La Cuisine: Everyday French Home Cooking

Happy customer.

This is a rather beautiful but not very 'contemporary' cookbook which deserves to be on the shelves of every cooking fan. By this, I mean that there are no photographs at all, and certainly none of a celebrity chef and their lifestyle as they happily sit down and eat, etc. Instead, there are 788 pages comprising a thousand genuine French recipes, often two or three to the page. Straight to the point!Françoise Bernard set out to create a book which would simplify the complexities of French cooking and deliver a standard text on the subject. Whilst there are other possibilities in this category, like Mastering the Art of French Cooking or The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season, this volume is remarkable just for being such an encyclopedia. 1000 recipes! And by a genuine French cook.The big plus points of the book are very simple directions, and tips on every recipe to help you along, and to aid modifying the recipes. For example, mayonnaise making: all the ingredients must be at room temperature, and if using an electric mixer, add the white of the egg as well. I found these really useful and interesting to read.There are some things in here you will want to eat, and possibly some you will never cook: poached conger eel? But the book is amazing because it offers SO MANY possibilities. Loads of different fish which we fussy English people rarely get around to cooking. Different recipes for braising hens, chickens, capons and roosters. ELEVEN recipes for rabbit. (Including rabbit with roquefort - could it BE any more French?)Yet if you are just feeling like something plain, there are some lovely simple omelette recipes, for example one with sorrel, one with gruyere, and one with the reoccuring roquefort. And at least ten different ways to roast a simple tomato.If you love the kind of French food you get as a special in small country town cafés, you will totally fall in love with this book. Such a treat.

Not a photo in sight for this cookbook. If you like glossy photos, flowery language, celebrity waffle about producer this and organic that then don't buy this book.It is a straight to the point, nuts and bolts, almost "bible" of French recipes.Good reference text, something to refer to for ideas and recipes.

Forget everything you like about your favourite cookbooks - those criteria don't apply here. Not only are there not too many glossy pictures, there aren't any pictures, glossy or otherwise! What? you like detailed prescriptive recipes, every step listed for you? Sorry, this book more often than not doesn't even bother to tell you what oven temperature to use. But, and it's an immense but, it does say things like moderate oven, and 230 C when it is really important. Let's face it, in these days of fan-ovens, and even more esoteric gadgets, when did you last find a cookbook whose oven temperatures made any sense? Anyone who uses their oven knows that they have to judge the right oven temperatures based on their experience of their equipment. So, we've established that this is not a cookbook for absolute novices. But, if you can boil an egg, and use the little grey cells, then you will be fine with this. The hidden truth is that photos don't really help you cook, they just make you feel inept if your offering doesn't come up to scratch. Then there's the plethora of "step by step" cookbooks. After a couple of dishes, don't you find them tedious? After all, you're not an idiot! If you even half agree with me, then this book is not only for you, but it will become your absolute favourite.So, enough of what you don't get, what does "La Cuisine" have to offer? According to the blurb, 1000 of the best recipes of the woman who simplified French cooking - made it practical for home cooking - Francoise Bernard. But, there's another unusual thing about this cookbook, it is over-modest. Every recipe has extra advice from Bernard; what might accompany the dish to best effect, then there's copious advice on how to vary the recipe. My guess is that this book has something like 3000 recipes, using the standards of its competitors. All recipes give an estimate of ease, cost, time, and number of servings. It has sections on: Soups (26), Cold Starters (54), Warm Starters (32), Eggs (44), Meat and Poultry (160), Charcuterie and Other Meats (40), Wild Game (28), Seafood (114), Vegetables (94), Pasta and Rice (30), Sauces (32), Desserts (124), and Cocktails and Drinks (10). The number in brackets after the section name indicates the number of pages in the section. Units are in metric.If you're deadly serious about creating restaurant-quality French food, and have lots of time, then you can't do better than the two volumes of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". But, if you're happy just producing great food time after time in relative ease from a very well-organised cookbook, then "La Cuisine" is the one for you. My most used cookbook is a very battered UK Good Housekeeping offering from the 1980s. Over the next few decades, "La Cuisine" is going to run it close.

Great book. Pity they can't spell colour !!!

This fabulous book came super fast and in almost new condition. Thank you!!

J'ai acheté ce livre de cuisine pour l'offrir à des américains. Il a l'avantage d'avoir des recettes simples comme difficiles. Attention le livre est épais (environ 800 pages). Satisfaite de l'achat.

De nombreuses recettes avec à chaque fois le titre français et sa traduction. Les recettes sont bien détaillées, et dans l'ensemble facile à réaliser.

Had previously borrowed this book from a public library and was very impressed with the recipes. They are simple, tasty and foolproof.

Aucune image et dictionnaire de cuisine non adapté à des novices