Customer Reviews

Michel Guerards Cuisine Gourma

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are many things I like about this cookbook: detailed instructions, limited but well selected recipes (since they are numbered, I can tell you that there are exactly 145 recipes), good focus by the author. However, it has all of the usual foibles of its breed (expensive ingredients, multiple component recipes). I do not really recommend it for the typical home cook, but it is a decent educational resource for those wishing to learn how to prepare French cuisine. The author is also known for cuisine minceur and nouvelle cuisine, but the text never explain what these are or what relation it has to 'Cuisine Gourmand' of the current volume.

Unusual for its breed, the procedures are reasonably detailed, increasing your chances of success. Each recipe also has an equipment list, very helpful. Unlike other American co-authors or editors (viz. Doris Greenspan), the editors here do not get in the way of or change the chef's directions; their contributions are limited to genuinely useful comments at the end of the recipe clarifying the procedures. The first 75 pages are devoted to basics like stock, sauces, and flavorings.

There are several problems. Expensive and difficult to obtain ingredients are called for in the majority of recipes: truffles, scallops in the shell, live crayfish, duck, foie gras, calf's foot. Although the procedures are well explained, several have several components that must be prepared separately, making for a very long and involved dish. Since many chapters have only 4 or 5 recipes, you may go through a chapter (e.g. appetizers or soup) and not find any recipes you can make. The vegetable chapter is replete with poor vegetables that are hopelessly beaten to death or cooked multiple times.

I note only a couple of errors. #74 (chicken with parsley stuffing and malmsey vinegar sauce) does not have chicken listed in the ingredients. #90 (grilled beef with steak-butter sauce), the cut of meat used seems to be what we now call the flat iron, not chuck or blade steak. Several recipes in the dessert chapter employ what we now know as creme anglaise, but it is not identified by this name in the text.

Came just as described, in great condition, and on time.
Came just as described, in great condition, and on time.
Came just as described, in great condition, and on time.