere; Tomato Tart with Black Olives and Parmesan; Marinated Scallops with Lime and Dill; and Caramelized Rice Pudding Scented with Vanilla Bean. Everyday French Cooking also offers a handful of special occasion recipes, including Quick-Roasted Foie Gras with Caramelized Grapes and Roast Rack of Lamb with Spices, Figs, and Honey. The recipes are enhanced with charming full-color illustrations of their key ingredients.Amazon.com Review
Christian Constant is among France's most acclaimed chefs. His Parisian bistro deluxe, Le Violon d'Igres, has earned him Michelin guide plaudits and raves for its sophisticated yet earthy cuisine. Everyday French Cooking, Constant's first American cookbook, celebrates the bold stylishness of his cooking, providing more than 80 recipes for the likes of Cream of Lentil Soup Garnished with Bacon, Croutons, and Chives; Veal Fricassee with Basil; and Crumb-Topped Sea Bass with Sautéed Pears, Lemon Zest, and Baby Spinach Salad. Though a good percentage of the mouthwatering dishes are simple in approach, preparation for all requires attention and time that might belie their "everyday" usefulness. Cooks willing to take the plunge, however, will reward themselves with skill-expanding workouts that delight those they feed.

The book's chapters, which cover appetizers through desserts, are a concise distillation of Constant's art. It's hard to imagine a dinner party that wouldn't benefit from Vegetable Tempura with Soy-Flavored Tartar Sauce or Herb-Crusted Leg of Lamb on White Beans. If Constant likes his foie gras--Carpaccio of Marinated Duck Foie Gras is one of six recipes devoted to that extraordinary (and costly) specialty--he also dotes on homier fare, such as Endive Gratin with Ham and Roasted Baby Scallops with Chive Butter. Similarly, a chapter on one-dish meals presents Grandma's Red-Wine Daub of Beef and French Shepherd's Pie. Sweets, including Lemon Meringue Tart and the astounding Rich Layered Chocolate Tart (chocolate pastry with chocolate sponge, filling, and icing), peak deliciously for themselves. --Arthur Boehm ... Read more

Product Description
All the recipes that Julia Child demonstrated on her first public television series, The French Chef -- the 119 shows that made Julia a household name and changed forever the way Americans cook. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

French Food to Die For
As I said in my review of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, it seems the whole world is into Julia Child's cooking, well at least my cooking friends are anyway. She was a wonderful cook and an engaging personality. I got these two books at an estate sale in Laguna Beach and they have really overwhelmed me. Especially this one. Starting with the cover. Julia Child is so thin and so young. She did French cooking for a long time.

And in this book, which originally came out four years shy of half a century ago, you'll find more delicious recipes than you can shake a stick at and you'll get a little education into the fine art of French cooking. The book starts with a Note on Wine and if you're going to cook and eat French cooking, the wine is important.

This book came out before we were all interested in low fat diets, so don't go looking for a whole gang of low cal meals here, because you won't find them. However, you will find really, really good, delicious and better than scrumptious dining. For us, Hubby Dub and myself, we watch what we eat, well I watch for both of us, five days a week. I try and cook delicious, low fat, meals, so that we stay healthy and live longer.

But two days a week we don't watch our diet at all. We eat what we want and if a recipe calls for heavy cream, I bloody well put it in. This book is great for those two days. If you can't eat like this a couple days a week, then what is the living business all about anyway. Besides if we healthy five-sevenths of the time we're way, way better off then those who don't watch their calories at all. So we don't feel the least bit guilty about indulging our taste buds and stuffing ourselves with food to die for a couple times a week. And that's what you'll find in THE FRENCH CHEF COOKBOOK, food to die for.

I use and love this cookbook!
I bought this little book several years ago. I am not a great cook at all, but I have made several of the dishes including: the exellent beef stew, many of the potato recipies and the great queen of sheba cake, plus others. I have never made anything that has been less than excellent!! Buy this book!

The French Chef Cookbook
Fast delivery, fair price, new condition. Enjoyed the movie so much, when PBS was showing her history I didn't want to move from the TV set, love her personally! Since we now have a new hugh kitchen my husband is letting me do whatever I need it!!! I ordered (3) of her books to my cookbook collection's can't wait...

Surprisingly Appreciated
With some hesitation, I gave this book to my wife as one of her Christmas presents. She had always hated cook books without photos, but she was eager to try some Julia Child recipes. She gobbled up this book - she loved the way it was written, and immediately began trying some of the dishes. We ate really well the first couple of weeks! Of the first 6 things she made, all were very good, and half were outstanding. Who knew it would be a present for me as well?

julia child devotee
julia child is the mother of cooking, and food tv.introduces
new chefs and takes fear out of cooking ... Read more

Product Description
Thomas Keller, chef/proprieter of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley—"the most exciting place to eat in the United States," wrote Ruth Reichl in The New York Times—is a wizard, a purist, a man obsessed with getting it right. And this, his first cookbook, is every bit as satisfying as a French Laundry meal itself: a series of small, impeccable, highly refined, intensely focused courses.

