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Grand Livre De Cuisine
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An Alain Ducasse BookWorld-renowned French chef Alain Ducasse believes that food arouses all the senses. In this sumptuous book, he takes us on a culinary journey for both eye and palate. Here he shares the culinary experience, knowledge, and love of ingredients he has refined over the past 25 years. Today, Ducasse feeds his passion for cooking through restaurants all over the world and a professional-level cooking school. He is now ready to bring his know-how and enthusiasm to American professional chefs and experienced home cooks, providing 700 recipes from French and Mediterranean cuisine that incorporate 100 basic ingredients and use 10 major cooking styles. Each dish is described in full, with recipes for accompaniments included; complete instructions for plating the entire dish are given as well. An appendix offers an encyclopedia of ingredients as well as basic recipes (sauces, stocks, and so on). Illustrated with more than 1,000 photographs and original drawings, Grand Livre de Cuisine will be an indispensable reference-and inspiration-for years to come. AUTHOR BIO: Alain Ducasse is regarded throughout the world as one of the most prominent French chefs. Along with three gourmet restaurants, Restaurant Plaza Athénée in Paris, Le Louis XV in Monaco, and Alain Ducasse at the Essex House in New York, he has also created more than 15 new concept restaurants worldwide and a professional-level cooking school.
About the Author
Alain Ducasse is regarded throughout the world as one of the most prominent French chefs, and he is driven to share his passion through his businesses. Along with three gourmet restaurants, Restaurant Plaza Athenee in Paris, Le Louis XV in Monaco, and Alain Ducasse at the Essex House in New York, he has also created more than 15 new concept restaurants worldwide and a professional-level cooking school.
20/11/2007
A shrunken reprint
This book IS what I thought it would be, and it is NOT what I thought it would be. It IS Alain Ducasse's Culinary Encyclopedia, but it is NOT the original version. This is the shrunken version. Literally. The original is large and lush, with beautiful photography and high quality glossy paper. That book measures 12 x 9.4 inches, weighs 12 lbs. and costs a lot of money.
This version is 9.6 x 8 inches, is printed on inferior paper, and the photography doesn't reproduce well at that size. It costs a third of what the original does.
On the plus side, it IS a complete reprint, which means that exactly the same information is in the book. Every page is exact, just smaller.
This type of book (the original, that is) is generally for the collector or professional chef. Any cookbook over a hundred bucks has a pretty rarified market. At the very least, this reprint makes the recipes and the techniques of one of the world's greatest chefs accessible to a wider audience. Just don't expect it to be the big, lush volume you hoped it was. You get what you pay for.
Five stars for the information, one star for the presentation, three overall.
27/02/2006
Brilliant, if bulky
High priced absurdity? Hardly. Compared to Adria's or Pierre Gagnaire's texts, Ducasse's tome reminds me of a blown up, bulky version of the French Laundry. There are no foams. There are no overtly experimental techniques; save the odd sous vide recipe.
What it does include is classical french cuisine, refined and recontextualized. I completely disagree with the reviewer who chastised the release, discussing elements which simply are not present in this text. Truthfully, there is nothing here but material to elucidate cooking. Likewise apropos the translation, the ingredients, proportions, and techniques are perfect. Certainly there are some problematic semantic turns(words out of place, or occassional misspellings), but in general it is rather lucid.
As a whole, I can only say the size and weight of the book decreases my star rating. It would have been far more manageable and clearer if broken into several volumes. None the less the photography and the depth of these recipes(which include cleaning and butchering techniques) make up for it. I would wager that years from now, this volume will be viewed as the 21st centuries answer to the grand Escoffier tome.
11/03/2005
High Priced Baloney
In theory, this is a wonderful book. However, unless you know
French and have been cooking for a hundred years, you might want to think twice before shelling out this kind of money. The translation is AWFUL, with some recipe cmponents being translated two ways in two different places. There are hundreds of instances where the translation is simply WRONG. If you read French, you can sometimes puzzle it out.
The index is also inadequate. There are multiple components to many dishes that really could/should be stand-alone recipes. Yet in this encyclopedia, it is impossible to find these components without having memorized the main dish's title.
The pictures are wonderful. There are lots and lots of wonderful recipes in here, but somebody should have turned this over to some English speaking chefs and recipe writers before letting it hit the streets.
Big disappointment, and for what is probably the most expensive cookbook ever, it shouldn't be.
Buyer beware.
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