![]() ![]() Luckily, her subsequent, more relaxed cookbooks appear to be selling again, too. Julia would be spinning 6 feet under if she knew her book had spawned this kind of cooking. And the backlash against Mastering the Art is already beginning: The New York Times also ran an article on a newly translated French equivalent of Joy of Cooking that includes a boeuf bourguignon recipe involving exactly five steps (and a lot less nuance and depth). ![]() Many cooks will probably react like the woman quoted in a New York Times article who substituted a can of cream of mushroom and a can of French onion soup rather than taking the extra steps to braise both vegetables. But Julia’s recipes were written for a rigorous cook with endless patience for serious detail. I would think the problem is my short attention span, given that I grew up cooking from my mom’s 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook and was trained professionally using recipes that had been distilled to their essence so that technique could be taught fast. My copy of Volume 1 is tattered, but only because I’ve used it for reference over the decades-it is infallible as a sourcebook. ![]() Thanks to my consort, I have owned the two-volume set of Mastering the Art since 1984, the year after I graduated from restaurant school, but even I have never cooked from it. And it now seems even more overwhelming in a Rachael Ray world: Those thousands and thousands of cookbooks sold are very likely going to wind up where so many of the previous printings have-in pristine condition decorating a kitchen bookshelf or on a nightstand, handy for vicarious cooking and eating. It was never meant for the frivolous or trendy. The inconvenient truth is that although the country’s best-loved “French chef” produced an unparalleled recipe collection in Mastering the Art, it has always been daunting. ![]()
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