| Product Summary | | Format: Hardcover | | ISBN: 9780375413407 | | Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf | | Publish Date: 10/1/2001 | | Buy.com Sku: 30802000 | | Item#: RCRPXP | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 66940 | | Dimensions (in Inches) 10.25H x 7.25L x 1.75T | | Pages: 752 | | Edition Number: 40 |
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| | | | For this special edition, Julia Child has written a new Introduction that recalls the nascent food scene in America at the time of the book's original publication. Forty years ago, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" ignited America's passion for good food, and brought that food into our homes. 100 illustrations.
“Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere,” wrote Mesdames Beck, Bertholle, and Child, “with the right instruction.” And here is the book that, for forty years, has been teaching Americans how.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for both seasoned cooks and beginners who love good food and long to reproduce at home the savory delights of the classic cuisine, from the historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. This beautiful book, with more than one hundred instructive illustrations, is revolutionary in its approach because:
- It leads the cook infallibly from the buying and handling of raw ingredients, through each essential step of a recipe, to the final creation of a delicate confection.
- It breaks down the classic cuisine into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of recipes; the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations—bound to increase anyone’s culinary repertoire.
- It adapts classical techniques, wherever possible, to modern American conveniences.
- It shows Americans how to buy products, from any supermarket in the U.S.A., that reproduce the exact taste and texture of the French ingredients: equivalent meat cuts, for example; the right beans for a cassoulet; the appropriate fish and shellfish for a bouillabaisse.
- It offers suggestions for just the right accompaniment to each dish, including proper wines.
Since there has never been abook as instructive and as workable as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the techniques learned here can be applied to recipes in all other French cookbooks, making them infinitely more usable. In compiling the secrets of famous cordons bleus, the authors have produced a magnificent volume that is sure to find the place of honor in every kitchen in America.
Annotation:
Julia Child's masterwork--one of the most popular and influential cookbooks ever published--introduced French cooking to millions of home cooks during the 1960s and '70s. Among the recipes she includes, mainly traditional but occasionally moderately innovative, are Courgettes en Pistouille, Gnocchi Gratinés au Fromage, Pain Lous XV, Provençal Soup au Pistou, Cassoulet, Brussels Sprouts Braised with Chestnuts, Echalotes, Gateau a l'Orange, Paté à Choux, Raspberry Mousse, and Molded Pudding à l'Imperatrice.
| PraiseTime
"[It] is still regarded as the definitive English-language work on classic French cuisine." - Michael Demarest 04/18/83Detroit News
"Today, when a young person asks me what cookbook is indispensable, I mention these two volumes without hesitation. They are not only great teaching guides, they are cultural guides to the cuisine that has long been considered the greatest in the world." - Martha Stewart 02/26/1986 |
| Author Bio| Julia Child | | The world-renowned chef Julia Child did not start cooking until she was in her 30s, discovering French cuisine several years later, when her husband Paul Child, a foreign service officer, was reassigned to Paris, where she began taking classes at the Cordon Bleu cooking school. "I'd been looking for my life's work all along," she said of this experience. "And when I got into cooking I found it." During her Paris years, she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, her future collaborators on the influential two-volume MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING. In the 1960s and '70s, Child launched the American craze for good cooking, primarily through her TV program, THE FRENCH CHEF. She was 6'2", hefty, and famously messy in the kitchen; her droll, comfortable persona, and the casualness with which she imparted the techniques of French cuisine, took the mystery out of the subject, and her admirers numbered in the millions. She was the author of numerous books on all aspects of cooking; she also hosted many other television shows, collaborated with celebrated chefs, and over a long career held onto her position as America's favorite cook. In 2000, she was awarded a medal of the Legion of Honor by the French government. In 2001, she moved from Cambridge, her longtime home, to California--for the weather, she said. Julia Child died in her sleep at the age of 92, in an assisted living facility north of Los Angeles. A posthumously published autobiography, MY LIFE IN FRANCE, shared how her love of French food transformed into a trend-setting career. |
| | Read A Chapter | Clafouti (Cherry Flan)
The clafouti (also spelled with a final "s" in both singular and plural) which is traditional in the Limousin during the cherry season is peasant cooking for family meals, and about as simple a dessert to make as you can imagine: a pancake batter poured over fruit in a fireproof dish, then baked in the oven. It looks like a tart, and is usually eaten warm.
(If you have no electric blender, work the eggs into the flour with a wooden spoon, gradually beat in the liquids, then strain the batter through a fine sieve.)
3 cups pitted black cherries
1 1/4 cups milk
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
Powdered sugar in a shaker
For 6 to 8 people
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Use fresh, black, sweet cherries in season. Otherwise use drained, canned, pitted Bing cherries, or frozen sweet cherries, thawed Click to read more... Clafouti (Cherry Flan) The clafouti (also spelled with a final "s" in both singular and plural) which is traditional in the Limousin during the cherry season is peasant cooking for family meals, and about as simple a dessert to make as you can imagine: a pancake batter poured over fruit in a fireproof dish, then baked in the oven. It looks like a tart, and is usually eaten warm. (If you have no electric blender, work the eggs into the flour with a wooden spoon, gradually beat in the liquids, then strain the batter through a fine sieve.)3 cups pitted black cherries 1 1/4 cups milk 2/3 cup granulated sugar 3 eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup flour Powdered sugar in a shaker For 6 to 8 people Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use fresh, black, sweet cherries in season. Otherwise use drained, canned, pitted Bing cherries, or frozen sweet cherries, thawed and drained. Place the milk, 1/3 cup sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, salt, and flour in your blender jar in the order in which they are listed. Cover and blend at top speed for 1 minute. Pour a 1/4-inch layer of batter in a 7- to 8-cup buttered, fireproof baking dish or pyrex pie plate about 1 1/2 inches deep. Set over moderate heat for a minute or two until a film of batter has set in the bottom of the dish. Remove from the heat. Spread the cherries over the batter and sprinkle on the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar. Pour on the rest of the batter and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Place in middle position of preheated oven and bake for about an hour. The clafouti is done when it has puffed and browned, and a needle or knife plunged into its center comes out clean. Sprinkle top of clafouti with powdered sugar just before bringing it to the table. (The clafouti need not be served hot, but should still be warm. It will sink down slightly as it cools.) Continues...
Excerpted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I by Julia Child Copyright © 2001 by Julia Child. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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