Georges Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide culinaire, pronounced lə gid ky.li.nɛːʁ, is a pivotal book in the history of European haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

, being Escoffier's largely successful attempt to codify and streamline the common French restaurant food of the day. The first edition was printed in 1903 in French. It was translated into English in 1907. The current 4th edition was revised in 1921; this version was not translated into English until 1979. This volume contains 5,012 recipes, reflecting the best of the French haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

 of the turn of the 20th century and providing the basis for what followed.

Usage and style

The original text was printed for the use of professional chef

Chef

A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...

s and kitchen staff; Escoffier's introduction to the first edition explains his intention that Le Guide Culinaire be used toward the education of the younger generation of cooks

Cook (profession)

A cook is a person who prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Canada this profession requires government approval ....

. This usage of the book still holds today; many culinary schools still use it as their culinary textbook

Textbook

A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...

. Le Guide Culinaire is considered the definitive reference for the traditional French cuisine classique

Cuisine classique

Cuisine classique is a style of French cookery based on the works of Auguste Escoffier. These were simplifications and refinements of the early work of Antoine Carême, Jules Gouffé and Urbain François Dubois. It was practised in the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe and elsewhere for much of...

.

Its style is to give recipes as brief descriptions and to assume that the reader either knows or can look up the keywords

Keywords

Keywords are the words that are used to reveal the internal structure of an author's reasoning. While they are used primarily for rhetoric, they are also used in a strictly grammatical sense for structural composition, reasoning, and comprehension...

 in the description; as a result, it is often considered an intimidating work for beginning cooks

Cook (profession)

A cook is a person who prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Canada this profession requires government approval ....

.

Le Répertoire de la Cuisine

Le Répertoire de la Cuisine

Le Répertoire de La Cuisine by Louis Saulnier, is a reference book available in the original French and in English translations. Several editions are in circulation, such as the Canterbury Press translation of 1961, or the Barron's Educational Series edition of 1976...

, written by Escoffier's student Louis Saulnier, is a companion guide to this culinary reference.

Contents of the 4th edition

This chapter listing is derived from the 2001 printing of the 4th edition of Le Guide Culinaire.

Introduction

1. Sauce

Sauce

In cooking, a sauce is liquid, creaming or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsus, meaning salted...

s

2. Garnitures (includes stuffing

Stuffing

In cooking, stuffing or filling is an edible substance or mixture, often a starch, used to fill a cavity in another food item...

s, crumbing, and the like)

3. Potages

Soup

Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...

4. Hors d'œuvre

5. Oeufs

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

6. Poissons

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

7. Relevés et entrées

Entrée

An entrée is a dish served before the main course, or between two principal courses of a meal.The disappearance in the early 20th century of a large communal main course such as a roast as a standard part of the meal in the English-speaking world has led to the term being used to describe the main...

 de boucherie

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

8. Relevés et entrées de volaille

Poultry

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

9. Relevés et entrées de gibier

Game (food)

Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated. Game animals are also hunted for sport.The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world. This will be influenced by climate, animal diversity, local taste and locally accepted view about what can or...

10. Entrées mixtes

11. Préparations froides (Cold preparations)

12. Rôtis

Roasting

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting usually causes caramelization or Maillard browning of the surface of the food, which is considered by some as a flavor enhancement. Roasting uses more indirect, diffused heat , and is...

13. Légumes

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

14. Entremet

Entremet

An entremet is in modern French cuisine a small dish served between courses or simply a dessert. Originally it was an elaborate form of entertainment dish common among the nobility and upper middle class in Western Europe during the later part of the Middle Ages and the early modern period...

s

15. Glaces

Ice cream

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...

 (Frozen desserts)

16. Savory

Savoury (small dish)

A savoury is the final course of a traditional British formal meal, following the sweet pudding or dessert course. The savoury is designed to "clear the palate" before the Port is served. It generally consists of salty and plain elements....

s

17. Compote

Compote

Compote is a dessert originating from 17th century France made of whole or pieces of fruit in sugar syrup. Whole fruits are immersed in water and with sugar and spices added to the dish, over gentle heat. The syrup may be seasoned with vanilla, lemon or orange peel, cinnamon sticks or powder,...

s, Confitures

Table alphabétique

Index (publishing)

An index is a list of words or phrases and associated pointers to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document...

 des recettes

Recipe

A recipe is a set of instructions that describe how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish.-Components:Modern culinary recipes normally consist of several components*The name of the dish...

Table des chapitres

Table of contents

A table of contents, usually headed simply "Contents" and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear...

External links

• http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000610117 Online text (English) from archive.org