Product Description

One of the first and most important—and most successful—cookbooks by America's beloved Julia Child. Using a very accessible approach to French cooking from an American point of view, here are recipes and techniques for the beginner as well as the more advanced cook, using easily available ingredients for everything from soups and appetizers to dessert. Black and white line art and photographs throughout.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #325378 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-12
• Released on: 1999-10-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 736 pages

Inside Flap Copy
One of the first and most important?and most successful?cookbooks by America's beloved Julia Child. Using a very accessible approach to French cooking from an American point of view, here are recipes and techniques for the beginner as well as the more advanced cook, using easily available ingredients for everything from soups and appetizers to dessert. Black and white line art and photographs throughout.

Customer Reviews

Probably Julia's Masterpiece
Those interested in cooking à la Julia usually make their way to Mastering I and/or II, fine volumes both, but there is good reason to choose this volume instead. In my opinion it should be considered Julia's finest achievement as a cookbook author, and if I could have only one book in my kitchen, this would be it. It is a superb teaching volume and ideal for beginning home cooks, but even those with experience would benefit from owning it.

This is the first book that Julia developed and wrote entirely herself, and for that reason it is quite a bit more individual than its predecessors. In her autobiography "My Life in France" she describes it as both the hardest and most rewarding project of her career. Unlike the Mastering volumes, which were meant to be practical textbooks on French cooking, this book is much more wide-ranging and exploratory, with Julia trying out everything from pizza to curried dinners to hard boiled eggs to Christmas fruitcake. It's like a snapshot of how she cooked in the early 1970s. By then she had worked through some fundamental recipes for almost two decades and solved many problems still unsettled in Mastering I, which means that the versions of them published here often contain small but vital improvements. An example occurs in the very first recipe, for Potage Parmentier, that most basic and delicious of soups. Julia adds a simple flour thickener as a liaison, which adds a step, but in my experience it results in a better-textured and nicer-tasting finished product than one gets with her earlier versions of this recipe. Not only that, but following it gives you a little lesson on thickeners, which you can then apply elsewhere. The book is filled with little touches like that. I adore her way with chicken in this book; most of the recipes are simpler than those in Mastering I and II, but always delicious. The beef chapter is superb and I have become known as a great cook by serving this version of her Boeuf Bourguignon. I have also made the best puff pastry of my life by following this book's instructions, and Julia's chocolate mousse--well, it's like a dream come true! I've probably cooked three-quarters of the recipes in this book and am always impressed, and I learn something every time I cook with it.

Of all her books, this is the one in which Julia's personal culinary preferences and predilections come through most clearly. There is quite a bit of editorializing before and between recipes, and from these mini-essays you get a sharp sense of what she valued in food. This book should be seen as a summary Julia Child's achievement, culminating the work of her earlier publications. Her later books, while worthwhile, do not add much to the picture that doesn't already receive treatment here.

I cannot recommend this book enthusiastically enough. Try to get one of the 1970s printings if you can, since they are of fine quality, unlike the 90s-era reprinting.

Not Fancy, But Great for Good Cooking
This cookbook does not have all the fancy pictures that many today have, but it has great instructions and information. I made the best potato soup I've ever had following her recipe. Julia does not just give a plain recipe, but offers additional information so you know why you're following the steps she lays out. She also gives alternatives one can use, which allows me to feel more creative and inventive. We've only scratched the surface of all the book offers, but my husband and I reach for it again and again.

From Julia Child's Kitchen
In actual fact, this is Volume III of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I am extremely grateful to get it. The first two volumes are works of tremendous importance in our culinary history and while my experience of Volume three is only just beginning, I am looking forward with great anticipation to working through many of the recipes. If you like, contact me in six months and I will tell you how I'm getting along.