Mastering the Art of French Cooking Cookbook - Julia Child Rare Book Club Edition

This is a more sought after 1961 Book Club Edition (with Dust Jacket) of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook. It is considered more valuable than the regular 1961 1st edition and thus more collectible as well. The book is likely the best known French cookbook in modern history and a favorite among cookbook collectors.  

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Format: Hardcover and dust jacket, 726 pages 

Copyright: 1961 - this is the hard-to-find Book Club Edition with black and white title and stamp and dated 1961 with no volume number. Additionally it has smaller physical dimensions than the regular versions.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf 

Author: Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck 

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Additional Details

Description: Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for both seasoned cooks and beginners who love good food and long to reproduce at home the savory delights of the classic cuisine, from the historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. This beautiful book, with over 100 instructive illustrations, is revolutionary in its approach because: 

  • It leads the cook infallibly from the buying and handling of raw ingredients, through each essential step of a recipe, to the final creation of a delicate confection.
  • It breaks down the classic cuisine into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of recipes; the focus is on key recipes which form the backbone of French cookery and which lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations, bound to increase anyone's culinary repertoire.
  • It adapts classical techniques, wherever possible, to modern American conveniences.
  • It shows Americans how to buy products from any supermarket in the U.S.A. which reproduce the exact taste and texture of the French ingredients: equivalent meat cuts, for example; the right beans for a cassoulet; or the appropriate fish and sea food for a bouillabaisse.
  • It offers suggestions for just the right accompaniment to each dish, including proper wines.

Since there has never been a book as instructive and as workable as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the techniques learned here can be applied to recipes in all the other French cookbooks, making them infinitely more usable. In compiling the secrets of famous cordons bleus, the authors have produced a magnificent volume that is sure to find the place of honor in every kitchen in America. 

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Condition: Bookboards and interior pages are in very nice condition. Dust jacket has light shelf wear. Interior part of front cover has a small 'personalized' sticker. The top edge and fold show some tears. Front cover's top and bottom corner of interior flap are clipped so no book club indication but the size, black and white stamp and title and 1961 year with no other printing information matches with the Book Club Edition.

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