Customer Reviews
A feast of a book! - By: G. J. Morris, 03 Jan 2008 
This is a gorgeous book - an absolute joy - & I wish I'd bought it years ago. (The price had always put me off but as far as I am concerned now, it is an investment - & had I known then what I know now, I would have bought fewer 'other' books & used the money saved to buy this one.) It is an absolute mine of information, & if you're interested in food, as I am (and you must be, or you wouldn't be reading this..), I am sure you will find yourself 'dipping' into this book constantly - it makes fascinating reading, & this version is beautifully presented. The pages are crammed with many tempting recipes - certainly, some of these are complicated & more suited to a professional chef, & perhaps this would not be the best choice for a 'first cookbook' for a novice - but there are so many recipes & cooking methods that would be suitable & appealing to anyone with a basic knowledge of cooking. Even the humble potato has a whole host of recipes devoted to it. I find the book to be an invaluable reference aid & now - having enjoyed cooking from an early age, & after 30 years as a 'home cook' - I find my enthusiasm rekindled & my horizons broadened. Nothing left to say reallly, except perhaps 'bon appetit!'
Excellent and comprehensive when it wants to be - By: J. Brand, 07 Dec 2007 
Portrayed by some, including somewhat understandably the publishers, as 'the world's greatest cookery encyclopedia' this is a book which can justifiably try to claim that title. Whether it would win that title is debatable but it's certainly a strong candidate. It's excellent when it chooses to cover a subject but not comprehensive & not for the novice cook.
Cookery is just too large a subject to cover in a single volume so it's unreasonably to expect any single volume work to be encyclopedic so there are understandable gaps in Larousse's coverage of it's subject. This won't teach you how to cook from scratch, despite containing descriptions of many cooking techniques & recipes, but this is a reference work. This is the book you turn to after you've learned the basics of how to cook.
If you have reached that point of being confident in the kitchen & want to get more from what you've learned so far this is a book for you. If you're a gastronome & want a reference to tell you more about the background of what you're eating then this is for you. If you're just learning to cook & are looking for one book to cover everything then you're probably better off with Delia.
For those who do want this as a reference then remember it is excellent but not comprehensive. When it chooses to cover a subject it is very good but what it chooses to cover is a bit random, for example the entry on croissants describes their history, the basic process to make them & gives half a dozen different recipes & variations but the entry for danish pastry rattles off a quick one paragraph description & mentions nothing more. Also the indexing is a bit disorganised so there is an entry for black pudding but nothing for white pudding, on the other hand though it has entries for boudin blanc but not boudin noir! The gaps in its coverage reflect its slightly francophile emphasis but the indexing is just one of those things that mean without a little food knowledge, in that case knowing that boudin noir & black pudding are pretty much the same thing, this won't be that useful.
This has a home in my kitchen as it sits among thirty or forty other cook books. If I was to just have three or four on the shelf then it wouldn't be one of those books but it is worth the money once you are buying you second or third set of cookbooks.
mammoth - By: Hambletta-Maud, 05 Dec 2007 the larousse gastronomique is a mammoth encyclopedia, & it makes fascinating reading & drooling. there are recipes galore, entries on the cuisines of various countries, cooking techniques, ingredients, restauranteurs, leading chefs, & more.
(having said that, i couldn't find a single entry on seafood chowder.)
and for those with serial killer tendancies, this is the book hannibal lecture uses in his recipe for human brain (although i presume he adapted).
hours & hours of use in this book.
"Umm, what is he talking about" - By: A. B. Banks, 01 Nov 2007 So, you're in the kitchen planning (or heaven help you if you're mid way through cooking for) a dinner party & you look at the Celeb Chef's guidance & ask to the heavens "what is he on about". This is where Larousse comes in. This is not a cookery book by itself, it is a manual to food & drink of a kind that has no competitor. You need to know what an obscure ingredient is, & what you can replace it with if you can't trace it? Look in Larousse. You've got one of those complicated Rick Stein books & he's telling you prepare your vegetables à la Ménagère, & after you've scratched your head for a bit, you reach for Larousse & there you are. This book is amazing, but will not go into the finer details of alll food stuffs as this is not what it's for, & there are loads of books on the market place on subjects such as soya & the like.
OK, so there have been some mixed reports on this book with some good & some bad. Take it for what it is; it's an encyclopedia after alll, & should be THE standard book for any gastronome. Complaining about lack of in-depth knowledge on one food type, or lack of complex recipes is the same as grumbling about the Encyclopedia Britannica for not having enough of a story line or having an accurate description of the inner workings of a Ford Mondeo! Use it, embrace it, & live by it. Amen.
Big and broad, but incomplete - By: Ms. Felicia Davis-burden, 30 Oct 2007 
Yes, the compilers know their stuff - most of the way - but this tome still does not acknowledge the development of Soya foods. The Soya bean is there, but that's it. If you are someone for whom Soya foods are essential (you cannot digest meat and/or milkstuffs, for instance) then this book is of no use to you. Otherwise, for omnivores, things couldn't be grander.
