Basic French Cooking

by Len Deighton

Revised and enlarged from Ou est le garlic

Jonathan Cape, 1979, [First Edition], ISBN 0224016059, black and white illustrations, landscape hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, small mark on front cover, price-clipped dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, creasing and chipping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“Len Deighton originally devised his famous cookstrips as sketch-notes for pinning up in the kitchen to keep the essential facts of a recipe in front of the cook and out of the flour.  Later came the splendid idea of publishing illustrated cookstrips to display simply all the fundamental facts of French home cooking.  In Basic French Cooking just fifty strips – some illustrating a technique, others a process or a category of dish – enable the cook to prepare about five hundred French dishes.  In this completely revised and updated version of Ou est le garlic?  Len Deighton has selected, analysed and presented the finest recipes available – and has explained them not only in the simplest possible way, but so that they may be seen within the entire context of French cooking.  We are shown not just how to make sauce Hollandaise, but how Hollandaise is changed into a Bearnaise or a Mousseline.  This is not so much a cookbook as an entire system for understanding French cooking.”