Customer Reviews

Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home

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This book is a companion to a PBS television series on cooking demonstrated by Julia Child and Jaques Pepin where they concentrate on largely French home cooking, with much of the 'meat' of the book being created by differences in approach between the two great culinary educators. Julia Child's justly famous 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and the long series of PBS cooking shows are well known. It may be less well known outside the foodie world that Jaques Pepin is one of the leading authors of professional level books on cooking technique. The best known of these volumes is 'La Technique' and 'La Methode'. Pepin is also a professional educator in his role as dean at the French Culinary Institute in New York City.

It is probably pure destiny that these two culinary legends should collaborate on one or more projects. Pepin came to the United States in 1959 and almost immediately got a position as a chef at La Pavilion, based on his great good luck of being the chef to the family of Charles DeGaulle while DeGaulle was President of France. Three years later, Julia Child's book was published and Pepin was dumbstruck, as he felt that this is the book he should have written himself. Pepin was lead from the strenuous world of the professional kitchen to a career of writing and teaching when he was seriously injured in an automobile accident and he could no longer spend the long hours of standing.

This volume is a delight to read, even if you prepare none of the recipes in the book. In fact, the recipes tend to take a back seat to the dialogue between the two principles credited with the creation of the book. The book also enjoys one of the best possible support staffs available for culinary literature. Alfred A. Knopf publishes the book and the editor is Judith Jones, the same editor who convinced the Knopfs to print Julia Child's first landmark book. Knopf's artistic and production talent available for a major book publication has been applied to full effect. The text has the benefit of having been assembled by a professional culinary wordsmith, David Nussbaum, who culled the recipes and comments from the 'authors' notes and the videotapes of the PBS TV series.

The general layout of the book is that each principle author provides a recipe on an important ingredient or dish such as mussels, shrimp, hamburger, or potato salad. Each major ingredient is accompanied by sidebars by one or both of the principle authors on either handling the ingredient or strategies for preparing the dish. Some of the most interesting encounters come when the principle authors do not agree on a technique. Some disagreements are surprising, as when Chef Pepin prefers the American technique of making a hamburger while Ms. Child prefers the French, where a savory shallot saute is worked into the middle of the hamburger patty. The index very cleverly color codes recipe titles indicating whether they were supplied by Ms. Child or Chef Pepin.

The point at which the recipes wrest your attention from the banter between the two authors is when the book offers a sample of French home cooking which has rarely if ever seen the inside of an American home kitchen outside of the world of professional chefs and professional foodies. The first such recipe is Jacques's Sausage in Brioche. This is a sort of French beef Wellington where sausage replaces the beef fillet and brioche replaces the puff pastry. This is not a recipe for wimps, as brioche dough typically must be risen overnight to fully develop the dough. Pepin does give a shortcut, but it is not recommended.

The topics of the recipe chapters are familiar to all who have looked through a French cookbook. These chapters are Appetizers, Soups, Eggs, Salads and Sandwiches, Potatoes, Vegetables, Fish, Poultry, Meats, and Desserts.

The photographic arts are put to very good use in this book. Not every dish is accompanied by a photo of the finished preparation, but every special technique is explained in great detail and demonstrated very effectively in pictures. And, the techniques are not limited to the usual cutting up a chicken and cleaning an artichoke.

If you have a happy collection of good cookbooks on classic French cookery, you probably already have recipes for many of the dishes in this book. You do not buy the book for only the recipes. You buy the book for the special insights these two major culinary educators can give you on dishes, ingredients, and techniques and for the riff created when their opinions are different.

The long and the short of it is that you buy this book for inspiration. I have yet to find a culinary teacher who can encourage me to try a difficult recipe as effectively as Julia Child. I can also not find a culinary teacher who can explain technique as well as Jacques Pepin.

Very highly recommended for foodies and fans of both principle authors.

As a gourmet diner stuck in a town with no decent restaurants I took things into my own hands and this book has rewarded me with tastes that I only find in NYC or Europe. But as a beginner this book sometimes assumes I know as much about cooking as eating. Wrong! A perfect example was in preparing a Beef Stock. All went well into I was instructed to put the bones et al into a pot. And then do what? No mention of water! No mention of how long to cook or anything else. Finally had to resort to the NY Times Cookbook to discover that it needed 3 quarts of water and 4-5 hours of simmer and more. Otherwise all was cool.

This is a really excellent cooking series with two master chefs demonstrating their personal approach to preparing the same (or similar) dishes. Often humorous and always entertaining and insightful, this classic PBS series puts all of today's cooking shows to shame. Pepin and Child are as essential to every home cooks arsenal, as butter and ground pepper!

This is a great book to own.
I must warn you, however, that the index in the back is very confusing! Sometimes it takes you longer to find the recipe that to actually prepare it!

Julia Child and Jacques Pepin make French cooking seem so approachable on television, and this book is consistent with that attitude. Simple recipes, like roast chicken with lemon and rosemary and pan-fried steak turn out deliciously. I must caution that the layout of the book--a point/counterpoint in which each chef presents his/her approach--results in a cumbersome book. For example, directions for one dish may appear several pages later than its ingredients. An accompanying sauce may be five, ten pages back. It wouldn't be a bad idea to use those sticky bookmarks in advance of preparing the recipe. The instructional photos could have been much better. A photo showing how to extract a wishbone, for example, is confusing. I would have liked to see more step-by-step series of photos since a single shot is often inadequate. This is definitely a hybrid--part cookbook, part coffeetable tome. Therein lies the difficulty but also the enjoyment.

I have followed Julia Child and Jacques Pepin's careers for nearly 30 years on Public Television, individual series and through their cookbooks. This is the ULTIMATE cookbook.

The cutest section is where the two chefs tell US the best way to cook a hamburger. Leafing through the pages brings a big smile to my face when I remember Jacques actually doing what he wanted even if Julia had countermanded him earlier.

Get this cookbook!

I bought this book 4 months ago because as an aspiring chef I have the need to learn as much as possible for lack of teachers in my area. I have learned how to make mayonaise, most of the basic sauces and the PATE and the crowd pleaser, Turkey Gallantine. I am thrilled to have this book amongst her other books in my collection which i refer to daily. I recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to learn from the masters (as there is not very many of them left)the art of cooking and making french and any other type of food. As for people who claim some sort of health knowledge like tereshina (which she obviously does not posses), I think she is one of those bitter people that needs to add some sugar and spice to her already depressing and pathethic life or better yet keep eating that darn styrofoam junk!

The book is as wonderful as the television series. An owner of hundreds of cookbooks, I find this book to be one of my favorites. Well written, beautifully illustrated, and full of great opinions of two giants of the kitchen!

These two people will live on forever, even long after they're gone. If you've never seen their cooking shows, try to; they are both fabulously entertaining as well as knowledgeable; and without being "cutesy" in the process. The two together, with their different styles and opinions on cooking, show that there isn't necessarily always a right way or a wrong way. And, they appreciate each other's differences. They are so much fun! Together, they are magic! I adore them both! Thank you!

The step by step directions along with the photos make cooking these wonderful recipes easy and delicious. My two favorite recipes are the Savory Chicken by Jacques where the brown gravy is just incredible and the Creme Caramel by Julia which is one of the easiest and most elegant desserts.