J.Pepin's Art Cookg-V1

When I look at this book, I am reminded of elaborate 19th century French Cooking. Some of the techniques might be useful for the home cook but most of the procedures and ingredients are elaborate and/or unavailable. How many of us have access to a dozen kinds of specialty fish, game, veal, even innards? He looks very young in his photo so I am guess this is a much older book, copyright 1987. If you want to try to become a French chef in the style of an elite French restaurant or are nostalgic for an older, more elaborate style of food, then you might enjoy this book. As much as I like Pepin, this is not for me.

As we try to cook clean food and move away from adulterated processed food, Jacques Pepin's secrets come in handy! He tells you how to easily make better for cheaper, and all of it as clean as you wish.

Note: this book is only part 1 of a 2 volume set. You should purchase both at the same time, so I will review both together as if they were one big book. Are you a prospective culinary professional who wants to learn the necessary skills, or who wants to know if you have what it takes? Are you a home cook who wishes to advance to the ranks of amateur chef to dazzle that next dinner party? Then this book is for you. The emphasis in this book is learning and teaching. Despite the popularity of the Food Network and the number of people who want to become cooks and chefs, there are precious few books that will teach you how, and even this book is copyright 1987. There are no other cookbooks I can think of that will teach you how to cook in such detail and with such patience. Note that this book is not for absolute beginners; you should already know your way around a chef's knife and sauté pan. The format of this book is rigid and consistent throughout. Each recipe is complete unto itself. That is, they always include accompaniments, side dishes, decoration, and plating presentation. All steps and components are explained in detail; it is not unusual for a recipe to occupy 3 pages with lots of color plates and complete steps and explanations at each and every step. Here, nothing is left to chance or assumption. To quote the dust jacket: `The recipes in this book have been designed to demonstrate important cooking techniques', and the author has succeeded in spades. This 2 volume set is an entire cooking course all by itself. It is hard to imagine the dedicated reader not learning how to become a good cook after cooking his way through these 2 books. Even if you are a professional with some culinary experience, working through some of the less common recipes will be a learning experience for you. Some of the more enlightening things I found: cleaning fresh eel, clam seviche, curing salami and ham, truffles, caviar, deep fried eggs, the authoritative guide to omelets, cleaning a ray, skinning and eviscerating a freshly killed rabbit, cleaning an entire saddle of lamb, what to do with an entire baby lamb, blood sausage. It is divided up into the usual chapters. Volume 1 has stock, eggs, seafood, poultry, and meat; volume 2 encompasses garde manger, bread, pastry, and desserts.

This work was split by the publisher into two separately bound parts, due to size: Volume I: Stocks, soups, eggs, shellfish and fish, poultry, game and meat. Volume II: Charcuterie and salads, breads, pastries, cakes, and other desserts. The combined work is widely considered to be Jacques Pepin's culinary masterwork. This is a rock solid instructional book (published in 2 parts due to size) that's lavishly photographed with full color procedural photos demonstrating a wide assortment of classical culinary techniques. There's something in these books for cooks of every level of experience ... both for elite professional chefs for whom classic sauces and dramatic garnishes are vital pips to have on one's lapel, as well as for rustic home-cooks like me who wish to expand their repertoire of skills. That aside, let me jump right into the book's strengths, along with a few mixed marks and personal nits. Strengths: ¨ Encyclopedic Scope: There's a broad wealth of expert techniques in just about every category of the culinary arts ... meat, fish, poultry, charcuterie, vegetables, baking, basic butchery, even infused sprits, and cleaning game birds and rabbits. The core culinary ethnicity of this work is primarily Classic French, followed in descending order of focus, by American, British, and Italian. ¨ Procedural photos: The principal focus of this book was instructional, and the author's commitment to that shines though, as both volumes together include roughly 1,300 helpful color photos. I'd have liked to see some better proportional sizing of some of the photos covering more visually complicated steps (which aren't done adequate justice in small photos), but overall this book is a substantial leap beyond nearly all comparable books. I've seen too many books relying on clueless hand models & food photographers, and having a book in which a master chef does ALL the procedural photo work is a welcome change. ¨ Section indices: I'm glad to see that the author included recipe indexes at the front of each chapter. Minor Nit: Their right margin is pulled in too far, causing many of the titles to wrap around ... which makes it harder to read at a glance. ¨ Rear index: Each column of the index in the back has top-level continuations up top (ex: "Oysters {cont'd}"), so that you don't have to waste time scrolling back and forth to figure out what sub-item you opened to. Mixed Marks: ¨ Cooking Time/Temp: I am very grateful that the author shares my disdain for the dreadfully overprotective USDA doneness charts for red meat, and I am in awe of how consistently all the meat in his photos is always perfectly rosy rare and perfectly rested for maximum juiciness. However, the author is very inconsistent in mentioning what the correct target doneness temperatures actually are - he clearly knows them, but his books often neglect to mention them. All too often, his recipes only mention how long to cook something, and at what temperature, and how lo