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Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery

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Presented for the first time to the English-speaking public, here is the entire translation of Auguste Escoffier's masterpiece Le Guide Culinaire . Its basic principles are as valid today as when it was first published in 1903. It offers those who practice the art of cookery—whether they be professional chefs or managers, housewives, gourmets or students of haute cuisine—invaluable guidelines culled from more than fifty years' experience.

646 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1921

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H. L. Cracknell

7 books1 follower

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5 stars
844 (58%)
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364 (25%)
3 stars
181 (12%)
2 stars
37 (2%)
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25 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
Profile Image for Stephen.
Author 2 books14 followers
May 6, 2013
Every lawyer must read Holmes' The Common Law. Every doctor must read the Corpus Hippocraticum. Every priest must read Aquinas' Summa Theologica. So it is that every serious cook should read Escoffier. The author did not write this magnum opus with the home cook in mind; it was written for cooking professionals and therefor omits much of the instruction necessary to a mass-market cookbook in the 21st Century. His goal was to organize and simplify the classic French cooking of Antoine Carême, who he regarded as a master of haute cuisine. The result is useful in varying ways. It contains many recipes which the modern cook will not attempt; he assumes that one has unlimited supplies of truffles and fois gras at hand. His recipe for turtle soup includes detailed instructions on how to kill the turtle and get it out of its shell. The techniques were written down before the invention of the blender, the food processor and the convection oven; they need to be adjusted accordingly. His measurements vary from finicky precise to opaquely vague: exactly 9/10 of a pint of this and "a glassful" of that; exactly 207 degrees Fahrenheit and the temperature of a "warm oven." But it is all Escoffier, who came down from the mountaintop bearing nearly a thousand pages of culinary commandments. I thought it would take a year to read them all; the task was accomplished in only ten months. They were ten months well spent.
Profile Image for Larry.
119 reviews
March 23, 2014
After 6000 hours in a Chef Apprenticeship, I can still recite most of the recipes in this book. Over the years I have come to appreciate this training more so than when I was a young chef (who thought he was much better than he was!) and I now realize the importance of excellence in every endeavor. That is what this book is about, you need to learn the proper way to do things before you explore, deconstruct and critic.
Profile Image for John Sgammato.
67 reviews1 follower
September 30, 2019
The recipes in this tome can be infuriating, and they assume experience in a large hotel kitchen of over a century ago...but it's an excellent source of inspiration. I come back to this again and again when I plan fancy parties or just for fun.
Profile Image for Laura.
10 reviews
March 4, 2011
"The Escoffier Cookbook" is a heavily abridged American version of Auguste Escoffier's 1903 book "Guide Culinaire". It is a fascinating look at the art of professional European cookery at the beginning of the 20th century.
However, to appreciate this book fully, it's important to understand exactly who it was written for. Escoffier's original guide was never for a second intended for the home cook. Escoffier was a pioneer with respect to the education of professional chefs, and originally wrote this book for the use of those working in grand houses, in hotels, on ocean liners, and in restaurants who might not have had access to contemporary recipes. Accordingly, the original book does not attempt to teach basic cooking or food preparation techniques. The American translation does include some details on cooking techniques and utensils unfamiliar to the average American chef (such as poeleing, worth the cost of the book alone, and the old French form of braising), but even in the translation it is assumed that the reader is a trained, experienced chef.
The recipes themselves are clear and simple to follow, but represent only a small subset of French cooking of the early 20th century. An earlier reviewer mentioned that there was no recipe for onion soup; this is true, but it should be understood that onion soup would never have been accepted by the class of restaurant patron Escoffier cooked for. Much of what has arrived on this side of the Atlantic as "French cooking" - dishes such as pot-au-feu, onion soup, and steak frites - is distinctly middle-class, and consequently would have been rejected by the clientele of quality restaurants of the time as being unspeakably boorish. Escoffier personally enjoyed bourgeois cooking, but as an astute, intelligent businessman he provided the haute cuisine his clients demanded.
One interesting difference between modern cooking and the cooking featured in this book is that Escoffier uses few spices, and indeed declaims on the foolishness of using large amounts of spices in meat dishes. This appears bizarre from our vantage point, but Escoffier had sound economic reasons for his proscriptions. Most diners of the time grew up in the days before refrigeration, when old deteriorating meat was heavily spiced to make it palatable. Fresh, unspiced meat was a sign of the highest quality. The association between strong spices and poor quality was powerful enough to survive long into the 20th century, as any reader of a 1950s American cookbook can attest.
As for the recipes themselves, I doubt that many of them could be prepared by the North American home cook. Most of us cannot afford (if we can even find) foie gras, truffles, or capons, and few have espagnole sauce or fish fumet available at all times. However, many recipes can be adapted for the modern cook - using cepes or porcini mushrooms for truffles, for instance - and those that can be prepared really are delicious.
Profile Image for Steven Peterson.
Author 19 books307 followers
June 6, 2011
Wonderfully enjoyable. . . . A foreword by Heston Blumenthal puts this edition in context: "[Escoffier] said he wanted the book to be 'a useful tool rather than just a recipe book,' and that's exactly what it is." Another nice grace note--a very brief biography of Escoffier on pages xx-xxii by his grandson Pierre P. Escoffier.

While Escoffier may have said that this is not a recipe book, the recipes are delightfully straightforward. I have made Cerise jubilee any number of times. His description of how to make this is one of the shortest and most direct. That impressed me!

