Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck is a 684-page hardcover published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Originally published in 1961, this copy is the fifteenth printing of April 1967. No dust jacket present. The cover is stained along the top outer page edges. The binding is somewhat cocked and there is a small closed tear along the top of the spine. Inside, the spine and end paper is cracked 1" along the top edge but in fully intact otherwise. The pages are clean and unmarked. The condition is good.
This is a book for the servant-less American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children's meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat. Written for those who love to cook, the recipes are as detailed as we have felt they should be so the reader will know exactly what is involved and how to go about it. This makes them a bit longer than usual, and some of the recipes are quite long indeed. No out-of-the-ordinary ingredients are called for. In fact the book could well be titled "French Cooking from the American Supermarket," for the excellence of French cooking, and of good cooking in general, is due more to cooking techniques than to anything else. And these techniques can be applied wherever good basic materials are available. We have purposely omitted cobwebbed bottles, the patron in his white cap bustling among his sauces, anecdotes about charming little restaurants with gleaming napery, and so forth. Such romantic interludes, it seems to us, put French cooking into a never-never land instead of the Here, where happily it is available to everybody. Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere, with the right instruction. Our hope is that this book will be helpful in giving that instruction.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-12313
