The Way to Cook

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Summary: Julia Child's Masterpiece--A must-buy for everyone who cooks
Review: "The Way to Cook" is the distillation of Julia Child's 40 years in the kitchen, her magnum opus. Definitive, gigantic in scope, and lavishly illustrated throughout with color photos, it is designed to replace "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (which is still valuable for a few older French recipes). It is the one cookbook everyone must own.

People tend to think of Julia Child in terms of French cooking, but this book is not French. Rather, it is an American book based on French techniques, teaching American cooking with significant French and Italian influences. For instance, she provides a brilliant recipe for American meatloaf, BUT she places it next to equally brilliant recipes for French pates and for scrapple. She provides you with a basic beef stew recipe, and then shows how Boeuf Bourgignon and Hungarian Goulash are really just variations on the same idea.

Since the late 1970's, no one has used cookbook illustrations better than Julia Child. Here, the important techniques are photographed, as are the finished dishes, but the food stylists are kept at a distance. The photos show you clearly the steps you take and the results you get, but don't indulge in flights of fancy. Julia Child's concern here is food, not table settings.

Whether I'm looking to make a traditional roast, or onion soup, or braised veal breast, this is the book I turn to. I own over 300 cookbooks, yet if I could choose only one, this would be it. Buy it in hardcover: it will take quite a beating!

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Summary: Julia Child for Everyday Cooking. Excellent Teaching Source
Review: 'The Way to Cook' was written by Julia Child and published by Knopf about 27 years after the first publication of 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' which established Child's reputation. So, it was published when Julia Child was a household name for over two decades. It was meant to be her most important culinary work. It has never replaced Child's first book in the hearts and minds of America's foodies, in spite of the fact that the book opens with a statement that the book means to address Americans' new health consciousness and their diminishing time available to cook.

This is still a very, very good book. Unlike the more famous 'French Cooking', this book is much more concerned with teaching the art of cooking. In fact, Ms. Child originates an idea here that has reached its fullest fruition in the style of Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meal rubric. Ray succeeds in putting out fast meals not by using a lot of processed supermarket preparations, but by using knowledge of cooking to make the best of basic ingredients. This is not to say Ms. Child is doing fast cooking. Many recipes are pretty involved. I can still remember doing Julia's take on a barbecue recipe which involved making both a sauce and a rub from a goodly number of ingredients and a substantial amount of time required to slow cook the ribs. I got pretty hungary by the time I was finally finished.

Teaching is so important to the object of this book that it is one of the very few books I know which could easily serve as a good textbook for a course on cooking. The only other book I know in this category would be Madeline Kammen's 'The New Making of a Cook'. It is important to distinguish both of these books from the 'how to cook everything' titles such as the 'Joy of Cooking', 'James Beard's American Cookery' or Mark Bittman's 'How to Cook Everything'. The purpose of these books is to give detailed coverage to a wide range of methods rather than simply be a repository of a large number of recipes.

The most distinctive feature in this book which supports it's object to teach cooking is the notion of the master recipe. A classic example of this approach is the master recipe for 'Ragout of Chicken and Onions in Red Wine'. If this dish doesn't sound familiar to experienced cooks, it should be, because the very famous French recipe 'Coq au Vin' is a variation of this master recipe. The classic simply adds lardons, mushrooms, and brandy and replaces sliced onions with 'brown braized white onions'.

In addition to master recipes and variations, there is a wealth of notes on techniques to improve your results. In discussing the use of lardons, there is a note which recommends blanching bacon and salt pork before adding it to a recipe to remove salt and smoky flavor. I am certain this is an optional step, but it is welcome to me as I often avoid recipes using salt pork to avoid the somewhat noisome smell of smoked fatty tissue which may come from cooking smoked pork.

Another feature of the book which fits the master recipe model is that variations on the ragout master recipe are not limited to recipes for chicken. Rather, the same section includes ragouts of turkey and rabbit. The same principle is used throughout the book where foods are grouped by method of preparation rather than by source (pig, cow, lamb, calf, fowl).

Still, the chapters are true to a fairly classic organization, with some topics you may not find in the usual work. The chapters are: Soups, Breads, Eggs, Fin Fish & Shellfish, Poultry, Meat, Vegetables, Salads, Pastry Doughs, Desserts, Cakes & Cookies.

The chapter on Breads covers just four master recipes, but it will give you a thorough and satisfying experience which will tell you if you have the kind of love for baking which warrents exploring specialized works by such experts as Peter Reinhart or Nancy Silverton.

The chapter on Pastry Doughs also just covers four master recipes, Pate Brisee, Puff Pastry, Pate a Choux, and Crepes. I may not be willing to take on puff pastry any time soon, but I would expect that the other three master recipes should be enticing enough to remove a cooks fears about making pies, crepes, and eclairs. Crepes especially should be an entertainer's best friend in that the batter can be made well in advance and, if necessary, the crepes themselves can be made in advance and reheated. If you want them fresh, it takes but a minute or two to cook a crepe, and it makes great kitchen theater, especially if you master the technique of flipping the crepe.

I suspect the must useful chapter may be the one on eggs. Knowing ones way around egg cookery will take you a goodly distance toward being able to prepare really great dishes from standard pantry. I find that an author's discussion of how to make an omelette is often a good test of the quality of their book as a whole. I can say that Julia comes through for me by citing an omelette technique I have seen nowhere else. That is, the warning to limit oneself to two eggs when you have only a typical household burner available.

