On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals [With CDROM]

This was my first textbook at culinary school and it is by far the most comprehensive collection of culinary information I have ever come across. It references everything from Nutrition to proper knife care, from meat cuts to the proper way for handling an array of ingredients. If you are serious about cooking, you will find the answers to all of your questions within this book, not to mention a great collection of recipes from restaurants around the US.

Simply put, this is the most valuable resource you can have in your kitchen. It covers all bases, from scrambling an egg to duck pate to plating techniques. The only issue some may have is that all recipe ingredients are listed in weight, but the investment in a kitchen scale is well worth it. I became acquainted with this text from a culinary course, and I have used it again and again and again.

I view this book as one of the essential resource books any serious cook should have. If I had named it, I would have called the book "On Food" because it is not just about cooking food, it actually gives you encyclopedia type entries to describe an enormous number of items in each chapter (e.g. fish, vegetables, meats). It will tell you where your food came from, in which seasons it is freshest, how best to prepare it and will follow each of these up with a number of recipes. Do not look to this book to be a cookbook, though. Is is more important to view the book as a resource to help you figure out the best types of preparations for that item you found at the market but have never used before. It is a great tool to just sit down and learn about cuts of beef and why some parts of the animal are great for one type of preparation versus another. That said, there are recipes and they are good, but to focus on them would be to overlook all of the education you can get from this book. This is used as a textbook in cooking schools, and the set-up is like a textbook, but a lot more interesting than the ones you had in college or high school because you can eat after you learn.