The French Menu Cookbook

Others here have written lengthy and lyrical paeans to this book, so I will try to be brief. It is a masterful book, no doubt about it. Originally published in 1970, "The French Menu Cookbook" reflects a level of sophistication -- and of authentic French sensibility -- that could not be found anywhere else, "Mastering the Art" included, back in the day. Many of the seasonal menus are precisely what one would have at a family... Read Full Review

Richard Olney is one of the main voices for French cuisine in the English-speaking world, and yet this book also goes beyond the basics of French cooking and reintroduces to the American public concepts of eating by season and constructing menus based on each dish's impact on the palette, contrasting and matching flavors and textures. In fact, the chapters at the beginning in which Olney simply introduces these ideas, giving... Read Full Review

This book is a great addition to Olney's classic Simple French Food.

Looking back to 1970, the year this book was first published, puts its sophistications in context and underscores the enormity of its contributions. America was deep in culinary ignorance, eating out of cans and supplementing that metal-tinged blandness with gut-busting mountains of artificial 'foods'. America was lost somehwere between the post-war meat-and-potatoes era and the chemical concoctions of the 80s and beyond... Read Full Review