To the extent that it is relevant, the chapters are organized by various obvious categories: sauces, garnishes, soups, hors-d'oeuvre, eggs, fish, butchers' meat, poultry, game, composite entrees, roasts, vegetables, sweets and desserts, ices, sandwiches, and fruits, jams, and drinks. Covering the waterfront, in short.

Each section, of course, features many recipes. But the short introductory comments are also worthy of note. Here, Escoffier provides general statements about how to approach matters. Sauces? He speaks of basic preparations, such as stocks, glazes, mirepoix, and so on. Back to basics. Then, some general principles on preparing sauces. In short, one gains his perspective on sauces before actually exploring individual recipes.

All in all, a most enjoyable volume for an amateur cook like me.
Profile Image for Mary.
157 reviews5 followers
June 14, 2020
Good book for all culinarians but I understand why it was added to Audible’s sleep selection. Nothing quite like listening to Curtis Stone reading recipes to knock you out.
Profile Image for Catherine Puma.
477 reviews19 followers
October 3, 2020
This audio production has professional chef Curtis Stone reading a guide to French cooking as a bed time story. Which this is calming in parts, you can really tell that Curtis Stone was just reading what was in front of him, like he hadn't read his material over and over again to practice the narration. I understand that he is not a professional narrator, but I think the production choice of just getting a professional chef to read us a glorified French cookbook was a poor choice that lead to a less quality product.

Much of the content is interesting, with some helpful tips for what kind of meat to use when making stock, for instance. However, there isn't much indication from the audio description that this is going to be JUST about French cooking, until one starts to actually listen to it. While French cuisine can be tasty, I extremely disagree that French cooking is the epitome of fine dining and therefore be the standard to which all professional chefs aspire to excel in. There are SO many other flavors and ingredients in the world to enjoy! Not ONE fruit is mentioned.

*sigh* Not EVERY dish has to have a stock in order to be worthwhile for consumption. I can see many enjoying this, especially if French food is they're favorite or something. However, for me personally, I felt like I was expecting a celebration of food in general instead of something so narrow minded and judgey.
Profile Image for Virna.
3,174 reviews4 followers
August 4, 2020
I enjoyed listening to this audiobook at knight .
Profile Image for Steven.
Author 7 books30 followers
May 27, 2021
What an odd choice for a meditation-to-sleep recitation, and what an odd choice for narrator.
87 reviews
January 4, 2010
An encyclopedic French/English cookbook from the turn of the century. Interesting historical detail aplenty buried amongst the oysters and braised endive. Cooking methods at the turn of the century were much less, well, cookbook than they are now; a cook had to know how to manipulate the fire and the materials. That's still true at a high level of proficiency, of course, but the mass-market cookbooks we're used to no longer operate that way.

A word of warning--if you don't eat bacon, this book will be of limited usefulness. At least 75% of the savory recipes contain bacon. Meatloaf (forcemeat) is another staple. As disgusting as it is to grind meat now...imagine forcing it through a sieve by hand all day as the forcemeat-maker. Apparently this was such an art form that there was a guild devoted to the making of it in France. Thank you, wikipedia.

That said, I really enjoyed reading this giant tome and found it rather useful, because Monsieur Escoffier didn't feel the need to put flour in every dang dish. Just bacon.
Profile Image for Alyson.
14 reviews
Read
February 11, 2009
Mission: Read a cookbook with no pictures that requires heavy use of glossary. Done and Done. But who can make a Peach Melba the old fashioned way? Me. It's so like me to start with the desserts. I'll learn to make game stock and bechamel later...
Profile Image for Dan Anthony.
7 reviews5 followers
May 26, 2011
THE definitive cookbook. Not read fully, but skimmed, marveling at the quantities of meat put into good sauces. Worth reading to understand the exact basis of french cuisine, and then the commercial art of cooking.
Profile Image for Jenn Vega.
Author 3 books17 followers
February 11, 2013
I read through this like it was Jane Austen. I spent the first run through circling recipes that I thought I could pull off on a normal grocery budget (because who can afford to throw truffles into everything?). My second read will be in the kitchen, I can't wait.
Profile Image for Tracy.
Author 2 books18 followers
December 27, 2013
Serious, heavy-weight reference for old-school professional French cooking. Novice cooks might find it intimidating, in the same way novice readers could find Tolstoy's War and Peace overwhelming.
Profile Image for Alissa.
64 reviews
January 14, 2008
im continually strolling through this book for some sort of inspiration or a laugh.
it's a classic. you know.
Profile Image for Alissa.
64 reviews
January 15, 2008
yeah yeah yeah, i know. Two from escoffier?! I went to a french culinary school. Give me a friggen break! plus between my chef (chris) and i we have both. YEAH.
Profile Image for Heather.
176 reviews20 followers
March 27, 2008
Another indispensable cooking reference. You need this book if you love to cook!
11 reviews
May 15, 2009
Seriously, it's a book to read and study. I love that this book already assumes you know how to cook and that it was originally written for professionals.
Profile Image for Peter.
18 reviews
May 5, 2009
Just got this from Powells. Very exciting.
Profile Image for Beau.
7 reviews1 follower
February 24, 2010
Ongoing interesting reading... seeing into the mind of the absolute culinary idealist!!! INSPIRING
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews

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