[Sca-cooks] A little diversion

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Christina Nevin wrote:


> Nope, no copy of Ranhofer, only had a brief squiz through that once.


I like Ranhofer. I have a second edition of The Epicurean (it _might_ be
1904, or is it from the 1880's); I forget, but don't want to get it off
the bookshelf for just this, as it's more than a tad crumbly. Dover
books did do a facsimile reprint of the first edition, though. I
actually cook from that one on occasion. How can you not love a cookbook
with recipes that begin, "Take two pounds of black truffles..."?

Other favorites include Louis Diat, one of the first real, overseeing
executive chefs, who used to shuttle back and forth between the various
  locations of the Ritz Hotel chain, and who did quite an encyclopedic
(okay, by encyclopedic I really mean large and French) cookbook
published in the 1950's by Gourmet maazine. Also Curnonsky (early
non-chef food writer and, as I recall, a vocal opponent of nouvelle
cuisine when it was first conceived), and one of my prized possessions
is a one of a limited run of maybe 400 copies (mine is number 126, I
believe) of the first English translation of Ali-Bab's 1906 Encyclopedia
of Practical Gastronomy.


> I do have a very cool 1911 copy of Escoffier though (as opposed to the
> modern edition that my father refused to let me bring to England with me
> when I left NZ - and it was my book!).


I think Dover reprints of the 1935 edition are a standard textbook in many cooking schools. That's how I got mine.


Adamantius

--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98