AIWF NORCAL SAVE THE DATE ALERT!!!
--Special Event--
Dear AIWF Members
"Here’s a fabulous event you won’t want to miss.
Our one-time-only Escoffier Dinner November 15th, 7pm at Fleur De Lys Restaurant in San Francisco. Come help us celebrate 120 years of Escofier recipes with Michelle Escoffier, who will be on hand to regale us with stories and family history of this landmark culinary genius. You'll enjoy a multi course dinner at Hubert Keller's incredible Fleur De Lys restaurant, replete with truly outstanding wines to compliment and enhance these fabulous courses. Reservations are limited and will go quickly so please call in to reserve your seat immediately. Seats are sold on a first come, first served basis with priority seating for AIWF members. The price is $175.00 per person.
Don't miss out on this stellar event! Call the AIWF hotline
415-383-6070 to reserve your seats immediately.
Sincerely,
Your AIWF Norcal Board of Directors
About August Escoffier and The Escoffier Cookbook
`The Escoffier Cookbook' is an English translation of the `Guide Culinaire' by the renowned French chef, Auguste Escoffier, probably the most important figure in modern professional French culinary practice.
One of the most reliable symptoms of Escoffier's importance can be found in the first essay of Michael Ruhlman's `The Soul of a Chef' dealing with the Certified Master Chef examination given at the Culinary Institute of America. Whenever the candidates were presented with a problem in an unfamiliar area and had the night to consider the problem, they consulted Escoffier for their preparation. This is because most of the situations in the problems came straight from the practice defined by Escoffier a 100 years ago.
For these and many more reasons, this book is THE standard by which all French culinary issues are judged.
The very first thing you learn from this book is that professional French culinary doctrine was concerned about lightness, using fresh ingredients, and eliminating excess fat a century ago. This is not an invention of modern nutritionists and Alice Waters. The next most important lesson is less surprising. This is the importance of sauces in French cuisine and therefore, the importance of stocks, fonds, consommés, essences, and glazes.
To appreciate this book fully, it's important to understand exactly who it was written for. Escoffier's original guide was never for a second intended for the home cook. Escoffier was a pioneer with respect to the education of professional chefs, and originally wrote this book for the use of those working in grand houses, in hotels, on ocean liners, and in restaurants who might not have had access to contemporary recipes. Accordingly, the original book does not attempt to teach basic cooking or food preparation techniques. The American translation does include some details on cooking techniques and utensils unfamiliar to the average American chef (such as poeleing, worth the cost of the book alone, and the old French form of braising), but even in the translation it is assumed that the reader is a trained, experienced chef.
The recipes themselves are clear and simple to follow, but represent only a small subset of French cooking of the early 20th century. An earlier reviewer mentioned that there was no recipe for onion soup; this is true, but it should be understood that onion soup would never have been accepted by the class of restaurant patron Escoffier cooked for. Much of what has arrived on this side of the Atlantic as "French cooking" - dishes such as pot-au-feu, onion soup, and steak frites - is distinctly middle-class, and consequently would have been rejected by the clientele of quality restaurants of the time as being unspeakably boorish. Escoffier personally enjoyed bourgeois cooking, but as an astute, intelligent businessman he provided the haute cuisine his clients demanded.
