Customer Reviews

Classical Cooking the Modern Way

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a great look into the way culinary arts used to be taught. passe? definitely. but the gems of wisdom contained will reward the interested student or practicing chef, and will certainly broaden his horizons and understanding of food and culinary history.

a caveat: the interested amateur or student should proceed with the guidance of an instructor or professional well versed in culinary arts---if for no other reason than to explain the omissions, mislabeling, and assumptions that the authors, contributors, and van nostrand editors committed over the history of the various editions.

i still find it a fascinating read, though there are much better sources of classic recipes and their modern variations. the illustrations on trussing alone are alone worth the price of the book. (does anyone still truss meat and fowl, anyway????)

I have both the first edition (1979) and the second edition (1989)and enjoy both. Which is better? Hard to say after using both. Eugen Pauli's son finished the 2nd ed. after his father's death, and while he did a good job overall in condensing material, he also condensed a bit too much at times, in leaving out cross referencing to other pages, thus leaving the reader do do this on his/her own. Not a problem. For the perfectionist, having both editions (unfortunately!) is best to glean all pearls of advice from Eugen Pauli's vast knowledge.

The 1st ed basic cooking methods (Chap 8) has helpful illustrations in it's 14 pages, whereas the 2nd ed has no illustrations in it's condensed 5 pages, yet conveys much of the same information, with both editons cautioning one to not poach eggs above 175 F. I have a slight preference for the 1st edition's illustrations and overall treatment of the cooking basics in this chapter.

The lobster thermidor recipe will make home cooks cringe, with only ingredients of "lobster, oil, white sauce and prepared spicy mustard". Looking up white sauce, he has a recipe for 10 quarts...fine for a restaurant chef to reduce in quantity..reading further, this white sauce requires white stock to be previously made, add another few hours...so this is not an easy recipe for a home cook to jump into, yet may be old hat to a restaurant chef.

Both editions list recipe ingredients in US and Metric weights, a very accurate way of measuring.

Many of the "recipes" are in a shorthand that list ingredients without listing amounts or how to prepare...this is typical of chefs' books for other chefs, such as with Hering's Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery or Louis Saulnier's Le Repertoire de La Cuisine.

Both editions have a few photos, there is some overlap, (I prefer those in the original edition) but these are dated photos and for historical info, as modern preparations are less elaborate in amount of items on a platter, and in other instances simpler in overall balance and presentation.

Either edition is a great resource for an experienced chef in listing countless recipe variations in chef's shorthand (without precise amounts of ingredients for many such listings), and still has much for a home cook to use as a source of classical ideas and variations, but just not as a home cook's primary cookbook.

There is a 3rd editon, however I'm told by chefs that it actually leaves out much of the info in the first 100 pages on actually runing a kitchen, nutrition, food purchasing etc., so this may not be an improvement at all, and for one to selection either the 1st or 2nd edition over the slightly gutted 3rd edtion.