Most dazzling is how simple Keller's methods are: squeegeeing the moisture from the skin on fish so it sautées beautifully; poaching eggs in a deep pot of water for perfect shape; the initial steeping in the shell that makes cooking raw lobster out of the shell a cinch; using vinegar as a flavor enhancer; the repeated washing of bones for stock for the cleanest, clearest tastes.

From innovative soup techniques, to the proper way to cook green vegetables, to secrets of great fish cookery, to the creation of breathtaking desserts; from beurre monté to foie gras au torchon, to a wild and thoroughly unexpected take on coffee and doughnuts, The French Laundry Cookbook captures, through recipes, essays, profiles, and extraordinary photography, one of America's great restaurants, its great chef, and the food that makes both unique.

One hundred and fifty superlative recipes are exact recipes from the French Laundry kitchen—no shortcuts have been taken, no critical steps ignored, all have been thoroughly tested in home kitchens. If you can't get to the French Laundry, you can now re-create at home the very experience the Wine Spectator described as "as close to dining perfection as it gets."Amazon.com Review
To eat at Thomas Keller's Napa Valley restaurant, The FrenchLaundry, is to experience a peak culinary experience. InThe French Laundry Cookbook, Keller articulates his passions and offershome cooks a means to duplicate the level of perfection that makes himone of the best chefs in the U.S. and, arguably, the world.

Thiscookbook provides 150 recipes exactly as they are used at Keller'srestaurant. It is also his culinary manifesto, in which he shares theunique creative processes that led him to invent Peas and Carrots--asucculent pillow of a lobster paired with pea shoots and creamyginger-carrot sauce--and other high-wire culinary acts. It offersunimagined experiences, from extracting chlorophyll to use in coloringsauces to a recipe for chocolate cake accompanied by red beet icecream and a walnut sauce. You are urged to follow Keller's recipesprecisely and also to view them as blueprints. To keep them alive,they must be infused with your own commitment to perfection andpleasure, as you define those terms.

Keller's story, sharedthrough the writing of MichaelRuhlman, shows how this chef was both born and made. After winningrave reviews when he was still in his 20s, it took a more experiencedchef throwing a knife at him because he did not know how to truss achicken to open his eyes to the importance of the discipline andtechniques of classical French cooking. To acquire these fundamentalskills, he apprenticed at eight of the finest restaurants inFrance.

Grounded in classic technique, Keller's cooking ischaracterized by traditional marriages of ingredients, assembled inbreathtakingly daring new ways, such as Pearls and Oyster, glisteningcaviar and oysters served on a bed of creamy pearltapioca. Continually piquing the palate, his meals are a procession of5 to 10 dishes, all small portions vibrantly composed. For example,Pan Roasted Breast of Squab with Swiss Chard, Seared Foie Gras, andOven-Dried Black Figs require just three birds to serve six. Theresult: you are never sated, always stimulated.

The 200 photographsby Deborah Jones include more than just beauty shots: they show howto prepare various dishes; how Keller, shown stroking a whole salmon,respects his ingredients; and how the perfection of baby fava beansstill nestled in the downy lining of their succulent pod, or theseduction of an abundance of fresh caviar, calls out the best from thechef. --Dana Jacobi ... Read more

Customer Reviews (121)

Challenge for a cook
This book will be a challenge to any cook who wants to aspire to much more than merely re-creating good recipes. It was written for serious and aspiring chefs and cooking school students as well as the home cook. Kevin Gillespie, runner in Season 6 of Top Chef, stated that the "French Laundry" changed his life. Because home cooks are not professional, it probably will not be life changing but it does offer a new and unique perspective on cooking and presentation. Read the book and be prepared for a new way of looking at food.

The Genius of Thomas Keller
Thomas Keller is the number onechef in this country.Having had the experience of eating at French Laundry and, myself, graduating from Cordon Bleu, this book could not be better.The recipes are wonderous and the photography is amazing.NOT a book for beginners!But hell, after you've mastered the kitchen reward yourself with this book!

This is one day going to be remembered as one of the most inspiring cookbook.
This is the first cookbook I received as my birthday gift and first cookbook I own. My best friend/a woman I love gave it to me in 2000.

"When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about." is my all time favorite food quote. I go back and just look at it again and again and be inspired by.

This is the cookbook which has most influence in my food/cooking career. Thomas Keller will be remembered as the greatest and most influential American chef in USA for his role of mentoring many young chefs.

Great Book
This book is changing the way I cook.Very complex recipies, but the techniques are easily adaptable to your needs.Loved the book so much that I ordered another one as a gift.

Thomas Keller, enough said!!
TK just takes things to another level, but do not let the book intimidate you!! this is a GREAT price, so get it before it goes up!! ... Read more