Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques : Featuring More Than 1,000 Cooking Methods and Recipes, in Thousands of Step-by-Step Photographs

`Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques' may be one of the landmark works signaling the beginning of the Renaissance of American culinary practice. This volume, published in 2001, is an omnibus of two earlier works, `La Technique' published in 1976 and `La Methode' published in 1979, just as Pepin was changing his career from leading French chef to culinary writer and educator. These will probably always stand as his most important... Read Full Review

I just bought several cookbooks that espouse to teach one how to cook rather than simply supplying recipes. I will compare the others to this one, but let me start out by saying that this book is my favorite. Although I agree with other reviewers that the black-and-white photos are a serious flaw, I still gave it 5 stars because of the sheer comprehensiveness and imagination of the techniques and the recipes. It far outstrips... Read Full Review

Finally! The excellent and extremely clear and well written collection of techniques assembled by Jacques Pepin, one of the most knowledgeable and well respected chefs in the world, have been published in a reasonably priced, paperback book. If you are lucky enough to own Pepin's original hardcover books La Methode and La Technique, you already know how excellent the information is in these books. It is concise, practical,... Read Full Review

If you've ever seen Monsieur Pepin on television, you know he is charming and clear, and a wonderful teacher. These qualities come through in this volume, a combined reissue of two classics from the '70s which have been out-of-print: La Methode and La Technique.After a short section on equipment, there are seven longer sections (with a varying number of techniques): The Basics (70), Shellfish and Fish (33), Vegetables (39),... Read Full Review

"La Technique" by Jacques Pépin rates as about the best book on cooking technique ever written. I have a set of the videos from Chef Pépin's shows on PBS that are based on this book, but I did not have my own copy of "La Technique" until now because this excellent book has been out of print and unavailable for some time. It has good illustrations and explanations of all the basic techniques necessary for prep work and cooking... Read Full Review