Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85468 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Even if readers have never set foot in Montreal's Au Pied Du Cochon, known for its rustic and decadent comfort foods, a few minutes with this extraordinary book will give them an intimate feel for the place, its colorful owner and its wild charm. Bursting with photos and irreverent, whimsical cartoons, owner Picard and designer Tom Tassel bring the bustling restaurant to life, showcasing decadent dishes like Cipaille, a baked pie stuffed with a hare, duck, beef marrow, quail, pork shanks and a medley of spices, one of the establishment's specialties. An unabashed love of foie gras results in decadent takes on pizza, burgers, hot dogs and sushi, as well as the rich Foie Gras Poutine for which Picard is known. Picard estimates that Cochon goes through two pigs a week, and he puts the entire animal to use, from Beans and Meatballs (which incorporates piglet heads) to Stuffed Pig Stomach to multiple takes on pig feet. While most home cooks won't have the wherewithal to recreate many of these dishes, knowing the steps are sure to deepen their appreciation for Picard's technique and detail. He generously gives credit to his influences, sharing the spotlight with fellow restaurateurs, meat and seafood purveyors, and his staff. The feeling is welcoming and occasionally conspiratorial, as wild illustrations juxtapose the diners' Dionysian pleasures with caricatures of animals' violent ends. In all, it provides a madcap sense of Picard's approach to dining and life, a warm and telling portrait of a unique restaurateur and his one-of-a-kind establishment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon has earned a remarkable reputation as one of North America’s great bastions of carnivorism. Drawing customers from far beyond Quebec’s frontiers, Chef Picard’s Rabelaisian menu features not just the pig’s foot of its name but most of the rest of the tasty beast. Not content with the richness of the pig alone, Picard uses foie gras in many recipes to enhance the meat’s already intense flavors and textures. Even the common hamburger ascends to royal status enrobed with slabs of foie gras. Picard’s mashed potatoes, enriched by beating in quantities of cheese curds, accompany many of his meat dishes. To diners’ awe and delight, fresh seafood from nearby North Atlantic fishing grounds appears on tiered platters. Game recipes feature photographs of the chef at hunt. Stunning graphic design and full-color photographs turn this oversized tome into archetypal food porn. --Mark Knoblauch

Review
"...a publishing phenomenon...an unconventional cookbook ...cartoons that are more Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers than Food Network...But it's a serious cookbook, full of professional insights." -- The New York Times

"Au Pied de Cochon," is not a book, exactly, but an "album"...There is no cookbook like it, because its aim is to represent--with cartoons and wacky biographical sketches of suppliers and step-by-step picture instructions of one improbably meaty, glisteningly unctuous dish after another--the buzz and magic and self-destructive aura of a restaurant that is like no other. You look at the menu and think, You don't go there to eat; you go there to die." -- Bill Buford, in The New Yorker

"Au Pied de Cochon: The Album is a testament to the remarkable culture that has been generated over the last five years by Picard ...[The book] is irreverent, even anarchic at times - it's also terribly funny, filled with the humor that is the key to Quebec's unique joie de vivre - yet it remains cohesive and even compelling because it has somehow managed to capture the spirit of Au Pied de Cochon in all its earthy glory." -- Gourmet Magazine

"Martin Picard is absolutely a Monster of Rock and Roll--a new hero. Au Pied Cochon's defiantly over-the-top sugar shack/ old school ode to excess is reason alone to jump on a plane in NY or LA and fly to Montreal. And that Poutine with Foie sh--? The very idea of which offended? It breaks every known standard of decency and common practice. And I loved it." -- Anthony Bourdain

"a gorgeous large-format paperback version, and even though we might never venture pickled venison tongue or "Beans and Meatballs" ("Using a saw, cut the top of the piglet skulls to remove the brains"), this is one piggy who's found a permanent home on our kitchen shelf." -- The Book Bench, A New Yorker Blog

Customer Reviews

Foie gras to the masses!
From one of the great chef of this generation, we finally have a first cookbook. Perhaps more a coffee table book or a promotional artefact for the restaurant than a true cookbook, this book remains an extaordinary read. It features all the foie gras recipes that make the fame of au Pied de Cochon and is admirably illustrated and designed. The English and French version differs in that the English version does not include the comic strip (not a great loss). The version I got came with a DVD which is woth listening to... try to get a version with the DVD if you can.

Great Tribute
I'm a big fan of this book. While many of the recipes are difficult to recreate, why would we want to go to a restaurant that had easy recipes? As 'restaurant books' go this is a wonderful tribute with great art work. It's a wonderful conversation piece to have in any foodie's collection. Great gift!

Proof that Pigfoot Exists!
Brilliant - not that it's amazingly writtent, but it's engaging, and by the time I was done reading it, not only did I have a clear sense of both chef and restaurant, but I was ready to hop on a plane, fly to Montreal, and eat, eat, eat! The recipes are, while involved, reasonably clearly written for someone with good kitchen skills, though definitely beyond beginner level.