France: The Beautiful Cookbook |  | Author: Scotto Sisters
Publisher: Beautiful Cookbooks
Category: Book
List Price: $50.00
Buy Used: $5.95
as of 9/6/2010 02:27 CDT details
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New (9) Used (40) Collectible (3) from $5.95
Seller: _athenaeum_
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 117,547
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.5
Dimensions (in): 14.2 x 10.2 x 1
ISBN: 0002154129
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5944
EAN: 9780002154123
ASIN: 0002154129
Publication Date: October 18, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A bounty of more than 240 recipes from the regions of France reveal the rich and varied produce of the world'srenowned center of gastronomy. France the Beautiful Cookbook gives a rare insight into the less -publicized side of French cooking: a cuisine which has been passed down through families by word or mouth. This home cuisine, so rich in history and tradition -- and so delicious - simmers and bubbles on family stoves and in country inns throughout each region. France the Beautiful Cookbook takes the reader from the countryside to the table. It explains the vital link between each region's history , geography and culina traditions, story, people who make the food so unique. Without the abundance of oysters, withoutcassoulet withouthochepot, without the bourride without the wines and beers that go with them, France would not be France. Specially commissioned photographs graphically convey the diversity and beauty of France's terrain: the craggy hills of the south, the coastal fishing villages along the western coast, the lush pastures of the Loire, the colorful Mediterranean, and the alpine regions and volcanic plateaus of the center. The recipes are recorded in this beautiful book by the Scotto Sisters - food writers Marianne Comolli, Elisabeth Scotto and Michéle Carles -- who grew up in Paris, spending the summers of their childhood in the French countryside. Each Cookbook is the story of an ancient treasure trove of French regional gastronony eloquently narrated by Author Pludlowski and superbly captured in color by photographers Pierre Hussenot and Leo Meier.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
Outstanding Recipies for the French Food Lover! March 6, 1999
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
This cookbook is the best one I've seen! It's comprehensive selection of food covers all styles of French food and offers a wide variety of tastes that suit even the most selective of appetites! Easy to follow recipies combined with the outstanding photographs make this a truly enjoyable book to own and use.
The Best Cookbook Ever December 17, 2002
Jeff Balch (California, USA)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is easily the greatest French cookbook I've ever seen and one of the best cookbooks overall. I've been to France many times and the same food is in this cookbook as is in France. The recipes are easy to understand, the food is great, and the photographs just make you more and more hungry. I am a 16 year old boy who has a hard time cooking and filling myself, but this cookbook remedies both of these problems. The meals are simple, yet elegant, not to mention delicious, filling, and scrumptious. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys cooking and would like cooking to become a passion.
Armchair: 5. Recipes: 4. January 11, 2006
Esther Schindler (Scottsdale, AZ USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I got this book on a closeout at my local bookstore, and at that low price the book is wonderful. I'd be a little less thrilled if I paid full-price... but only a little.
I would guess that most "...The Beautiful" books are probably purchased for their coffee table appeal. This is a large format book (12"x18"), with stunning photos of different areas of France and of the food (there's generally one picture of the finished dish for every two recipes). If you want a book to inspire you to travel to France or to go out to eat at a French restaurant, or if you are searching for an impressive and pretty gift, this is a no-brainer. It's gorgeous.
The recipes are very good, too, but I'm tempted to say that they're almost beside the point. There are 240 recipes, divided in menu-like sections (first courses, fish and shellfish, poultry and game, etc.) rather than regionaly. Each recipe is marked with the region it comes from, so you know that the mussels in cream is from Normandy and the veal rolls (paupiettes) are from Provence. There's also a couple of pages, with photos, describing each region. Nicely done.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about French cooking to speak to the authenticity of the recipes, but none of them were jarring. Most of the dishes are kept on the simple side (I get the feeling that the "real" version might require a few more hours in the kitchen), and they do have interesting, if short, introductions. The intro for cassoulet, for instance, gives a little history of this well-known dish, and mentions regional variations ("Toulouse adds Toulouse sausage, leg of lamb and confit"). You'll find the usual suspects of French cuisine; 240 dishes is a bunch, but far from exhaustive.
Most of the recipes are, as I said, very good. Their recipe for sole meuniere matches the one I use, and I have my eye on their recipe for beef braised with Calvados.
However, the book does show that it was written in 1989, when it was difficult to find some "exotic" ingredients. The recipe for chaoucroute (saurkraut with pork and sausage) calls for, among other things, a smoked kielbasa, and 6 Strasbourg sausages or frankfurters. David Rosengarten's _Taste_ has a whole chapter devoted to charcoute (which led me to spend my sole evening in Paris at a restaurant for which it's the specialty -- maybe I'll send him the bill), and it's obvious that these are gringo subsitutions. Kielbasa, maybe; frankfurters, no way. (Oddly, though, they don't shy away from dishes made with venison or rabbit, which I find much harder to find.)
As someone else mentioned, the desserts chapter feels short; there's about 20 recipes here, and I think most of us would assume that the French pastry section would be far larger.
Overall, this is a fine book -- particularly for inspiration purposes. If you can get it at a good price, grab it.
A memorable gastronomic experience June 22, 2000
F. Evans (Truckee, CA USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
A great collection of the recipes that gave French cuisine its international fame is awaiting you in this book. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated by the excellent pictures, and try some of these traditional dishes. The vast majority of the ingredients can be found in the United States. Just make sure you take your time to enjoy this wonderful food, as the French take theirs to make meal taking an amazing experience.
Tastes Authentic! June 22, 2007
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1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Instead of purchasing this book here, I recommend looking for it in stores like Waldenbooks or Barnes and Noble in their section of books on sale. These stores always have a section of huge books that have been marked down to very reasonable prices.
This book isn't particularly huge, but it is legitimate in its recipes. I have tried several recipes from this book and they've all come out wonderful and comparable to the "real deals" that I've tasted over in France myself. There was no need to alter any of the ingredients or amounts, as so far I've had no failures/disasters in cooking from this book. It is divided up into sections (poultry, fish, desserts, etc.) and each section opens first to an introduction to a region of France with a little bit of background. The book provides pictures for almost every recipe they list, which I know can be helpful to some readers/cooks to know what it is they're cooking.
I would say, though, that some of the recipes might require you to be a little adventurous, as of course these authentic recipes require foods that Americans do not normally eat very often (like lamb and rabbit, for example). But I've found that other than that, the ingredients were not so exotic that I couldn't find them in the store and was forced to make adjustments.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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