Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery

Here, for the first time, is presented to the English-speaking public the entire translation of Auguste Escoffier’s masterpiece Le Guide Culinaire. Its basic principles are as valid today as when it was first published in 1903. It has successfully withstood the test of decades and remains a nonpareil among cookery books. Escoffier was personally involved with each new French edition of his work right up until 1921, when the fourth edition appeared. He altered and improved it over the years in line with his ideas of modification and adaptation. It is the fourth edition which has now been translated into English for the first time by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann. This translation supersedes A Guide to Modern Cookery, the English version first published in 1907; it contained a fair percentage of Escoffier’s recipes but was not, unlike The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery, the comprehensive collection which contains some 2000 additional recipes. Great care has been taken to use the original metric measurements and to give accurate conversions to Imperial and American measurements in brackets. Le Guide Culinaire is described by Escoffier himself as ‘a useful tool rather than just a recipe book’. It does not go into minute details of preparation, but offers to those who practise the art of cookery — whether they be professional chefs or managers, housewives, gourmets or students of haute cuisine — invaluable guidelines culled from more than fifty years’ experience. The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery is therefore a repository of all that is best in Classical French and International cookery and should be kept close at hand and referred to constantly. A Memoir of Escoffier by his grandson, Pierre P. Escoffier, appears at the beginning of the book. An exhaustive index is also provided.