French Feasts: 299 Traditional Recipes for Family Meals and Gatherings

Dammit, I don't NEED another French cookbook. But I cannot resist this one.I was poking around at my public library website (looking up recipes for foie gras, because it was a dandy way to procrastinate my day job) and thought this sounded like a fun cookbook to read. I'm perfectly happy to look through a cookbook for entertainment value and then return it to the library, and I was all set to give this review a title like, "What a fun cookbook! But you don't need to own it."Stéphane Reynaud convinced me otherwise.I own several French cookbooks, from the Julia Child original to  The Bonne Femme Cookbook , and you'd think that would be enough for any avid home cook. And at some level, it is: How many recipes for coq au vin or beef Bourguignon do I need? Plus, as much fun as it is to indulge in the food porn of 8 recipes for foie gras (such as "pan fried foie gras with prunes" or "whole foie gras poached with baby vegetables"), I'm perfectly aware that I'm only LOOKING at the recipes. Even if the diagram showing the differences between goose and duck foie gras taught me a bunch of neat stuff I didn't know.Sure, it's worth grabbing this just as a _reading_ cookbook. Most of the 299 recipes are accompanied by beautiful, inspiring photos, whether they're simple dishes (poached eggs in red wine sauce), old-fashioned country cooking (beef tongue in madeira sauce), or elaborate all-day-Sunday putter-in-the-kitchen dishes (cassoulet with duck confit). Chapters are devoted to Charcuterie; innards (a whole chapter! because not everyone is afraid of tripe); eggs; vegetables; meat; poultry; game; fish; cheese; sweets.Even better, the recipes and text are REALLY funny; you absolutely feel as though Reynaud is sitting next to you. A recipe for "Monique's piperade," for instance, calls for red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, olive oil... and a CD of a Basque Country fandango. Step #1 is "Turn on the CD player and put on the disc" before you roast the peppers, etc. A note at the end adds, "The fandango is uniquely suited for the preparation of piperade; under no circumstances should it be used for making desserts (especially pies). In effect, dancing and preparing dessert at the same time can lead to domestic accidents: tables on fire, dropped glasses... Isn't that right, Monique?" (And the funny bits are NEVER a distraction from the recipes, which I really appreciate.)But then I started realizing JUST HOW GOOD these recipes are, and recognizing that I don't have anything else like them. Last night I made a super-simple roast chicken, using Boursin-type cheese (the little packages you find at the grocery), a bunch of tarragon, and 3 cloves of garlic. You mash all up the last three items with the chopped heart-and-liver, stuff it in the chicken's cavity, and chuck it in a 400 degree oven for an hour. YUM.There's a whole lot more that I'm yearning to make: porcini mushroom tart (with walnuts and smoked duck); pork loin with Dijon mustard; a pike terrine.Well, so much for the library book. I've gotta own this one. I bet you do, too.

I am somewhat surprised by all the glowing reviews for this book. Yes, it's a very nice-looking book. Lovely photographs. It's cute and whimsical. But this is supposed to be a cookbook, so the big question is, how well does it serve that purpose?This is a very frustrating book to use. Other reviewers have raved about the design, but from a usability standpoint, I think the design is awful. There are now some pictures of the inside pages available, so you can look for yourself and see if you agree. As you can see, there are multiple recipes per page. The name of the recipe appears twice, once in French in a cursive font, and once in English in all caps. Font size in both cases is fairly small, not much larger than the font of the recipe text. Any designer should know that cursive is not easy to read at a glance. Nor is all caps. What this means for someone trying to find a recipe in this book is that it is not easy to skim through the titles quickly to find something to make.There is also a picture above of the table of contents. Yes, that's right, those pages that look like a picture of writing on a chalkboard, that's the table of contents. Once again, not easy to find something at a glance.Then there are the recipes. Now we are getting down to the meat of the matter. Unfortunately the recipes in this book are vague in the extreme. Basic instructions are left out such as whether a dish should be cooked covered or uncovered, or cooked over high or low heat.All of these problems combined make the book pretty useless as a cookbook. If all you want is a coffee table book, then this might be for you. If you want to cook, I'd suggest any of Richard Olney's books for delicious French recipes that work.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the size and breadth of this book! It was so much more than I expected. Not only are the recipes wonderfully authentic, but the foods are well paired with suggested wine selections. There are beautiful pictures of each dish, along with much information on various ingredients, techniques, a little history, etc. Very creatively compiled, in an unfussy, approachable way, with a great padded cover, witty yet refined artwork and attached ribbon bookmark. An extra treat was the section on aperitifs, including the proper way to make a pastis (a personal favorite). Probably the only two books, of French cuisine, one will ever need in the kitchen are this marvelous book and Julia Child's. Makes a gorgeous and practical gift to family and friends!Bon appétit!

I was given  French Feasts: 299 Traditional Recipes for Family Meals and Gatherings  as a present for Christmas, along with two other of Stephane Reynaud's cookbooks ( Terrine  and  Pork and Sons ). This is a wonderful cookbook, with detailed recipes, good photos of the food, and interesting side stories associated with rustic French cooking. I have cooked several of the recipes from the book, and they have worked well so far. If you are a complete novice to cooking, this is probably not the best volume for you, and while there are some vegetarian recipes, the bulk use meat or dairy products. I would strongly recommend trying the Upside-down Apple Tart on page 408 - it is delectable!!

Superb book - they don't make them like this much anymore

Gooood