As the book is published by Knopf, the layout, editing, and photography are first rate. I was just a little surprised when I could not find 'barbecue' in the index, yet there is clearly a master recipe for barbecue in the chapter on meats. The very best feature of the book is Julia's very familiar voice and attitude which carries you on with reassurances that you can do it and these techniques will do you great service in your life.

Very highly recommended. Lots of French recipes and lots of modern appliances put to good use.

Rating:
Summary: great resource.
Review: A great resource for learning how to cook from simple recipes and methods that serve as the basis for creating more complex ones.

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Summary: Bought another copy for my kids --- it's that good!
Review: A nicely photographed, well documented, and clearly written cookbook that teaches basic cooking skills while producing extraordinary food. I learned to cook using Betty Crocker cookbooks, which will teach the basics, but I wish Julia's Way to Cook cookbook was there almost 40 years ago when I started learning how to cook. Her recipes are beyond compare.

Fortunately, my daughters will each have copies of her cookbook so they can learn to feed themselves well.

Rating:
Summary: A Seminal Work on Cooking
Review: An autographed copy of The Way to Cook has adorned my kitchen bookshelf for years now. Despite its somewhat ostentatious title, I have to say it lives-up to its name, with outstanding and unique coverage of basic techniques and terminology that are difficult to find elsewhere. Make no mistake, however: this is not a low-fat cookbook. But the basics learned with it, along with the various "component" recipes, can be applied equally to healthier eating (with modification as needed), or to those occasional moments when you need something special and luxurious. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: For Advanced Cooks Only
Review: An avid cook I only recently was won over by the legendary Julia Child. And I have to say that "The Way to Cook" is one big, beautiful cookbook. The huge tome is filled with full color photographs of not just completed dishes (the so-called "beauty shots") but detailed shots of the step-by-step techniques needed to prepare the often complicated recipes--a feature I found extremely helpful.

I really liked this book, but I have to say the title is a real misnomer. This is NOT a book for beginners who want to learn to cook (for that I'd recommend "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" or maybe "The Best Recipe" from "Cook's Illustrated), it's an advanced course for wanna-be gourmets. If you don't love to cook, or don't enjoy making "fancy" dishes (though there are a few "basics," this book focuses on Child's forte, classical French cooking that's pretty enough to serve in a restaurant), then this cookbook isn't for you. But if you're ready to expand your cooking horizons, I think this title is perfect.

One more note ... a fan of Martha Stewarts television cooking segments I noticed that a great number of the techniques that Martha promotes come straight from Child. Something I never realized before reading "The Way to Cook."

Rating:
Summary: For Advanced Cooks Only
Review: An avid cook I only recently was won over by the legendary Julia Child. And I have to say that "The Way to Cook" is one big, beautiful cookbook. The huge tome is filled with full color photographs of not just completed dishes (the so-called "beauty shots") but detailed shots of the step-by-step techniques needed to prepare the often complicated recipes--a feature I found extremely helpful.

I really liked this book, but I have to say the title is a real misnomer. This is NOT a book for beginners who want to learn to cook (for that I'd recommend "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" or maybe "The Best Recipe" from "Cook's Illustrated), it's an advanced course for wanna-be gourmets. If you don't love to cook, or don't enjoy making "fancy" dishes (though there are a few "basics," this book focuses on Child's forte, classical French cooking that's pretty enough to serve in a restaurant), then this cookbook isn't for you. But if you're ready to expand your cooking horizons, I think this title is perfect.

One more note ... a fan of Martha Stewarts television cooking segments I noticed that a great number of the techniques that Martha promotes come straight from Child. Something I never realized before reading "The Way to Cook."

Rating:
Summary: Lard will clog your arteries
Review: Anything that tastes good cannot be good for you. Fat sells.

So take everything said in this book with a grain of salt.

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Summary: Don't Be Put Off!
Review: Don't be put off as I was, for far too long, by the clutter of colored fonts, photos, sidebars, and afterthoughts which give the pages of this overproduced book its appearance of chaos. Julia's clarity of thought and her passion for good food are undimmed and she tells you The Way to Cook everything from Haute Cuisine (well, fairly Haute) to Boston Baked Beans and Potato Salad. Yes, the pages are a mess. Yes, the heavily coated paper is a disaster in the kitchen and adds so much to the weight (its 512 pages in paperback weigh nearly 4 1/2 lb; "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" I's 720 plus pages in hardcover weigh only about 3 1/4 lb) that Amazon not only won't count it for free shipping but charges extra to ship it. But it's a book not to miss for its glorious breadth of content. Drawings always seem to make technique clearer than photos, but I treasure the many photos of Julia's own hands stirring, kneading, and especially cutting all manner of food. A million stars for the book's content --dare we hope for a more sensible edition one day?

Rating:
Summary: The Elegant Bible of Cooking
Review: Elegance:
- Refinement, grace, and beauty in movement, appearance, or manners.
- Tasteful opulence in form, decoration, or presentation.
- Restraint and grace of style.
- Scientific exactness and precision.

In other words, - Julia Child's The Way to Cook.