books.

I just bought a book called.....
"Modern Culinary Art"...By Henri-Paul Pellaprat
He was the Head Professor of the School of cooking and pastry making of the Cordon Bleu.
the copyright is 1950.
So he had to have been there before that.
Has anyone heard of this book?
Its a monster!
700 + pages.
3500 recipes.

By Tortesrus (Tortesrus) on Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Back in '77 I bought "The Great Book of French Cuisine" by Pelleprat- I still have it- it's been my most used guideline for classical recipes and information over the years. Great pictures too..According to the book inset- it was originally published as the "Modern Culinary Art" in France in 1935. This copy has 1203 pages.

By Poochedm (Poochedm) on Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - 07:50 pm: Edit

Spike: How much did it cost you? It sounds like a tremendous book.
ChefDanP.

By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Thursday, October 14, 2004 - 02:16 am: Edit

YES! this is it!...but this one says copyright(maybe renewed)1950. and this one is in english, printed in france.(?)
I haven't even had a chance to get into it yet.
the photos are of that old style, don't know what they called the process.
this book cost me 15.00 bucks on ebay.
I went to pick it up from the seller in Pasadena, CA.
MAN, does she have a nice store. she must have 20,000 cook books.( store is about 100 ft long x 25 ft wide x 20 ft ceilings, all books)
I went through some boxes looking for old phamplets, baking handouts, and she has some that i've never seen or heard about.
i could spend a lot of hours there just looking through boxes and boxes of books.
I know where I'm spending some of my next check at.
The second book i got from her is called, the french pastry book, by alice hotchkiss crippen, shes one of the women in America that, I believe, helped set a trend for food in America.
copyright 1926 1st. ed.
the food in the photos is not very pretty, or well done, and I have not had a chance to work any of the recipes. they are your standard looking french recipes.
i'll do a couple and see, maybe in a couple of weeks.

By Tortesrus (Tortesrus) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 01:20 am: Edit

$15.00 is a GREAT price to pay for that book!
I think that I paid around $35.00 (on sale) for my copy- way back when I was a struggling student.
-It was alot to pay with an hourly wage of $3.60.
But I have alway been glad that I bought it.
Most of the recipes I've tried have worked...the duck bigarade is a good one. Simple and clean flavor- not too much on the sweet side.