Customer Reviews

Pierre Gagnaire: Reflections on Culinary Artistry

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

 

 

I was disappointed that this book did not contain recipes, but once I got over that and began to look at the incredible pictures, I realized there is a lot more to this book than meets the eye. This is not a book of recipes, but a book of inspiration. The photos gave me a lot of new ideas for presentation (and you can spend a lot more time looking at the food then you would on the plate at Pierre Gagnaire) and Gagnaire's little blurbs and tidbits remind me a lot of Fernand Point's Ma Gastronomie, in that one sentence can generate a lot of new thoughts about food or a specific ingredient. This book is not for everyone, but worth a look for those familiar with Gagnaire.

For all you out there denouncing this book, I think you simply just didn't know what you were purchasing. Yes, I am dissapointed in the lack of recipes (hence the four stars) and the zen-like reflection on food can be a bit much, but this is a mix between poetry and photography. It is also meant to stimulate your mind. Most of the pictures are representations of the food. One is not paying for drops of consumme on an illuminated plate or table at Gagnaire's restaurant. You are supposed to imagine, reinvent the food that is on the page. Its meant to be appreciated, not copied. You see foie gras and hazelnuts on the page? Try and cook it in a way that sounds good to you...

Having eaten at Pierre Gannaire's reataurant in Paris on several occasions, I was eagerly looking forward to reading some of his extraordinary recipes and gaining some insight into his innovative techniques. While his food is a truly transporting experience, this book is not. The prose is good and the photography is beautiful, but alas, there are no recipes. I'm afraid that if you are looking for insights into his cooking, you will just have to go to Paris. I think that the absence of recipes should have been clearly stated in the editorial review. It is not a book to cook with, but to look at.

If you are a chef whose acquisition of three Michelin stars is but a receding memory in your ascent to superstardom, you clearly don't need this book. If you are anything less, it is useless. Beautiful pictures engender intense frustration since, as has been noted, there is not a line of guidance and only captioned, seemingly arbitrary lists of ingredients (from one of which I learned that carva (sic) is a Spanish sparkling wine). Otherwise, only nuggets of cheffie, quasi-philosophical prattle, viz: "it (a pineapple) has been seduced, massaged - the multiple cooking procedures were long and mindful (but undescribed)...Three kinds of cherries are waiting for their train, carrying amazing suitcases...At first there is a strong feeling to create, then comes this desire to render details in all their nobility (too bad Gagnaire didn't render them in the book)...I look at this plate and say: I don't remember it anymore. It is terrible; at the same time it's reassuring ( I shouldn't be too confident of that if I were you, Pierre, and it doesn't reassure me!)" On and on for 200 pages. A frontispiece is a photograph of the great chef, The Thinker manque, eyes closed in concentrated thought, head in hands. It is a pose that every reader will strike after time spent in trying to make head or tail of this drivel.

This could have been a great addition to the kitchen - he is after all a talented and innovative chef. Instead, it is a rambling, self-indulgent, one might almost think hallucinogen-born disgrace. The pictures may make it worth the money, but only if you possess not merely the culinary but the telepathic skills to turn them into reality.

If you believe that this book may yet deserve a berth on your coffee table, I can only suggest: make sure that you give it a wide one.

Like other reviewers, I was looking forward to trying recipes from this book. What a massive disappointment to find NONE!. Eye candy, yes. A big tease, for sure.

I waited months for this book to be delivered. This book epotomizes the con game called fine dining; over priced self indulgent fluff with no substance. Like a restaurant of the same quality you may read through the book once if you can stomach it but you'll never want to go back. No one has to put pierre gagnaire on a pedastal, he gets on it himself.