 | Larousse Gastronomique by Larousse Gastronomique
Buy new: $53.55 / Used from: $42.28 A feast of chauvinism and orthodoxy. A lifetime's study. The bible.
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 | On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $21.35 An amazing compendium of the science of cooking, for when a recipe just isn't enough. Also very entertaining. One of my favorite books in the world.
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 | La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Original Companion for French Home Cooking
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $16.43 The farmhouse Larousse: informative, simple, practical, surprisingly uselful.
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 | La Varenne Pratique by Anne Willan
Buy used from: $1,457.99 Complements the Larousse very nicely. Where the Larousse is arch and theoretical and historical, la Varenne is clear, practical, and usable. Cooking school in a book.
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 | The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson
Buy used from: $7.76 Not strictly French, but full of information in humorous, lucid writing. Penguins are edible.
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 | Larousse Encyclopedia of Wine by Christopher Foulkes
Buy new: $29.70 / Used from: $15.00 The best overview of wine I know. Contains a very good compact section on food and wine matching.
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 | The Oxford Companion to Wine
Buy used from: $13.73 Better written and edited that the Larousse Wine, maybe not as thorough. The two books complement each other nicely. Nice sections on Burgundy and Champagne.
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 | Michel Roux Sauces by Michel Roux
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $18.50 Probably the best modern guide to basic saucemaking: the recipes are clear, simple, and beautifully illustrated, often step-by-step. Some of the sauces are classic, most are lighter.
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 | The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $7.95 Not really a reference book. I include it because of it's mastery of seasonal ingredients, coursing, and wine pairing, the three bugbears of meal planning.
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 | The Wines of the Northern Rhône by John Livingstone-Learmonth
Buy new: $41.30 / Used from: $29.95 A very specific reference, but I include it as the very best example of what I think a wine book should be: deep, passionate, anecdotal, food-centered, and detailed.
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 | The Cooking of Southwest France : Recipes from France's Magnificent Rustic Cuisine by Paula Wolfert
Buy new: $24.75 / Used from: $19.98 Actually covers about a fifth of France, and is, I think, the best English-language French cookbook in years. Both cookbook and introduction to a vast region of rustic cuisine.
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 | Lulu's Provencal Table: The Exuberant Food and Wine from the Domaine Tempier Vineyard by Richard Olney
Buy used from: $34.44 One of the greatest cookbooks ever: American saint Richard Olney gives loving attention and explication to the highly regional/seasonal food of Lulu Peyraud, the doyenne of Provencal cooking and wine.
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 | Simple French Food by Richard Olney
Buy new: $12.21 / Used from: $6.71 Must have been under Alice Waters' pillow in the 60s + 70s: it is a model of careful, loving cookbook writing, and contains the most gorgeous food writing since M.F.K. Fisher, whom Olney loathed.
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 | Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques by Jacques Pépin
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $12.83 Lots of useful, well illustrated tips from the old tradition of hotel cuisine: how to decorate a saumon en croute, how to dress the legs of a roast goose. That kind of thing. Well written.
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 | Saucier's Apprentice by Raymond Sokolov
Buy new: $18.45 / Used from: $12.74 Grand old sauces in the spirit of Escoffier: glaces, demi-glaces, roux, beurre-manie, 40-quart stock pots, etc. Beautifully organized by base and variations. Sauce Africaine? It's in there.
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 | Anne Willan: From My Chateau Kitchen by Anne Willan
Buy used from: $26.01 I am waiting for the great Burgundy cookbook. This is a step in the right direction. It introduces the region, not just the recipes.
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 | Professional Charcuterie: Sausage Making, Curing, Terrines, and Pâtés by John Kinsella
Buy new: $34.62 / Used from: $24.96 Might as well. I made a terrine from this book, and loved it. Sausage turns out to be a pretty easy operation. Homemade terrines and sausages will raise eyebrows.
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 | Culinaria France (Culinaria Series) by Andre Domine
Buy used from: $34.95 Horribly written and edited by cubscouts, but a very handsome and informative overview of the regions of French food. Beautifully illustrated. Verify recipes before you use them.
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